The Council of Florence (1431-1449) meets the criteria for an ecumenical council by Eastern Orthodox standards, as it had the participation and approval of the Bishop of Rome (Pope Eugenius IV), the Patriarch of Constantinople (Joseph II), and representatives from all major apostolic sees including Alexandria and Antioch. The council achieved an unprecedented level of unanimity, with approximately 500 Western bishops and 200 Eastern bishops signing off on it, making it the most unanimous ecumenical council in church history. While Mark of Ephesus and Isaiah Seropoulos did not sign the final union, they were not the sole representatives of their sees, and contemporaries at the council recognized it as a successful ecumenical council that ended the Great Schism.
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So, welcome to my first theology Q&A live stream. Uh I have no idea how this is going to go. Very new at, you know, being more into doing videos, having an online presence, stuff like that. Um yeah, before I begin this live stream, just want to give a little background of why I'm doing this.
So, for those who know uh my friend Gideon Lazar, he runs something called the Saint Basil Institute for Creation Theology. And every year they have a symposium on the latest and greatest of Catholic research into the theology of creation.
Uh last year the symposium was in Steubenville, Ohio, which me and a couple of my friends uh went there, got to meet Gideon and all the speakers and stuff, and it was a great time. And so, I got invited to be a research assistant for the symposium that is happening this year in Rome.
And I am doing this uh theology Q&A partly to fund that research. Um you know, because books cost money. Um and also to fund my airfare to Rome so that I can hopefully attend the symposium in person. Um so, yeah, that's kind of the reason that I'm doing this.
I have no idea how it's going to go.
Um I do have a couple pre-prepared questions from friends who uh already contributed to the cause and had some some questions um that they wanted to ask. So, going to start with those, see if I get any more, um, and yeah. We'll just go from there.
Um, oh, and for those who are interested, the topic that I'm going to be, uh, assisting with researching has to do with the church's condemnation of pantheism at the First Vatican Council.
Right? So, even though the church has a long history of opposing things like pantheism, uh, the doctrine of necessitarianism, which is the idea that the creation necessarily exists from God, um, it doesn't get formally condemned, at least as far as we can tell, um, really until Vatican I.
Um, but we're, you know, doing more research into the dogmatic condemnation, the magisterial condemnation of pantheism and necessitarianism. So, I'm currently doing a lot of research looking into the cultural historical background of the First Vatican Council, um, and, uh, yeah, so, if you have a question, uh, feel free to send in a super chat. I think I'm I'm going to be, you know, like I said, no idea how many people are going to watch this, so, if I don't get too many questions, I guess I could just answer random questions, but, um, ideally, the idea is to raise money, so, you know, $5 donation, or also my, uh, premium subscribers on Substack feel free to send in a question. So, but, like I said, I already had a couple pre-prepared questions from friends who wanted to support the cause. And so, the first question one of my friends asked me was how, when I was first, let's see, got it here. When I was first visiting Catholic churches, um, I said that people were not welcoming.
So, based on my experience, what recommendations do I have to Catholic parishes to practice hospitality? So, it may not sound like a very theological question, but I think this question can have a very theological answer, you know, which how should we as Catholics be showing hospitality to newcomers?
Because it's true, in my own conversion experience to the Catholic faith, um you know, for those who maybe aren't familiar with my journey, um you know, I converted to the Catholic faith or well, let me back up.
I converted to Christianity just kind of broadly um from uh really atheism. So, when I was I was raised in a nominally Lutheran household, um but you know, I I let go of my faith around middle school age when I discovered the new atheist movement. It was kind of like at the height of the new atheist movement, especially on YouTube, was like when I was entering like middle school and starting to like uh really look into uh the big questions, so to speak. And so, I was always swept up with like Richard Dawkins, um Sam Harris, you know, the the notorious four horsemen, um and all of that. And um And yeah, so I got very swept up into online atheism, and then eventually that turned with like online politics, like the 2016 election with all that. I got really involved in all that stuff. Maybe some people who subscribe to this channel may even remember those days when I was making videos about various political topics that I won't even talk about anymore.
