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Welcome. I'm a little bit late, so it's not Snack's fault, it's my fault.
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Welcome everybody. We've got our ortho bro from France holding it down. He's the French. He's the I was trying to come up with something clever. I couldn't. He's the master French apologist. How's that? And he joins us tonight to cover idols icons iconicalasm. What's up.
Hello, happy to be here once again, and yet today you're going to cover a big topic itys a youte history you theological ramifications, iconoclasm.
Yeah, you know we've done. By the way, if you're new to Snax's material, you can follow him on Twitter. I've got his link below. He and I have done multiple streams now where we've covered histrionic women, so called saints of the Roman Catholic era. We've covered our church, We've covered the Jesuits, we've covered christology, the logos. We've done multiple high quality streams. So I hope that you will go check out all of the previous snack streams.
I don't know why these messages keep getting deleted. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to delete that message. There not averse. Tonight we're gonna talk about aconoclasm. Sneck has done a lot of research in and covering new historical material. He's really good at digging out this just really obscure historic stuff. He's he's the master of that.
I have an old essay that I did just kind of defending iconography from the Bible, So I'm gonna touch on some of that and we're also going to get into the heresy and motivations of iconoclasm where it comes from. We're gonna try to touch on all of it, but on our mind. Viewers, if you have superchats, the new way to superchat is through stream Labs, so you can ask your questions there through the superchats at stream Labs. And we'll go ahead and get started here, snack. Where
do you want to start? What's what's the good place that you think you've uncovered something worth getting to.
I think we should start from the beginning, from the biblical times, and actually we should start in Genesis because the first occurrence of the idea of the icon the image is interestingly linked to Genesis, to creation and to the fact that our God is a creator God. He is interacting with matter. And that's why you see the first departure between you know, iconoclasm and iconodulia, which is
what we practice. God being a creator is him interacting with matter, so matter cannot be intrinsically bad, as many gnostics believe. And that's why you will see that the gnostics will actually believe that matter was created by a demiurge or something like this, and therefore all matter is bad. And that's why the also iconoclastic to an extent that in Genesis you can already see interaction in the creation of them. Specifically, Adam is in the image of the
and the rest symblance of God. So it's you already have the term I can't present here. So from the beginning, a conoclasm wasn't really a thing in you know, Judean times and things like this, because because you have this idea of God interacting with man, and you can you can see it all throughout the Bible. So obviously idols are bad. We don't like idols, and idols, according to the Bible, are God that are that we made by
ourselves false gods. It can be ideas, and it can also be statues or anything, or oftentimes they are referred to as being gods of metal, wood and so on. So you have the first distinction. And that's where many people would you know, solely take the Bible. We say, any graven image, any any painting and so on, it's already an insult to God and we cannot we cannot allow this. If you look a little bit further in the Bible, you will we will see that God actually
a loose worship in a physical sense. It's a temple of David, perfect example. Example, the tabernacle as well, full of imagery, full of engravings, sculptures of angels and so on, the arc of the cabinet as well. You can see the exodus as well, give the brazen snack snake sorry a serpent. And you can also see it a bit later on in the Book of Daniel, chapter five. So you have any any commonsence this before I go a little bit further, just.
To lay out that right away at the beginning, the notion of man in the garden. And by the way, this is another reason why genesis and creation is important, is that we have to maintain the doctrine of man as an icon of God. Image. The word is icon. Man is an icon of God. That's what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. In the teaching the Church fathers, the image is what man possesses in terms of his reason and his faculties
and all that. And then the likeness is the presence of the Holy Spirit, the deifying power, the uncreated energies that man possessed and then lost when he fell. So for the father's image and likeness go together, and when Adam fell, he lost the likeness the theosis, so that has to be regained, and that's why we are told that Christ comes as the re establishment of that icon, of that image of man as the type to prototype, right,
God being the archetype and then Man as prototype. So that will be a consistent philosophical train of argumentation that Saint John Damascus and St. Theodore the Student will use in their defense of iconographic theology. But you're absolutely right to go back to the garden that the beginning of the rejection of man has made in the image of God is actually inspired by Satan, and it's the original attack on icons. Absolutely, it's Satanic in its origin. Yeah.
Correct, So we already established that icons are present, these images are not idols, and they're present in the space of worship. But now the question is we venerate icons and where where can we find that in the Bible? And I think Daniel chapter five is an excellent example because so it's it's after and as a, it takes over Jerusalem and Nebrakatin as A celebrates his victory with the vases of the temple, and it desecrates them and forces it gets killed a bit later on by God.
And how does it desecreate the vases? It de secreates them by using them in a profane manner and praying to false God, idols of wood, metal, and so on with it. So we can see that there is a veneration that is required of the objects of worship. There are the veneration of the object of worship is already present in the Old Testament. And we'll see that since very early Christian times and at the time of David's Temple,
icons were depart of the worship. So here you know, many pros and for example, will say, oh, veneration adoration, there's no such distinction. But here we can see that clearly people are killed because it did not venerates a basis. Obviously they did not believe the basis. When Gods God doesn't mand it to to you know, worship basis, but to respect what is part of the liturgy, I hope they disagree.
Yeah, yeah, I've got a bunch of examples of this too. So if we look even in the Old Testament, right, I mean, typically when Saya Protestant has a problem with this idea that's, oh, the Ten Commandments, you can't do this, can't have images, can't do that, you can't bow before anything that's created, because they'll view it in this legalistic way as if the action of bowing itself is the root of the idolatry, when it's actually the motivation of the heart that's the root of the idolatry, and the
bowing or the bodily express essions are just the external manifestations of what is in the heart of the mind. So it's not really so much about that. Because you'll notice in let's see Genesis forty two seven, all the Joseph's family bows and prostrates themselves before Joseph. In Second Kings two fifteen, the prophets bow and prostrate themselves before Elijah. And if you look at Romans thirteen seven, Paul says to give honor or give honor to whom honor is due.
So there's nothing wrong with giving honor when honor is due. And in the ancient world, there's nothing wrong with reverencing, prostrating. Joseph even bows before Pharaoh. There's the example in the case of the Ark of the Covenant, where Solomon prays and everybody bows themselves towards the temple, prostrates themselves in front of the ark. These were all created images. They're all created things, the art, the tabernacle, the temple itself
is full of iconography. It's full of images of angels and seraphim and so forth. So this is just based on ignorance that people don't even know that the temple itself was full of iconography and even the term if you just think of this as an argument John Damascus makes, I mean, just think of the word itself, like the Bible itself is a bunch of letters, which are symbols words. They're just another type of iconographic representation. So if you have the word good or y HWH or l r D,
those are symbols that refer to God. So there's nothing inherently wrong with created symbols referencing God. And in fact, it's absolutely necessary meaningful conversation, meaningful discussion logos itself, right, logical meaningful transference of meaning loogie logic requires the ability to signify divine realities in created forms. Right, So it's just a stupid idiotic level of thinking to think that, oh, well,
the symbolic presentation of the image is somehow evil. But the word that's also a symbolic representation, that's an image. Words themselves are symbol images. They're they're good, but pictures are bad. They're both pictures obviously.
Yeah, Like you know, that's what genes is important, because if you have a god's interactive creation, there's already some level of an international principle, you know, or at least for us to understand it. Then we're gonna go a little bit further in time, and you will see that early Christian worship includes frescoes, includes this kind of explanations.
So did Judas too. By the way, I have a screenshot of this that I'm gonna put up here.
Yeah, this is a very famous synagogue.
What is it do or Europa or something like that. Yeah, and you'll notice there this is from some blog, but ancient dress synagogues were filled with icons. Scripture required the inside of the Jerusalem Temple to display icons of angels. Icons in the Jewish Synagogue depicted numerous scenes from Scripture.