>> [laughter] >> Um but it was in the midst of that that I noticed like the trend of people who were in that kind of online political sphere, they were starting to become like Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. And I remember it was like a very consistent trend, especially like people who were in like perhaps people who remember the the anarcho-capitalist phase that that certain portions of the internet went through. Like a lot of the ancaps were becoming Catholic and Orthodox and rather than writing these treatises on economics and all of a sudden they're writing like these treatises on like theology and why you should like believe in Christ and all these things and I remember just being kind of like intrigued by that because, you know, I I had set set all that theological nonsense aside as a, you know, intelligent middle schooler.
Um and So yeah, so as I was coming to the faith, it was largely through the Catholic and Orthodox um traditions and uh but I realized that unlike my obsession with like politics and even like atheism, like I couldn't just keep it online and so I was initially very drawn to Catholicism.
This is back in like 2018 we're talking.
I was very much drawn to Catholicism and I'm like, okay, I guess I got to like do something about this, go actually visit a parish, try to get involved in real life. Um and at this point I'm like a very like socially awkward teenager.
Like I don't have really any friends. I don't know really how to talk to people.
Um and so the idea of like going to a place where I know absolutely nobody um and I literally no idea what to expect. It was very jarring.
Um you know, so I remember I just went to like my local Catholic parish and I don't know exactly what I was expecting to happen but I kind of just show up there, you know, the mass goes on um and I have no idea what's going on. I'm very confused. Like everyone's doing all these weird gestures and stuff and I'm like completely lost. Um this is just like a normal Novus Ordo, like your average Novus Ordo parish by the way.
This isn't even like some trad place where there's all these extravagant rituals going on. It's actually pretty like milktoast Novus Ordo Catholicism that I was experiencing but still it was like so foreign to me.
Um and I remember I just walked in and then I just kind of like wait I'm like kind of like waiting for something to happen and but like nothing's happening. I'm "Okay, after the mass is over, I just I just walk out." And, you know, as someone who is just very like socially awkward, doesn't know how to talk to people, like that was not sustainable for me at the time, you know, so not sustainable at all. And [clears throat] I eventually just like stopped going because literally like of the hundreds of people there, including clergy, um you know, staff members, like there was not a single person who like came up to me, said anything to me, or tried to like tell me about a uh you know, like, "Oh, there's this like youth group you can go to." or something like that. Um that only came when I actually started like inquiring with the deacon about RCIA. He told me about um like a youth thing that was going on that I could be a part of. But at that point, I was already like "I don't know about this." You know, it just was not not jiving. Um and that was completely different from my experience in the Eastern Orthodox church, right?
Because obviously my inability to find that community in the Catholic church is really the main reason why I ended up not pursuing Catholicism back in like 2018. It really had little to do with like theological stuff. Like I actually I remember like when I when I reached out to the man who would become my Eastern Orthodox priest, um I really was like very intellectually convinced of Catholicism. And even like after our first couple of meetings, I'm like, "I'm really not buying this Eastern Orthodoxy stuff." But the reason I kept going back was because of the community. Um you know, when I the first time I walked into an Eastern Orthodox parish, um I was immediately greeted by the priest's wife. Um you know, he she gave me this like um binder that had like all the liturgical stuff you could possibly need in it.
Like they set they would set the binders every week, so that way they like had all of the propers um, for the liturgy for that particular week.
Um, then I was sat next to a catechumen, which I didn't know what a catechumen was at the time, funny enough.
Um, but I was sat next to a catechumen and this catechumen basically like walked me through the service, um, and showed me what to do. Um, and it was just like such a a night and day difference between like that communal experience in Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy.
And that really is what drew me into the Orthodox church. It was not the theological arguments or the philosophical arguments.
Um, you know, wasn't this intellectual stuff. Wasn't even necessarily like the spiritual tradition. I wasn't reading like these spiritual writers or anything like that. It was just, you know, a beautiful liturgy and a very warm and welcoming community.
Um, and now I understand like why that is easier to happen in the Orthodox world than it is in the Catholic world.
You know, just because the Orthodox church is like minusculy small compared to the Catholic church. I mean, you know, if we're just being real.
Um, the like clergy to parishioner ratio is very different. Um, you know, Orthodox churches do not have several liturgies, uh, you know, like on Sundays because of the number of people they have flocking into their churches. Um, like the Catholic church just as a matter of fact is much bigger than the Orthodox church.
And when you have so many people, you know, it can be very difficult to to have that like small community feel.
Um, and so like uh, in terms of like what the average Catholic parish can do to mimic that feel, I don't have a ton of practical advice other than like, you know, if you see somebody new at mass, go up to them, greet them. Um, it's important to have things and I also think this is important. And this is something I didn't fully understand even when I was Eastern Orthodox, um but I've come to understand more as a Catholic, which is that, you know, the mass is not necessarily the place for newcomers. Right? Like I know in like Orthodox polemics and stuff, you know, it's very much like, "Come and see. Come come to the liturgy.
Come and see."
Um and it's like to an extent, yes.
But at the same time, like I mean, if you go back to like the early church, like they weren't just letting people in to their liturgies. You know, I mean, like even the catechumens were dismissed um before the liturgy of the Eucharist, which obviously we don't do that anymore and we haven't done that in a very long time. But the idea that like there's something sacred going on, that it's not just like for anyone wandering in off the street to to see and observe. I think there is some wisdom to that and I feel like we've gone to the opposite extreme, where now we're like live streaming Holy Mass and putting it on the internet. And it's just basically like that even if it's like a very beautiful Tridentine Latin Mass, like if it's like being live streamed and recorded and all these things, like there is a kind of sacredness um yeah, kind of sacredness and a kind of mystery that is um being lost there. And so this attitude that like newcomers just need to come to the mass, it's like maybe we need to create, you know, like what in ministry we tend to call like shallow water zones. Like places for people to um just kind of like, yeah, get their feet wet with Catholicism and not actually you know, fully participate in the sacred mysteries because they're not really ready for them. Yeah, they're not ready to appreciate it. Like I remember back when I was first Catholic, I tried to explore the Tridentine Latin Mass. I just I just showed up at St. John Cantius Parish on a Sunday and just attended the Traditional Latin Mass. I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't appreciate what I was seeing. Um and in fact, it turned me off from the Tridentine Mass for several years, up until like very recently. So actually, I think it had a net negative effect me just going there and having like nobody nobody to guide me um through it, right? In the Orthodox church, I I had somebody to guide me and walk walk me through what was happening.
So, I think that's why it tended to work. There's also just the fact that the Byzantine liturgy is a lot more externally beautiful and externally extravagant than the Western liturgies are. Um which is, you know, to say nothing good or bad necessarily about either one of those. That's just the reality. They just developed in different ways. And so, I feel like the Byzantine tradition has a way of appealing to the senses a lot more than the Latin tradition does, at least in certain respects. Um and so, so all of that to say, yeah, I don't know that like inviting somebody to mass is really the place for newcomers. Like, I think having alternative like ministries, so like for example, I belong to something called Catholic Sports. Like, I lead a Bible study. Like, it's basically just like a sports league for like and we call it Catholic Sports, but it's like, a lot of people are into sports. It's like a good place to like get people involved and get them involved like with community, with people like closer to their own age. Um so, I think like supporting those kinds of missions, like realizing that you know, like we're in mission territory and we need to start acting like missionaries and like fostering communities, uh building like both personal and professional relationships, like supporting each other professionally. Obviously, I'm not, you know, I don't have like a big company big money or anything like that to do that, but people who do, like trying to foster like a Catholic economy, kind of like in what they, you know, do down in Steubenville.
Like, it's those kinds of community-based things that really I think are going to have have to happen primarily outside of the parish, cuz I think the parish structure is just for a variety of reasons, unless it got fundamentally changed, which is just not going to happen realistically.
Um I don't think it is the place to build Catholic community. Um, I think though that largely has to happen outside of the parish structure. It has to happen in homes, in families, potluck dinners, like lay people just need to start picking up the torch, start inviting people over, you know, start praying the Divine Office, um, and just build their own community.
Don't wait for the priests to do something. Don't wait for the bishops to do something because they're not, you know, they're on a sinking ship um, and they've been on a sinking ship for a long time and they haven't done anything. They're not going to do anything. And so we as lay people have that vocation, right, that universal call to holiness. Ironically, like what it actually means, right, is that we're supposed to live out the evangelical counsels, um, of, you know, poverty, chastity, obedience in our lay state.