This is the Duo Europa Synagogue two forty four a d. You'll see images of the Bernie Bush, the rescue of Moses Miracle, the Water, Aaron, the Temple, Samuel and David, Ark of the Covenant, Ezekiel's vision of the dry Bones, and that the blog there has all those pictures. I'll put the link into the chat if anybody wants to go look at the different images that that blog has. I can't vouch for that blog. I don't know who it is, just the one that popped up.
Go ahead, yeah, so we can see that the time, be it in Christian worship or Jewish worship, icons are present. The only ones that do not have these kind of icons, that do not allow images are the Gnostics. To these are some some Christian consuls that are influenced by Gnosticism, like the concept of Elvira, which is influenced by gnosticisms that forbids images. It's the same consul by the way, that forbids, which is the first consul that forbids priests
to marry. You know, so it's linked. You know, rejection of the body is rejection of good point. Yeah, yeah, completely linked. So at the time, you know, today Jewish worship is more econoclastic, we'll see why, but at the time it did not exist. So if you look at the traditions. There's a clear continuation from Genesis to Exodus, to the time of Christ, to early Christian period to what we do today. But the first real religion to
institutionalize icono pleasant is Islam. So the rise of Islam is linked to the their theology, and the rise of icono pleasant is into the theology.
Well before before we jump to Islam, though, I want to I want to illustrate that as this debate takes place in the early Church, recall that you can go back to, say, the first period of the post appstock fought like right after the Apostles. You've already got justin Martyr ieron As talking about the real presence of Christ
in the Eucharist. And so the real presence is also connected to this debate because it stands to reason that if the incarnation was real, and all those church fathers that are defending the reality of the incarnation, it's directly connected in their argumentation apologetic to the doctrine of the real presence. Right, so it only makes sense to argue for the real presence if Christ really did become incarnate in the flesh, right, if the Son of God is
incarnating human flesh. So there's a direct connection. If you look at Ephesus, when Saint Cyril is arguing against Nestorius, especially in the Anathemas ephesis, is very clear that the argumentation for the reality of the second person that God had assuming human nature is based on Cyril's argumentation about the real presence. He says, you and Astorias, do you eat the body, blood, soul, and divinity of a mere man or of the Son of God. Right, so it
necessitates the reality of the incarnation. Arguments based on the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ, and the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ is an immediate destroyer of all of the Protestant sort of gnostic iconoclastic argumentation because it's directly
connected to correct Christology. Then you'll see that when they get up to the Seventh Council, and I see it two in seven eighty seven, when the debate is being had about whether icons are blasphemous or whether they are idolatry or whatever, it's always connected to a consistent argumentation about Christology and about the incarnation and the real presence. Right, All of these doctrines follow through to a logically consistent position that Christ has sanctified matter itself and the Church
by extension has the power to then also sanctify matter. Right, So the priest can bless the waters of baptism, right, the priests can, through the epiclasis, pray for the coming down of the Holy Spirit to transform the elements in the Lord's Supper. All of these things are connected, and they're all based on that incarnational principle. It all hangs and falls together, right, relics, All of that goes together with the same idea.
Yeah, exactly, And you know, straight to my point, why does Islam promote iconoclasm Because they do not have the incarnational principle, and that's why they were fiercely antichonoclastic. At least, they do not even believe that God enters creation in that sense. It's linked to gnarstissism. You know, the revelation that is given to to Muhammad is is done through angels,
it's not God directly. They do not recognz theophanies. So then you've got the first shift, the first real religion that institutionalizes iconoclasm, and from them the iconoclass period starts.
So first the Jews getting influenced by them. So that's the period where you know, you see the move from these synagogues full of icons to the more modern type of synagogues you can see today, just you know, a slow shift, and it starts to influence Christian theology because in the in the Christian East, Muslim start influence and people, people's people start thinking, oh, you know, we we destroyed the idols, which is perfectly fine to do, and the
icons isn't all this iconography sort of it? Other tis And then you've got this these debates, and of course incarnational principle requires this. You've got the seven counsul, You've got a little bit of back and forth. Even we look at history, we see that they were present because you know, consoles are but affirming previously held dogma. So we see that they are present. We see that this
coherent through theology. We see that Christ is incarnated. We see that we have scientification of matter, we have the idea of people being icons of Christ, you know, relics. You know, why do we venerate relics Because these people gain back the image and the resemblance to God. People became icons of God once again. And that's why we can venerate relics.
Yeah, second King is thirteen the Bones of Elisha resurrect a dead soldier. The same principle carries over into Acts nineteen eleven and twelve, where cloths and handkerchiefs touched by Saint Paul himself are able to do the same type miracles drive out evil spirits, as we see in Tewod King thirteen. But to your point about Islam, I want to illustrate this to maybe make it helpful through visual illustration.
I mean, what I'm saying, what we're saying is really not that that complicated or difficult if you just think about it in terms of Look, if God is supremely transcendent, then how are we going to relate or know about that God. This is the argument I've been continually making to the Muslims when we have these debates. If the world is separate, right, God world separate? We agree with that God is not identical to his creation obviously, and the medium by which we know about God is texts.
Guess what texts are created? Things that are full of images. Right, all a word is is just a different type of image, just because I'm not drawing a picture and By the way, some languages are pictographic, right, hieroglyphics. That's a language Chinese, isn't it. I think Japanese pictographic languages. Doesn't matter whether I if I use a pictographic or if I use a You know, the English symbols there, these letters are standing for in a certain combination. They're created symbols that
stand for this is just basic semiotics. Let's stand for this or truths about this. So you're not avoiding the problem when you act like we're going to get rid of all images, we're gonna get we're gonna crusade against it. That's that's how I'm able to, as an apologists, immediately turn that around around around on all the Muslims and say, then you don't know anything about God because nothing, nothing can tell you about that.
Exactly. And you know, the funny thing about Islam is that you know that God still is a creative and it's even adea to natural theology to a huge extent. So they still have to venerate to an extent creation. And how does it do this.
Well, It's interesting because whether you're Protestant or Muslim or Calvinists or whatever. I mean, I know Calvinists. But you know what I'm saying, like, you're still venerating the book, right, Yeah, I mean they treat the book the same way that we The Holy Book, right, is like the incarnational principle for them.
Exactly, the Quran basically behaves like anyposthasis, you know, exactlys in Islam. But yeah, like, how do you signify the respect to the book? You know, people, people would get mad if you do anything to a current, to a huge extent in the Muslim world for this reason because it's it is, to an extent a type of the prototype, which is the Word of God. And how does it signify this with calligraphy? You know, Oh, we cannot joy anything.
We're just gonna make like beautiful, intricate calligraphy. So you and you say that this is a technique that is actually being used by econoclass. So you know, we're not going to have image because this is idolatry, but we're actually going to venerate calligraphy. What's the difference? Where does it start? You know, like even letters, you know, for example, the Greek alph of it, it starts aspectrographic. Well, what's
what's the difference? And even all defense. You know, in the Seventh Council when it comes to the to the veneration of icons, we explain that it's part of the liturgy. You know, the liturgy is a type of heaven. We we venerate all the other parts of liturgy, we kiss the Bible.
Yeah, I mean, just think about how absurd you know, John is seeing into heaven. He's seeing all these things. I mean, what about I just did. I covered Isaiah one through seven last night, and then I covered the next seven chapters after that, and the part too for subscribers. If you missed that, you can subscribe and get access to all that. But Isaiah says in Isaiah six, I
have seen the Lord with my eyes. So Isaiah quite literally saw that vision of Jesus lifted up on the throne in the heavenly Temple, and there's a liturgical worship service going on all around him. Right. There's it's full of sounds and smells and chants, Holy, Holy, Holy, right, a lot of visual imagery. It's exact same stuff that John sees in the Apocalypse right chapter four five. He
sees this liturgical worship going on in heaven. He sees saints underneath the altar, interceding for praying for vengeance, for the church on earth, offering up incense. Right, that's why we do what we do. We're doing the worship that John sees on Earth. It's the same service.