We're supposed to do that as best we can, take on lives of penance, um, build our own communities, you know, sing the hours, do all these things and that's what's going to foster community and create like this welcoming, um, environment cuz I just I just don't think it's going to happen at the average parish. Not saying there's no parishes where it can happen. Obviously, I think the traditional communities are in a similar boat to, um, like the Eastern Orthodox in that they're a lot smaller, tight-knit and so that can be fostered. But in terms of like the average parish where the vast majority of Catholics actually are, um, I just I just don't see that happening anytime soon. So so kind of a a long-winded answer to to that initial question about how do we foster community in the Catholic world?
Honestly, I don't know. I'm still figuring out myself, you know, like I lead a men's Bible study. I've taught a lot of my guys how to like chant the Divine Office. I try to hold a lot of events at my at like my house, um, to try and like build that community.
Um, but at the end of the day, you know, one person can only do so much. Um, you know, we need other people to take up that, uh, that torch and start leading the way in that respect, so yeah.
Okay, so this friend of mine did ask another question.
It's not allowing me to send super chats. Oh boy.
See this is this is my first time doing this, so I actually do not know if there was like supposed to be some setting I was supposed to turn on um to allow that.
um Probably should have figured that out before going live, but that is okay.
um Hmm.
Let me see if I can figure this out real quick.
>> [snorts] [laughter] >> Not allowing you to send super chats.
I'm not sure where I would like enable that.
Let's see.
Community moderation, participants.
I don't know.
>> [snorts] >> I don't know. If somebody if it's truly not allowing to send super chats and somebody knows how to fix that, please let me know.
um I guess if not, I can just I can just answer questions. You can donate to me on Substack I guess if you want.
>> [laughter] >> um I'll just keep answering questions I suppose.
um So yeah, I'll answer this question. Do you still hold the idea that Florence was ecumenical by Eastern Orthodox standards?
um Generally, yes. I'd say I'm a little I would be more cautious in promoting this exact line of reasoning just because I know there is a lot of source material that I have not read. There's a lot of source material that is not in English.
um And so I I I would maybe be a little bit reserved in making this exact claim. But here here are the facts as I understand them. And somebody can correct me if I am um incorrect. So, when it comes to the Council of Florence, right? I mean, obviously we have to like unpack what even is what are the criteria of an ecumenical council?
Um and that obviously is one of the most difficult questions in this whole equation.
Um but generally, if you just look throughout church history, like what has been the definition of an ecumenical council?
What are the councils that we consider ecumenical? It's when like broadly speaking, you have the emperor, you have the Bishop of Rome, the Patriarch of Constantinople, um the other major patriarchs more or less and like the vast majority of the bishops who all sign off on the council.
Um right? There there really has not ever been an ecumenical council where there haven't been like significant bodies of hierarchs um who have not like broken off from the church. Like I mean, you think of like at the Council of um the Council of Ephesus, right? I mean, you have Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, um who obviously doesn't recognize this council. He breaks off from them and the the Nestorian Church actually becomes very, very large um you know, at one point in history. I want to say it's one of the largest bodies of Christians um in the world and they're not recognizing the Council of Ephesus.
Um you know, at the And then even there, you know, you also have like the famous division between John of Antioch and Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
Um so, you have like the whole Antiochene school that was breaking off from the church at this point. Um you had yeah, many people in Constantinople, bishops, priests, lay people who were all not recognizing the Third Ecumenical Council and stuff like this.
Um and yet it still gets not only does it get acknowledged as ecumenical, but in later reflections on what happened at the Third Ecumenical Council, it's said that everybody agreed and that's why it's ecumenical, right? I have an article on my on my Substack about the ecumenicity of the Council of Florence.
You can check that out. I have I have the quotes there.
But it's interesting even at like the Council of Nicaea, it's like did all the bishops did every Christian bishop at the time sign off on the Council of Nicaea? No. I mean the Arians remained very strong going into like the 6th, 7th, 8th centuries, you know, like So it's like It's it's kind of difficult to decide these like criteria like, you know, I know there's a lot of Orthodox who want to talk about like consensus-based ecclesiology that like you just got to get like the majority of the patriarchs or something like that.
But yeah, at the same time they're going to say that like well individual patriarchs can fall away and in fact even the majority of patriarchs can all fall away. It's just like there always has to be at least one who signs on to it and then it's like If we're at that point where we really have no epistemic way to just to like say like this definitively cannot happen, then it's always going to be arbitrary and there's always going to be someone you can point to who didn't agree with the council and say like that's why that council isn't ecumenical because so-and-so didn't sign off on it or so-and-so left the council.
Um But in terms of the Council of Florence, here's what we know. Here are the facts we know happened.
Obviously the emperor signs off on it, right? To make it ecumenical imperial, right? Throughout the ecumene, throughout the empire.
That's kind of a, you know, modern Orthodox don't really care as much about that.
The Pope of Rome signs off on it, obviously, right? That's pretty significant for an ecumenical council.
If you read at the 7th Ecumenical Council when they're trying to distinguish how Nicaea II is ecumenical and the pseudo-synod of Hieria is not ecumenical, what do they say? They say that the reason Nicaea II is ecumenical is because it had the cooperation of the Bishop of Rome as is the rule for councils.
That's a complete statement. And then second clause, and it also had the participation and the approval of the major Eastern sees, referring to Constantinople, you know, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, etc. Um that's kind of in a side. Those are all kind of grouped together. But the main thing is the rule for councils is the participation of the Bishop of Rome.
Right? That is the rule for all ecumenical councils according to Nicaea II. And the Council of Florence definitely had that. Okay? Had the rule had the the the main rule for councils, that criteria is that participation and the approval of the Bishop of Rome. Um then you also had the approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was Patriarch Joseph II at the time. Uh he famously dies right before the union is signed, but it's well documented that he approved the union. And then his successor, Metrophanes II, also approves the union um in Constantinople. And Constantinople is actually going to remain um at least in terms of its official hierarchy. Um it's going to remain unionist uh really until the fall of Constantinople.
Um so I think few people realize that that the the union actually did last in some places. Um you also have um I believe it's either the Patriarch of Antioch or Alexandria. I know this is a little disputed. There is a letter from one of those two Patriarchs, where he is fully ratifying the Council of Florence and fully accepting it. I think people criticize it because we only have the Latin version of this letter. Um and so yeah, I want to say it's like I don't have my article in front of me, but if you go to my article, I talk about it.
Um Yeah, so like there's some people who dispute the authenticity of that. And like for me as someone who is not a scholar of that time period, you know, like when people start claiming this is a forgery, this is not like I, you know, I'm not a scholar. Like I can't adjudicate those kinds of of claims in a definitive way. I can only tell you what other people are saying really.
Um so but we do have that that there does at least appear to be a case that the Patriarch uh once again, I think it's Antioch. Um but I I forget which one exactly Antioch or Alexandria who signs off on it. Um and of course it's also worth noting that all of the legates at the Council Florence sign off on this and we don't have a clear repudiation of it um for at least several decades if not centuries.
Um so that's quite significant because at the Ecumenical Councils right the legates like as long as they're not like explicitly and immediately contradicted by their hierarchs um they can speak on behalf of their patriarchs and all of the apostolic legates sign off on the Council Florence and then of course you have like the like something like crazy like the 500 cath- western bishops and like 200 eastern bishops from all over you know the empire all unanimously signing off on it and famously you only have two people present at the Council of Florence who do not sign off on it. So that is actually out of all the Ecumenical Councils that had happened before that is the most unanimous Ecumenical Council in church history um in terms of the actual participants who were there signing off on it. Um you really did not have a more unanimous Council than that certainly not one at which you had so many representatives of all the major apostolic sees including Constantinople Rome Alexandria uh Antioch right obviously.
Yeah and I I think there there is also this claim that Mark of Ephesus represented one of the apostolic sees and so his signature his refusal to sign the Council um somehow nullifies it. I don't believe once again I have to look more in into the exact nature of it but I I've I've looked into it several times and the history's a little complicated because who exactly Mark is representing gets changed numerous times throughout the Council and I believe in the end he is a co-representative of Alexandria with another bishop who does [clears throat] sign off on the Council. Um so he is not the sole legate of an apostolic see in the end.