Yeah, correct, So again you're gonna have some level anyway of veneration for things. So that's why I kind of please him, is you know, not consistent eternally unless you believe that like literally everything on Earth bad, including your text, and you don't know anything.
Yeah, it's really arbitrary, and they have to the only thing. The Calvinists will say things like, well, you can't make up a worship service because of the regulative principle. So they'll point to like text and the little it because we're Nadev and Aby who basically did their own little incense thing and God burned them up, and they'll say, ah, see the regulative principal worship. That means that you can't
worship in a way other than God has ordained. The problem with that argument is that guess how David organized the worship of Israel. If you read my essay that I did on tradition in the Bible, you'll see that David did it on the basis of tradition. David was not given all of the ways that the choir and the services were to be conducted. He did it on
the basis of a tradition that he knew about. And guess what, Calvinists, I can turn that regulative principal argument right back on you and point out that you're correct. You have to worship the way that the Church lays down, and that's already been laid down by tradition by the Apostles, because they established churches that developed their worship service by Apostolic authority on the basis of the temple and the
synagogue services of that time. So therefore the regular principle means you have to obey the Orthodox liturgy, and you don't. So by your own argument, you are nadab and abaye who Calvinists. Yeah, so.
Yeah, This mostly influence causes what is called the Ecmoclastic period in the East, and people who often focus on these sayings that it's strictly a Byzantine thing, and of course it was. It was more violent in the Bysantine Empires than anywhere else, but it touched the entirety of Christendom. So the Seventh Council lays down the seventh Yeah, seventh Council explained, yes, we can venerate because it's a type.
We can we can venerate because the glory of the of the given to the type will go back to the prototype. We can venerate because icons statues a lot before not a problem. And we can venerate because we need to we need to give respect to the objects of worship, the objects that are used in the liturgy. Uh So it explains all this and it sets out real rules. For example, the Seventh Council appeals to a
canon of the Tulo Council. And by the way, it's very funny because Tulo Council is not rejected by the papacy, but the Purpose very happy to use this canon and to declare this exactly. Yeah. But this canon says we need to to give real images, and that's where you have the idea of, you know, communication between the type and the prototype. But we need to represent Christ as
real images. And we know that in the past there were icons of Christ where it was depicted as a lamb, and this is not forbidden because Christ too humanity, Christ to con human flesh. And this is very interesting in the in the current context because many people will try to make you know, Choese Jesus or Rasta.
Jesus or rost Jesus. Mind.
Yeah, like you know, to what to what prototype does this? You know, rasta Jesus type will give glory to none. Like there's not Rasta Jesus in heaven. So yeah, like like we need to you know, and that's why we have the first iconographic canons that are really being put into place in the Seventh Council. But the problem is the Seventh Consul wasn't accepted, wasn't fully accepted in the in the West.
Right, and we cover them stream where we had Charlotte Charlomagne basically rejecting it.
Yeah, so the Frankish Church actually fought against it. We have people a Theodore for Aliance, which is a Roman Catholic saint who was econoclastic, but you know, still wanted some icons in his in his personal chapel.
Yeah.
But what's very funny is how did Theodolf mark is iconoclasm the same way as the Muslim did. He actually commissioned very ornate bibles with you know, the pages died in purple, which was the most precious pigment at the time the most precious colors, colors the kings with very ornate calligraphy in letters of gold. So you see the same the same strategems that the Muslims had to resort to the Franks, and the econoplasm matters all too. We have the idea also of increased symbolism, you know, just
using the cross. That's why you have specific worship around the cross that appear, and a full on rejection of the theology of the Seventh Council, because the idea of the Seventh Console is, as Symtohn of the Mascus puts it, we do not worship, we do not venerate wood and paint. Like if my icon is broken, if I cannot see anything, if it does not represent the type any longer I
can burn it. It's the idea that it is it is the image and not the matter, because if the matter had anything to do in the worship and not the image, then we would actually focus on matter, and that would be like pagan paganism. And act think that's an augment that theodoret uses. It says that, you know, we ought not to worship these images, but we we ought to to to venerate these images. But we are
to venerate matters that is venerable. And that's why you see many, many new relics being made in the West because they want, you know, they want to to venerate some things that is material and not not t iconographic. So we have new relics, you have increased veneration of relics. This will give rise to some other kind of worship, for example, eucharistic worship. We do not have this because you know, we believe that Christ told us to eat,
to splash and drink his blood. But what happened in the Roman Catholic Church later on is that because of these ideas, because the Seventh Council wasn't really fully understood, right, just added to say, oh, you know, since the Eucharist is full of the body of Christ, then it has the essence of God and we can worship the essence. You know again you see the idea of essence coming before per Ma said before image.
Yeah. Also, if you go back and listen to the old interview that I did, what did we title it, uh anatomizing Divinity? The old old talk I did with an interview with James Kelly. He made a good point at that time that showing that the Carolinian theologians had actually adopted a lot of neoplatonic ideas, so they just viewed all images as well, this world is basically just
a path back to the essence of God. Uh So they kind of had these weird neopolatanic neoplatonic ideas influencing their version of iconographic representations in the Carolinian theological argumentation. That's a big part of it, and that actually makes sense why they would change or deviate or not understand the kind of norms that had that had been, that had kind of developed to be in place for how
we do iconographic representations in the Church. So you know, Byzantium had had had developed this very well, not out of like arbitr speculation, but on the basis of philosophic and logical principles. Right, if you read on the Divine Images by Saint John Damascus, or if you read St. Theodore Studite's book, I mean, these are the arguments that will make up the argumentation of the Seventh Council. And
it's a very consistent philosophic and theological presentation. It's not like, oh, let's just sit around and speculate about, like you know, the mysticism of images or something like that. It's all really again premised on correct Christology. All of the theology, whether it's the sacraments, or whether it's ecclesiology, or whether it's iconography or whether it's anthropology, it all flows from the triad and Christology. These are two ironclad starting points
for orthodoxy that are different, that make it unique. That's why the councils hammered out triadology and Christology first, and then by extension the other doctrines that kind of flow from that. But to Snack's point, it's not by accident that at the beginning of this Carolinium period that's when you start to see the deviations not just in pictographic or images, but also the imagery and statuary. These statuary starts to come in. You also see changes in the liturgy.
This is when infants no longer begin to partake of pedal communion. You start to have the banning of infants from the table. You start to have these other weird practices enter in liturgically that the later Byzantine lists would reject in the West. But just to sum up real quick, there's a couple points I didn't mention. If you're looking for biblical presentation, remember one King six. This tells us about all of the variations of imagery in the Temple.
Number twenty one. This is the serpent lifted up on a pole. If it was always wrong to have imagery, why did God direct the Israelites to look at the serpent on a poll which Jesus says in John three was the type of the cross. Paul says in Colossians two thirteen to fifteen that the cross itself has power to despoil the principalities, demons and powers that had control of us through the vices and the passions Colossians one fifteen. Jesus is the icon ko n and the Greek of God,
the direct representation. Remember, Jesus says, no man has seen God at any time, but everybody who in the Old Testament saw the Word right, the word of the Lord came to Isaiah. I saw the Lord. Who's he seeing? He's seeing Christ. Paul Tewond Corinthians three argues that Moses saw Christ face to face. So if you can't see the Father, but you saw God, who did you see? You saw the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel of the Lord, the Messenger of the Covenant, the Face of God,
who is Christ himself. According to Paul John five, this is an overlooked one. And I'm pointing this out because the same a principle applies to locations and buildings. Right, prozz, what are you talking about a temple?
Right?
We just have a strip mall.
Dude.
My pastor threw up a strip mall in five days and big metal building. That's the church. No, dude, that's not the church. Strip malls are not churches. Churches still exist as holy places, and the New Testament still acknowledges locations sites places as holy John five, the Pool of Siloam a site where an angel comes down and stirs the pool and people are healed there. That's a holy place.
Tewod Peter One's sixteen to eighteen Peter calls the Mountain of Transfiguration the holy mountain where he saw Christ transfigured with Moses and Elijah. So places in the New Testament, buildings matter can still be holy, holy water. All these things still exist just because that was something that you thought was in the Old test Oh, we're in the spiritual New Testament. Now it's not physical, not true, that's gnostic.
And then lastly again Apocalypse four and five, when John sees into heaven, he sees all this liturgical worship, all of the sights, smells, and bells that we think are in the liturgy on earth. It's the same liturgy. It's not two different things. Right, Jesus brought heaven to earth in the first Advent.
Yeah, exactly, you know. And it's not because it's a body of chrisis in temple that we cannot all bes a temple as well.
It's a good point either, and that doesn't mean.
That we cannot have temples. You know, churches are still you know, it's still the same layout as a temple. It's a bit ludic chrius to create dialectic.
Yeah, it is a dialectic. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I don't want to cut you off. You're you're making great points. And just real quick couple. Now. The Protestants will love to say, oh, Butanius ep fantas. First of all, there's an argument to be made that the writings attributed to Epiphanius are forgeries. But even if they're not, so what this is the game that Protestants play where they
just pick out a single church father. Oh look, Jerome says that, he lists the canon that we have, and then Jerome turns around and talks about tradition, talks about bishops, talks about the Eucharist. Oh, none of that, right, So they just play this kind of pick and choose game out of the church fathers. Right, But nobody actually follows any single church father, whether you're Protestant, Roman, Catholic, or Orthodox. Nobody has the position that you just randomly pick one
to follow. Well, unless you just randomly decide that Augustine is the one that you're supposed to follow. I don't know. Some people do do that, but no, they're just following that idea of just picking an individual. When, for example, Jerome says it against raparium. He says, we do not worship matter, we do not adore, He says the non autoramus, for fear that we should bow down to a creature rather than the creator. But rather we do venerate hon Oramos.
In the Latin, the relics of the of the Martyrs in order to adore him, whose martyrs they are Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Says, we do not consider the martyrs to be gods, nor do we bow down to them adoringly as if they were gods, but only relatively and in reverence. Out of Latria. He says, that's against Julian by Saint Alexander, Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Likewise, Augustine says
the same thing. We celebrate the memory of the martyrs with ritual salinity because we want to be inspired by their example, We want to share in their merits and be helped by their prayers. We erect no altars to any of the martyrs themselves, nor even in the martyrs burial chapels are they are we honoring the martyrs but rather in themselves, but rather Christ. And then he goes on to say multiple times the same thing. He says that in City of God and in many of his works.
So excuse me, that's against fossis the Manichian where Augustine says that, So you know, Augustine has that distinction, Saint Jerome has that distinction, Saint Cerl Alexandria has that distinction. And they didn't just make that up. It's based on the arguments that I was just pointing out in scripture that it's okay to venerate a ruler, to bow before a ruler, It's okay to venerate the arc the temple, to bow prostrate. All these things occur without it being idolatry.
Go ahead, Yeah, And so I wanted to stress out the difference, you know, with the with the West. For example, you mentioned statuary. Statuary are perfectly find in the Ostock scense, but statuary taking precedence of icons. Again, that's the idea of you know, the physical matter being more important than
the image as is. And that's again you know, this pagan understanding that we are wed to worship something that is ultimately material, and that's where we are to look, not like, you know, to look directly at the essence again, you see essentialism.
We do not have this.
We have the essence energy distinction. We believe that icons to an extent representation of the type of heaven and as such venerable.
Yeah. I mean the argumentation for example, in St. Theodore or the STUDEI, if you read his on the Holy Images, on the Holy icons, he premises the argument on the nature person distinction and the essence energy distinction. Right, we're not signifying the essence of God by the icon, we're signifying the hoopostasis that's revealed energetically.
Yeah, and that's where I'm going to comment on the icons. Everybody knows the hailo and the icon, and that's what it represents. So the background of the icon is usually golden, and you've got this golden halo around the head, and that represents the energies. That represents the light of Tabor, the divine light. The fact that this person is in
a transfigured state in heaven. That's what it represents. That's why we have this so even well to we represented icons, and this is before the schism, before because you can see hellos and every sort of icons from every denomination. This Hello is here specifically to signify a transfigured state. It's specifically to signify theosis, and it is the energies.
It is the divine energies. That's somethings that's very interesting because if you skip forward to so West, you can see that this Hello is being modified after the Renaissance.
Well, yeah, naturally it would be modified if you believe in absolute divine simplicity and you don't recognize the reality of the distinction between nature and person. You're no longer imaging the hopostosis or the particuticular person of the Sun. You begin to see all of reality is just images of the prototypes in the essence of God. Right, I mean, the Western view of divine exemplarism then conditions their view of iconography. Because Augustine taught the Western view of exemplarism.
He didn't recognize the essence Inergi distinction, so he said that reality itself, all of reality is patterned on the divine ideas, the exemplars in the essence of God. So ultimately everything is just an icon of the essence of God. And then the particularity of the hypostosis of the sun loses its significance. It's not picking out icons. Are no longer holy images that pick out the person of the logos, right, it becomes something else exactly.
So you start to see more profane images exactly.
Then you get to Renaissance gibberish pornography basically.
Yeah, and you see many saints. So I'm going to talk specifically as a heno because it's very interesting. You can see that it sometimes disappears, which is very very you know, it is terrible for us, because especially for Christ, Christ needs to have is halo to signified divinity, and the cruciform halo gives it on.
Yes, I was gonna say, the whole on is important because that identifies him as the I Am. It also identifies him as the Angel of the Lord. So actually every Byzantine icon that has that identifies him as the one right of Exodus three fourteen. And if you read Isaiah, then Isaiah explicitly, as Sam Chumon pointed out the other day, explicitly identifies Jesus as the Angel of the good Counsel, the Angel of the Lord, the Angel of wonderful counsel.
How do I know that that's Jesus, because it's the same subject in Isaiah nine, that is, the son that is born unto us. His name will be called wonderful Angel of counsel, angel of great Council, or wonderful counsel. That's the same person as the sign. And Isaiah nine to five. That proves that the Angel of the Lord is the sign Jesus Isaiah nine six.
Exactly. And this Hello, which represents the divine energies, and not only for Christ, but also the saints, which represents a the fat state. You can see it being further alta. So not only it's it's something in Western iconography post Renaissance, but it also loses his sense, its sense. So as they moved to representation in three dimension, you can see it being a plate and then just being a circle,
and you know, being being matter being limited. Whereas you can see that or understanding of iconography, especially the more realistic types of air comes we can have always depicted as as ray, you know, like like it's either just a circle and the more simplistic type or race. But by doing this you can see also an understanding of creative grace because this this halo, it signifies grace. You know, no longer is this light radiant light, it's just circles, plates.
It starts to be very limited, and you can see, yeah, you can train exactly.
That's a great point snag. You can trace the loss of theological teaching in the icons themselves, right. Yeah, So that that goal that's painted there, the halo that is supposed to signify transfiguration, the divine, the uncreated, divine light in our realm. And you notice there above christ head, what does it say, hold on? Right, see that. Yeah, oh ho omega new hold on right, the one I am he that's what it means, That's what it's referring to.
So the loss of iconographic truths is connected to the loss of theological truths.