Um, and so him him not signing off the council is actually not as significant as some Orthodox make it out to be. Um, like there's a reason why the final bull of union is called Laetentur Caeli, let the heavens rejoice, right? Um, it it's actually interesting, uh, you know, that that first opening line of Laetentur Caeli, it says it's beautiful. I highly recommend everyone read it. It says, you know, let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad for the dividing wall which has stood between the Eastern and the Western Church today has been torn down. Um, that is actually paraphrased from a letter that St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote to John of Antioch following the Council of Ephesus because I mentioned how there was a split between the Alexandrian and the Antiochene parties after the Council of Ephesus.
Um, they eventually reunited and that is how St. Cyril of Alexandria, uh, begins his letter of reunion to John of Antioch is with that line, Laetentur Caeli.
Obviously he's not writing in Latin, that would be the that's the the psalm the psalm line, Laetentur Caeli. Let the heavens rejoice. So clearly, um, given the atmosphere, uh, both before and after the council, nobody thought the council was a failure, right? Nobody. Um, all the people reflecting on the council were like, this is an ecumenical council, we definitively we succeeded, like it was successful. Let the heavens rejoice, we ended the Great Schism. That was everybody's mindset at the council.
Um, so this idea that like because Mark of Ephesus and uh, I think it was what Isaiah Seropoulos who didn't sign off on the council that somehow that made the council fail. Apparently, the people who were at the council did not get that memo, right? Both the Greeks and the Latins were all like, we succeeded, this is an ecumenical council, and they immediately started using that argument against Mark of Ephesus and the anti-unionists, right? One of Mark of Ephesus's opponents, you know, basically just straight out straight up said like, hey Mark, um, the the opponents of ecumenical councils have no other name besides that of heretic. And so that's why you need to submit to this. And in fact, the reason why Florence is like the most ecumenical of all the ecumenical councils in uh the medieval era, um that was not by accident. The emperor very intentionally did that because he wanted to make it so obviously ecumenical that nobody could like seriously oppose it. And before the council started, Mark of Ephesus himself agreed that that that all of the criteria for an ecumenical council had been met by well by the the delegates who were there at Florence. He cited the emperor being there, the Pope of Rome being there, all the things I just said as to why it's it was the Council of Florence was ecumenical. Before the council, Mark of Ephesus agreed that for those same reasons that this council, when it reached a decision, would in fact be ecumenical. Uh you even see um Gennadius Scholarius, who later becomes an anti-unionist, he says the exact same thing um in the time leading up to the official declaration of the council. He uh he literally says like um you know, I'm going to submit myself to whatever this council decides because it is surely ecumenical, right? This is like several months or maybe like a year or so before like the Tent of Jilly gets officially promulgated. Um this is Gennadius Scholarius. And he does sign off on it. So Gennadius Scholarius is a unionist at first, but he unfortunately recants the union later.
Um so so it's like could arguments be made, you know, about like the uh the Slavic delegations that maybe leave the council. I haven't looked into those claims that extensively, but I know there's a lot of Orthodox who claim like, "Oh, there were like representatives of like the Georgian patriarchate or like these like random patriarchates who had like just been formed.
Um you know, they like left the council or whatever, so therefore it's not ecumenical." Um you know, I don't see, and once again, this is where I have to plead ignorance because, you know, there's a lot of material out there that's not translated that I haven't seen, so maybe people are aware of things that I'm not. This is why I'm cautious.
Um but as far as I'm aware, you don't have like anti-unionists making those kinds of arguments of saying like, "Well, you know, what about these bishops who didn't sign off on it, etc." Like the argument largely just seems to be that well, it doesn't matter how many bishops signed off on it because it taught heresy, therefore it can't possibly be ecumenical. But that largely seems to be Mark of Ephesus's argument after the council. Also, that like they the bishops who signed off on it, they were bribed, they were coerced, which is not true. In fact, Mark of Ephesus received the exact same compensation that the other bishops there received for their travels, right?