Yeah. So you can see it everywhere, by the way, For example, is the Oriental Orthodox, you know the Monophysites monophsycte metaphysite. What was one of the first actions of servers of Antioch when when seizing his cathedral and removing icons? Used to be like that bismal found Yeah, I checked the sources that quote scholar.
Eire you checked it out.
What check checked? There are several sources that are matching. Uh. So they used to be.
It is hello, hello, snack, Hello, you're cutting out? Can you start over?
There?
Used to be what.
Okay, Yeah, there used to be a bird to signify the Holy Spirit, to signify the theophony of Christ. And the first thing that he did was remove it, remove it melted down.
Just like now. We got some people in the chats trying to say Severs was not an iconoclast. So do you have a I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have a source on that?
Yeah? I'm gonna I'm gonna find it. I've got all sourced on my server. Okay.
Second, by the way, so snackt server is listed there. His discord is in is in the show description. If you want to go in there and or you can come to my server and we can we can hash it out there if you want to do that. But I'll go ahead.
I don't mean to control all right, Yeah, I'm gonna send the source, have it right now. But by the way, that this is actually a recurrent problem in is your I.
Mean, they have problems with maintaining their iconographic tradition even now.
Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna go on this one. Actually, they had an iconoclastic patriarch in the nineteenth century serial the sixth or the fourth I think the sixth, yeah, serial the fourth series. The fourth actually burned down icons So that was in the nineteenth century. That's that's very new. So they lost a lot of the partrimony to to Islam. And yeah, this was like the last name on the coffin.
And today you can see that the tradition of iconography in the in the Coptic Church sadly was recreated from nothing. So after after they destroyed the patrimony. It was the first time of you know, inter Christian meetings, and they got help from the from the Catholics in re establishing iconographic tradition and basically the flicks and some prost and you know, they believe the Cops to be you know, Eastern simplistic, and that's why they made icons that were
based of you know, more shide like. Ye, it looks like far to an extent. So yeah, that's why it is as it is right now. But there has been a constant problem because of Christological problems as well.
Yeah, I mean, ultimately the root is Christological quite quite clearly. And it's interesting that you see both in the in the the so called Oriental Orthodox Churches and in the Roman Catholic Churches, both of these groups kind of going off and doing all kinds of weird things, right, and because there's not a consistent canonical holding to what the Seventh Ecumenical Council laid down. And if you don't know, the Seventh that Coumenical Council did not just say we
have icons. Okay, Roman Catholics. I don't know if you know this, but that the Council actually produced an entire series of anathemas called the Sonoticon of Orthodoxy. If you're in a Russian Orthodox Church or more traditional Orthodox church, they will actually read all of the anathemas and maybe even some spicy little new ones like the Metropolitan surfem and Pereis does. So I'll put in the link in the chat there the link to the full Sonoticon of Orthodoxy,
which is part of the liturgy. It's actually read out in the liturgy most of the time. If you're at a liturgy where the bishop is present, they'll do kind of the full thing. You can go to Ortho Christian or you can look on YouTube and you can hear the full anathemas being read out. And this is interesting because the anathemas anathematize Hellenism, Platonism, Arisitilianism, Originism. All of
these heresies are read in the anathemas. And yet what do we have clowns today who want to resurrect all of these heresies. Now, a lot of the trads and people like this have tried to call out us as Hellenists and Neoplatonists actually weakened them. Neoplatonism in the sonata con and it's you guys that have adopted the neoplatonic doctrine of statue aaryan images. Yeah.
Yeah, so again, you know, we only tuit that maintained something consistent. There were problems in the Roman Catholic world. You can see that it's constantly degrading. You know, it moved to more purely symbolical. You know, he started the lemb of God. He remembers this canon I mentioned. I guess what, you know, it's the canons that allows us to have icons, and Rome doesn't follow it. So, you know, Zabell allow more and more the artists to come in.
Yeah, Chinese Jesus, black Jesus, which is not as gnostic. You have to depict, do you ish Jesus?
Yeah, like you know, and if you want Christ to be your race to feel concerned by salvation, you know, then you're a really racist. You know, you believe you're not consubstantial with a black person.
Yeah, exactly right. Human nature is universal, and Christ assumed universal human nature and his singular hypostasis as the teaching of the fathers. Yeah, and again.
It removes the idea of Mesianity. The Messiah is specifically a son of David.
Yeah, he has to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament, namely that the root of David, right, this is Isaiah eleven. I just read it last night. Now noticed also that this is I believe. This is why this is not
a kind of Orthodox. He mentions the Platonic ideas. He says to them who refashioned creation by means of mythical fabrications and accept the Platonic ideas as veritable, saying that matter being subsistent is given form by the Platonic ideas, who thereby calumniate the free will of God, the Creator, who brought all things into being out of non beings. So there's creation x nilo, and who, as Maker established
the beginning of all things by the authority of his sovereignty. Anathema, anathema, anathema, so there's the triple anathema is pronounced by those who teach the Neoplatonic doctrine of creation as an emanation of divine ideas, to those who then also babble about the
general resurrection, this is gnostic stuff here. And then to those who have the Greek teaching of the pre existence of souls and the restoration of all beings, Originism anathema, anathema, anathema right to those who have the pagan heterodox teaching of Again, it's just talking about the Greeks, Greek Hellenism. It's condemned multiple times over in the Sonoticon. So anybody who goes to an Orthodox Sunday of Orthodoxy liturgy, I forgot.
The Aristotle is mentioned too, by the way, the ideas of Plato, the heresies of Aristotle, they're all mentioned as anathema. So this nonsense that Orthodoxy is neoplatonic is actually ironically refuted in the very Council that Protestants and Trads think is sometimes neoplatonic. That's the irony here.
Yeah, and of course you know it's the center of Orthodox history at the same time where we parade the icons, you know, we so everything is linked. That's what It's very powerful, and that's why we should really keep to our iconographic tradition because it testifies for theology, for history everything. Actually, I've made an article on my site and just before icons, the economic Crucifixion, I managed to cover the detrition of faith of all seven of the first sec medical consuls.
It's very deep. It's very rich, and that's why we really need to keep to it. Everything is there for a reason. The hello is specifically here to depig divine energies, which is which is why it's funny, because we can see degrade very fast in other churches do not accept the distinction, and iconography needs to keep to to some cannons otherwise it will it will degrade. And that's what you'll see in Rome because the prices and become iconoclass.
And we're going to see why in a minute. But how does romance this by using icons to antagonize them by starting to paint the theatre because as basically a cone of jewelry being being, you know, using more and more precious matter, using more and more statuary, and it's just a way to empaganize them. So again you can see that bad icons. It can evolve to an extent
into idolatry. And it's also iconopleasm because you're also destroying a real type by corrupting the icon and only should maybe covers a prostans, yes, because because the prostant's originally Lutheran's on the accepted images to an.
Extent, Yeah, this is a weird one. Because you know, you've got or the first generation Reformers kind of don't go as far as you know, Puritans and stuff like that, so you'll get like perpetual virginity of Mary is taught by Luther and Calvin. Luther has a you know, baptismal regeneration. He has no problem with some weird doctrine of real
presence based on Christ's humanity taking on divine properties. He has no problem with, you know, some imagery and some sacraments in the sense of like priests and this kind of stuff. And then over time it just kind of falls away because it's all just the next guy's opinion, right, It's like it's not based grounded in anything beyond the latest dude in his ideas. And that's the bane of all Protestantism. And that's why it's the next phase of
the Puritans who really go crazy with this. And what's funny is, and I've spent many years you know, in Calvinism. I know it very well. You'll never get a consistent idea from Calvinist as to what is and isn't idolatry in this sense, right, So I talked about the regular principle earlier. But it even goes so far to people like if you read Charles Hodge, the famous systematic theologian
Presbyterian theologian. They were having debates in Hodge's day as to whether the Ten Commandments forbade having making a map literally, like there were Puritans who argued that you can't have maps because it's an idol. It's that stupid.
Yeah. But the funny thing is that prost and God's ConA class him from a Catholic saint, from Theodal Forfolians. So Calvin, when he was looking as a consul, he found that field Wilf rejected it and he actually went none of it. So it's very funny. But the source of prost and iconoclasm is a Catholic saint. So today's Catholic will be complaining about this, but it came through one of your guys, and the president will will be
very anti Islam. And actually, if you trace the root of the econoclasm, you know, from the Muslim to the to the Byzantine economclass crisis, to the Franks too, to the early reformers to them, their econoclasm actually comes from Islam, which is very funny. When you think about it, because this iconoclasm is revived by Calvin and you've got people who was a president that you have today will tell
you you cannot you cannot have anything that veneration. You can have statues, you can have stuff, but they're gonna have pictures, they're gonna have Yeah.
And ironically, the Protestants, by the way, also almost to a t ninety nine point nine percent of them all fall into crystallogical heresies. So once again you see that the rejection of the liturgical principle. They don't even realize that it's connected to their crystallogical heresy because they're almost all a historian, especially if you look at their doctrine
penal sanction, penal sacrifice, penal sanction. Their doctrine of justification is premised on the idea of the damning of the second person, that godhead, so that leads them to the Nestorian doctrine to maintain their justification doctrine, and then everything else. Christology is just an afterthought to Calvinism. They don't even know what you're talking about when you get into it.
Yeah, that's a funny thing. Ultimately, the consistency of the Orthodox econographic tradition is literally an icon of for theology exactly, and that's why it's very important. That's why we we accuse the icons as that's why we have no problem generating them. That's why it's very important in a worship.
Yeah, that's why the apathetic theology is connected to iconography. That might sound a little bit strange, but once again, you have to have the nature Verson distinction, the Essen synerg distinction in order to have iconography. And it makes sense. That's how we're not ident we're not picturing or circumscribing the uncircumscribable essence of God. But the second person of the Godhead became circumscribable, as St. Theodore and Saint John
Damascus say. So even though the interest, by the way, I would add, just to kind of go through a little bit of Saint Theodore's argumentation, he says, the incarnation is a paradox, not a contradiction. How the uncircumscribable God became circumscribed, we do not know, but we do accept it because it is revealed that way. And then he goes on to say that part of the argumentation of iconography is based on the fact that there's no human
hypo states in Christ. It's the second person the God had who assumed human nature, and so therefore iconographic representation directly refutes Nestorianism. Therefore, it's not an accident that the Puritans and the Iconoclasts are an nestorian in their Christology. He says, God did not become incarnate in a mental way, right, Why didn't God just choose to become a mental representation to us? Maybe God could have just beamed right, the logos mentality to us in a mental way, but he
actually chose to become physical you see. Next he st Theodore argues the real presence. He says, the real presence itself presupposes that it is biblical to iconographically represent Christ because Christ chose to icon himself, you could say, in an incarnate state. He says that when we look at the cross, it burns the devils in exorcisms. Right by the way, are the Calvinists exorcists? There aren't any. There never have been because they don't have power. They don't
have the authority of the church because they aren't the church. Next, he says that one of the reasons that we can know this is true is that the tradition of the Church has always held this right. Tradition is another strong argument. Next, he goes on to refuting them from scripture. He does a bunch of argumentation that I did that you saw me do from In fact, I think I wrote that article a long time ago, ten years ago. On the basis of this writing of this work, I highly recommend this.
I don't know if it's still available, but you can get it on Amazon, or it's the Saint Lad's edition of Saint Theodore the studit. But this should this should, this would refute anything like that. We see texts even there's one I forgot, Wisdom six five and six, which is applied to honoring the emperor. I think Wisdom sixty five and six talks about honoring the emperor, and I think it uses the Greek word uh dulia.
What else?
I'm just breezing through this to see there's any other good. He argues that it's pretty much the universal teaching of the fathers and the councils. So if you reject imagery and icons by extension, you're also going to reject relics, and you're also going to reject the reality of grace. And the sacraments. And guess what, that's what the Calvinists do.
Yeah, a whole doctrine of deification. Well, what what are relics? Relics are part of a person who became an icon, a part of a person who became day fighted like truly day fight. So it's also fully linked to divine energies. You know, we we do not. We do not venerate someone was defied by an angel, by by by a creature. We venerate a person who truly became the icon. I've got through God any divine energies.
Yep. He also argues that Christ can be circumscribed as an individual because he became an individual in terms of his human nature. He although he assumed human nature in general, he says, he became singular in terms of his historic incarnate state. This human nature did not have its existence in a self subsisting, circumscribed person. As if there was
a hypostasis apart from the word. The word is the only hypostasis, but has its existence in the humanity has its existence in the hypostasis of the word, which is what,
of course I've always said. If there is, however, a second person, Oh excuse me, if because a second person is not admitted in the hypostasis of Christ, the iconoclass should say that the hypostasis is therefore uncircumscribable in respect to his humanity, they must necessarily say that there is one nature of the word compounded from two natures, and therefore uncircumscribed because the property of one of the two natures has been a limited eminated, which is to fall
into the heresy of the apollinarians. So in other words, it's removing the full humanity of Christ to say that Christ cannot be circumscribed or pictured or imaged, because if he's fully man, he can be circumscribed.
Yeah.
Correct, which is because I wouldn't have thought about that being an a pollinarian conclusion which removes the full humanity. But it would be right. It's not exactly identical to what a pollinarist said, because he replaced the mind of Christ with the logos, and he said that Christ didn't have a fully human mind. But it's the same idea of a pollinarianism by making Christ not fully human by saying that because of the incarnation, he cannot be circumscribed, right,
that would be a gnostic a pollinarian slash heresy. Okay, those are some good little arguments from a Saint Theodore. And then, by extension, although not directly connected just to icons, I will add that consistent with this flow of argumentation is the classic commentary of Saint Germanis of Constantinople on
the Divine Liturgy. I read this back in two thousand and seven when I read this the Theodore of the Studeic Book, and they're both really good, and they go together in terms of showing the continuity between liturgical worship and iconography. I mean, these all of these things are going to hang or fall together, right, They're gonna They're gonna go together consistently. And he's going to argue that the liturgy is just the worship of Heaven on earth, it.
Which is signified by you know, as in Exodus, there's the divine beings, Angel and so on. And that's why we have the saints. That's why we represent the saints there, because when you enter liturgy, you truly are in heaven.
Yeah, you well, we read so when Moses goes on top of the mountain, he sees the worship of heaven, and then when he comes down to establish the animal sacrifices and the Mosaic ceremonies. The text explicitly says that he Moses received a type of the things in heaven. So Mosaic worship, according to scripture, is a type tupos, an image of the heavenly worship when Jesus came and set up the Lord's Supper and all the worship that we have. That is the reality of which the type signified.
So we don't have as the Protestants would have it, they would have us back in the Mosaic period of still using types. No, the Mosaic administration was the types Jesus brought the reality. Therefore you have to believe in the real presence. But all the Protestants want to go back to the Mosaic period to say always just types and symbols. No, it's the reality, the real power, the reality of Pentecosts, the reality of body blows soul and
uncreated grace energy is present in the worship. That's why only Orthodox worship is the full continuity with the synagogue and temple. If you want to read about that, read this book.
Yeah, and that's the part for points that I wanted to make. If you look at the history of the Church, be it in terms of theology, worship, and iconography, with the only church that did not degenerate, you know, one or the other. We are a perfect continuity. And this is all present in the icons themselves, in the way we understand them, in the way we pain them. It's a complete system.
Yeah. I remember when I was when I was looking into Orthodoxy, you know, I was. I had gone from Calvinism into Rome Catholicism. I'd been Romancalluy for many years, and I was starting to look at Orthodoxy about two thousand and seven six, and I was thinking, well, why do they Why is the iconographic tradition done a certain way? And I didn't really understand that it was because of
the theological positions. Right, So when you read Saint Theodore, and I got my notes here that I made back in two thousand and seven, where I was, I was writing out what hypostasis means, and I was writing about what a historian and what fusis is. Right, So I was actually making all these notes about the significance of these things because Sat Theodore is arguing.
That the.
Meaning, the symbolism, the form, the structure, the balance, the colors. The way the iconographic presentation is put forth is all to teach and signify the theological meanings. And once you learn how precise Orthodox theology is, then it makes sense. Oh, now I understand why it's so precise like that, it's not just made up. Oh, let's just do it this way.
Exactly. And that's why this is an emphasis on not innovating, you know.
Exactly, Yeah, because would change the theology.
Yeah, we don't. We don't call people like, you know, icon artists. We call them iconography.
Writers exactly because they're they're writing the theological truths, just like you were writing a book.
Right, Yeah, And that's the real danger of you know, introducing new traditions and transforming, transforming your iconographic tradition using artists. You know, Michael Angelo is a good example. But today you can see, especially in the West, and some people want to do this to to to orthodox yicography. But people like destroying religion itself by destroying these images.
Yeah, if you want a good if you want a good thing to read on this, if you read The Theology of the icon Volume two. The main reason I recommend this is because of the chapter on Orthodoxy versus humanism. So actually this chapter is about how the uncreated energies are shown and taught in the theology of iconography, and so the created light of Barlam is actually the reason why the Latin tradition goes away from our tradition. That's there's a whole chapter on that very doctrine that that
Snack was talking about earlier. That this book is worth it just for that chapter. Noticed that, right, hechasm and humanism.
Yeah, and many of the things we can we can link, for example, is the emphasis of the renaissance and anatomy. This is this is you know, we were moving away from that.
Hold on can you say that again, renaissance on what anatomy? You know anatomy? Yes, exactly right, what what do you make of that flesh? That out some more? That's a good thing, you know, and thought about.
That we're moving away from this, you know, god centric worship like why why why do we have a veneration of icons Is because these people are saints because in heaven you know.
Now we're like worshiping the form of the body.
Yeah, so you have the form of the body, you have humanism, the hello st the beer and I think There's there's a painting of Christ's death, you know, Christ in his tomb that was commented by Dostoevsky and he said this picture could turn anybody into an atheist.
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I see.
Fully defeated Christ, fully defeated in that sense, you know, like really represented as a carrier. And and I remember was commenting in this painting saying, you're gonna have atheism. That's why you have atheism because you you you two man, and you you will you worship, you know, with humanism man alone, and your iconography is showing it. And since man is mortal, you're going to turn to atheism.
Well, and this also explains why all this Renaissance stuff is hermetic, right. I used to think that wasn't the case, and then when I started reading like occult Renaissance Church of Rome books like that, you realize that no, actually they really were Bernini, all these guys were deep into hermeticism, Leonardo. They were into the occult alchemy, weird stuff. And that's why the stuff that they're painting. Even though we can appreciate the artistic skill, I'm not denying that these guys
are good at what they do. But the point is that it is not the tradition of what had already been laid down at the seventh Ecamdical Council. I mean, look at these two things. You couldn't be further from the truth, right. And again, it's not that we're we're not rating them on. Oh this one's cooler than that one. That's not the point. The point is the theological doctrines that are taught by these different traditions.
You see, yeah, I mean you're showing your assisting chapel right now. It's very interesting because what does it teach us. First of all, the fathers represented. The father should not be represented.
You're not supposed to represent the father exactly, even though yes, I will have to admit trad sometimes Orthodox people are not consistent with this, they're not consistent. But technically you're not supposed to represent the father because the only representation of the father is the son.
Yeah, but here you can see a first Stringerian mistake in this very famous painting from the System Chapel. It's a father that gives life to creation, that gives.
Life to Aidam, but worse worse Christ.
Yeah, the treaty does this, like Tenesis teaches. You can see errors being introduced and layered and layered and layered, and of course these people are going to you know, fully Christian. If you look at yeah, it's very emetic. You have a lot of esoteric stuff going in there.
Yeah. And if anybody doubts that, just read cult ren not short of Rome. It proves that beyond any shadow of a doubt, from hundreds of citations of the Renaissance hermeticist scholars themselves. So let's see, was there anything else you want to get to If you get anything else in your notes, We've gone for about an hour and a half and then we've got some super chats. But we don't have to stop if you got more.
No, I just want to say that today you can see that these paintings here for the art people do not the no longer object of veneration. The theology is lost, and that's why sometime it will shocked Westerners and even Catholic you know, when they say, oh, you know you're
kissing icons. You know, it's it's weird. It's ironically, there will things that it's idolatrous because because of all these degradations that they've lost, this tradition, and that's very sad because it's part with the seventh console, and you cannot bring the seventh console against the price and to then not respect it yourself.
Yeah, it also reminds me of the weird like another weird thing that was. I'm pretty sure it's too. I mean, it's been fifteen years since I looked at this, but one of the famous Calvinist, Francis Turitan, speculated that after the Resurrection, Jesus would shed his human nature, he wouldn't
need it anymore. Well, that's just more gnosticism, more proof that Protestantism, Calvinism, and Puritanism especially are gnosticism, because the whole point of the incarnation was that he would take on human nature and that he would always and forever be incarnate. That's one of the amazing mysteries of the incarnation is that that God will for all eternity be man. Right, the second person that got hit will forever an all
eternity be man. He will never leave it, shed his humanity like it was some kind of snake skin or some nonsense like this. But I'm pretty sure a Turretin speculator said that maybe even Jonathan Edwards or somebody else, and the Calvinist tradition said something like that. But the point is that that you're only saying that because you're
gnostic and they don't believe. As if you read the Paniotas now Us, a book on deification, the whole first chapter is dedicated to showing that the incarnation was always the plan. The incarnation is not a plan B based on the fall. The incarnation was always the plant. Creation itself presupposes the incarnation, and that's unique to Orthodox theology, by the way.
Yeah, correct, Yeah, pretty good. We've covered the whole history of it, We've covered the theology of it, gave examples. Yeah, I'm pretty spect Okay, we've just extream. Yeah, we can close and this and go to the super checks.
All right.
Our Seneca Arseni Boca for thirteen forty eight. He says, our base relief presentation is part of Orthodoxy. I've not seen them in Byzantine or Romanian churches, but I've seen them in Russian churches. Do you have any opinions on this? They seem to be classical, Hellenic and Catholic to me. I don't know specifically about that, but there are obviously, you know, representations that are more Western in style that influenced different periods. I mean, this is this is true.
You know in architecture that you have the you know, Saint Petersburg kind of being neo classical, and this kind of stuff happens, of course, but I'm not so sure that that that's necessary. Just because there's a cross pollination doesn't mean that, oh well, then we're denying the whole uh, you know, validity of the liturgy. I mean the point here is that it's what we're talking about is in the context of the liturgy, in the context of the church.
So I don't know, do you know about Bay's relief representations?
Okay, so we do have icons, because that doesn't mean we cannot have other sort of representation. We can have statuary, at least the cannons that condemned statues. It doesn't condemned statues per se.
It just says make sure, I mean you can have us. Yeah, I mean I could put a statue of Saint Paul right here. So what but in terms of the liturgical worship, it's very precise as the point. And yeah, sometimes churches do not always follow this, right, I mean You've got Western ride churches that are using the some of them are putting the Sacred Heart, well, the sacred Hearts in the Historian and Jesuit. It's not Orthodox, it shouldn't be there.
Yeah, but I don't think barrel LIFs would be would be a problem specifically, you know, it's it's not a problem of the image being graven or not. So Yeah, I don't see I don't see any problem. We should try to keep to more classical iconographic standards because they're here for a reason. But again, I've really seen like really huge iconographic abuse except in some Western rights.
Yeah.
Yeah, apartem is, I wouldn't consider this a big problem exactly.
Yeah, A good point. Next question is Eastern Rome and for five dollars, it's interesting to consider that the historical context of why iconoclasm grew grew in popularity and empire since the Amorillon. I don't know what that is, the Amorione I introduced it in the wake of the loss of Egypt and the levant to the Muslims, I don't know.
Yeah, people thought at the time that they were being punished the Islam was a score of God, which, by the way, some people hold today and it is there is the typology of the apocalypse, and you know, anti Christian Muhammad. But yeah, people thought that they were being punished for excesses, especially in terms of some mosaics, iconography and song. So yeah, the idea of iconoclasm in Byzantium came from Islam. So yeah, it's right.
All right. So Eastern Romans says, sorry, my bad, it was the Assaryoi. It was the Amorioi were after the Assorioid. Jeremy Milford donate his thirty dollars and he says Calvinists will cite Irnas critiquing the Nostic carporcration usage of images in against Heresy's one twenty five six. Well, first of all, again, if you read book three of Irenaeus and book four, he's not a Calvinist. So he believes in Abstolt succession, he believes in tradition, he believes in the Deudo canon,
he believes in the real presence of Christ. He will believe and it believes in a succession of bishops. So they're picking and choosing, obviously, as they always do. But the point is not that all images. The point is whatever carpent cration images were being used. I mean a lot of these sex worship the serpent, So we'd have to see exactly what image the corpor creations we're using. Go ahead, I'm gonna look at that quote and see what he says.
Yeah, you're gonna find some church. Father would say that good prayers don't visit image. And it is true, like you know, when you do the Hezekas prayer, you shouldn't you shouldn't image things, You shouldn't have images in your head. But that doesn't mean that you cannot have image in worship. That doesn't mean that you can signify and teach through these things. And actually that's an error that some Oriental
Orthodox do. So they keep to teachings of Evagrius Spontikus on the image, and they actually removed all images from the liturgy. They're not econoclastic, per saved. It's a semi econoclastic because of this, at least a lot of them are. But that's again creating a needless, needless dialectic. You know, just because theosis for us is a process of prayer and of you know, being apathetic, removing ideas from your
head doesn't mean that we cannot have images. And again we've seen that icons are linked to apophetic theology, so it's linked.
Yeah. Well, and then when we read what the actual quote says, it doesn't prove what the Calvinist wants. As usually, I'll read the quote, some of the Gnostics employ outward marks, branding their disciples inside the whole of the right ear from Among these they also arose a certain Marcellina who came to Rome under the episcopate of an Isotus, and he held these doctrines, and she led many multitudes astray.
They styled themselves Gnostics and possessed images, some of which are painted, others of which are formed of different kinds of materials. While they maintained that a likeness of Christ was created by Pilot at the time when Jesus lived among them. They crowned the these images and set these images up along with images of the philosophers of the world, such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. They have modes of honoring these images that is the same as the honor
of the gentiles. So it's talking about idolatrous pagan images. It's not saying that all imagery itself is wrong. Let's see. But good question, Jeremy. Now Bill for five dollars, what snacks imagine? I don't know what that means, but thank you, No Bill, Mowgli for ten dollars. What does the image at the bottom of some Orthodox Study Bibles represent? The image at the bottom that I mean, it's just the dome of the church with a cross. So is that?
I guess that's what you're talking about, Mowgli. If you want to qualify that in the chat, let me know. But I don't. I don't know what else you're talking about. Okay, it says that the spine of the Orthodox Study at all, it's just a church with a dome of a church.
That's it is the logo of Ancient Face Radio.
It might be their logo or is it just a dome.
I don't.
I don't even know what the logo is anyway, it's not a mystic that's the teric symbol.
I don't know.
Thanks has donated fifteen dollars, Thanks well, thank you. Thanks Levilla Floria, Levu Floria three dollars. The Renaissance was funded by international bank elite families such as the Medicis, who flourished in Italy around the center of an international finance at the time. Yes, that is true. I have read multiple books that cover that, and I think it's also covered in a cult Renaissance Church of Rome. That is correct. Mima phobe five dollars. Do you have any thoughts on
the terraffim mentioned many times in the Old Testament? It just means statue and what because David had a terraffim for example, when he snuck out and he put a traffim under the sheets, he did the whole cartoon teenager trick of like putting a statue under the sheet so it looks like somebody's asleep. That's all teriffim means. But it also could be a statue used in pagan worship. So, but just having a statue, there's nothing wrong with that.
David had a terraffim, It wasn't an idol. What does that tell us about changes and what was acceptable in the early Biblical era. Well, if you listen to the whole talk, nothing changed. That was the whole point of this talk is that we have a consistent a kind of graphic presentation. There was no no images in the Old Testament. Now you can use images. That's simply not true. I mean, the temple is full of Imagesiam, do you have anything to say on.
That, Snick, No, I mean, you know, we've we've proven that point by point from Oltists and Bible, New Testament, apostlic times to today.
William Bergen ten dollars, snack and jay, I am newly illumined here, welcome many years. Is anti is anti Marianism connected to iconoclasm? Yes, So, even though it might be directly connected to it, the consistent presentation, as we said, of theosis, real presence of Christ liturgy, all of these
things kind of go together. So the very idea of the the the theotokis being raised to the status of the highest of God's creatures, Queen of Heaven and Apocalypse twelve, it would pretty, you know, pretty necessarily be connected to iconoclasm. And as we said, iconoclasm is just kind of another
denial of the incarnation. So when you deny the incarnation in the Orthodox sense, you get these weird deviations and these weird sex and these weird views that also will have heretical heterodox views in other areas of their theology. So naturally they're going to you know, prefer Nestorian ideas of who Mary is. Right, she's Thestoria says, she's Christodicos, not theoticas.
Yeah, exactly, like icons are signify of the incarnational principle, and the Theotokos is you know, the ultimate incarnational principle.
Yeah, she is the new arc of the Covenant, exactly.
Yeah.
And so if you don't believe in that incarnational principle, you're not going to believe in theosis. You're not going to believe that that individual humans can become living arcs of the Covenant.
Is going to be messed up.
So yeah, the Christology is going to be all screwed up. All right, I don't see any more super chats. Thank you guys. That was a lot of fun. Be sure and follow Snack on his He has a pretty hype Twitter. He's always rolling up some people. He's fun to follow on Twitter. He's got an Instagram as well, And if you want to get into our discord or his discord, you can follow that as well. In the links. You can also join my website anything you want to promote Snack.
No, it's mostly in French. We're going to start some new things. So the discord is mostly in French, but we've got like good archives, a good library, and we're going to start to do some fundraising soon for monasteries for skitties that are being set up in France. So we're gonna keep your passion on that. But yeah, it's growing. Actually, it's now the biggest Christian server in France because the Treads and the and the Concilia just canceled one another.
So yeah, right now it's the biggest Christian serve in France.
Yeah, and we possess the biggest Orthodox Christian server snacks in there as well, So he's got the biggest French Orthodox server. So you said the biggest Christian or biggest French Christian Christian Oh wow, okay, so so yeah, a lot of converts being made through his and by God's grace,
a lot of converts in ours as well. So if you want to join the discord, just follow my Twitter and periodically I will post invites for debate or whatever people want to do to come to the Twitter, I mean to to the discord.
Yeah, and it's on my Twitter bio.
Okay, awesome, all right, everybody, have a good night