So, those seem to be the kinds of claims that contemporaries with council are making who are opposing it. Is that like the bishops were coerced, they were bribed, or just like the council was heretical, but nobody seems to be making like these niche arguments about like, "Well, technically it doesn't meet the Orthodox definition of an ecumenical council because such and such patriarch wasn't represented or or whatever."
That just doesn't seem to be to be the case.
So, so once again, I do hold that the Council of Florence is ecumenical by Eastern Orthodox standards.
But of course, the Orthodox don't have super consistent um definition of what it means to be an ecumenical council, so not all Orthodox are going to like take that argument the same way. At the end of the day, you know, I think this does get back to questions about what role does the Pope of Rome have in confirming ecumenical councils.
And I think we could really make that argument stronger if we show like, "An ecumenical council was approved by the Pope of Rome and the bishops in union with him. And the Pope of Rome and the bishops in union with him approved the Council of Florence, therefore Florence is ecumenical." Something like that. I think might go a longer way, but that then has more to do with like papal apologetics and stuff like that. So, hopefully that kind of answers that question. Once again, check out my article on my blog on my Substack about the Council of Florence for more kind of of the primary or secondary sources on that.
Okay, let's see.
Dương, glad you're here.
Dương is an excellent Catholic apologist. I recommend everyone go check out his channel. His His video, Dương's video on the Filioque, um I think is one of the best out there. I remember I watched it when I was Orthodox and it was very very persuasive to me and uh it really got me um got me thinking. Um it was uncomfortable, but it uh it got me thinking. So, I highly recommend everyone check him out. And Dương asks, "Who is your favorite theologian to read?"
Ooh.
This is a great question. I My favorite theologian to read.
The thing is like I don't I don't find myself like reading cuz I know I have so many books that I try to read through that I find myself like reading through many many different authors and like only rarely do I find myself reading the same author like twice within like, you know, uh within like a memorable amount of time.
Um but one theologian who I have done that with uh in the somewhat recent past is Father Thomas Joseph White, who is a Dominican theologian. I believe he's he's at some high position at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas um in Rome, the Angelicum.
I think he's like the I don't know the official title, but he's like the head guy there.
Um his the two two books of his that I I recently read, um I forget the the title of the one, but it was about like Christian spirituality and about like the crucified Christ and how spirituality is about conforming oneself to the crucified Christ. Um and it it's like a really good like introductory book to like just the sacraments and the thought of St. Thomas about the sacraments and the spiritual life and stuff like that. Um, and then he also he wrote a series of books called like an introduction to the Christian faith or something to that effect. And I read the second volume in that series, which is like on like the rational the rationality of the Christian faith.
Um, and that book was just really mind-blowing. Like just some really fascinating arguments for the existence of God, the existence of an intelligent governance of the universe, um, that I had either never heard before or never heard quite formulated like that.
Um, and then he he ends the section with like a beautiful philosophical kind of not necessarily like demonstrative proof argument, but kind of like a showing the fittingness and rationality of the beatific vision.
Um, and in fact he goes into like how according to St. Thomas Aquinas like the Catholic doctrine of the beatific vision is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the truthfulness of the Catholic faith because of how, um, you know, congruent our understanding of the beatific vision is with what natural reason can know about God.
Um, and like the fact that that is revealed in the person of Christ um, and that the Catholic doctrine of the beatific vision is quite unique, at least in its fully developed form to Catholic theology and just because of how congruent it is with natural reason.
Um, at least in St. Thomas's mind it is one of the strongest proofs of Catholicism is our doctrine of the beatific vision. And so Father Thomas or yeah, Father Thomas Joseph White, I think just beautifully outlines that. I actually really want to like reread that book and like really carefully go through it, you know, with like pen in hand and stuff like that cuz I kind of like read through it um, the first time and I wasn't like taking copious notes and stuff like that.
Um, but just like I've I don't know, he's just such a brilliant thinker. He just has like a command over scripture and St. Thomas Aquinas and the fathers that I just like haven't seen in a lot of other modern Catholic theologians.
I'm not saying they're not out there, right? I just probably haven't read them.
But definitely Father Thomas Joseph White, also Father Dominic Legge, who's another Dominican. He wrote a book called The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is just like that book was mind-blowing to me. Like it's another book like I have to reread it cuz like it was so like shocking to me just like how the divine processions within the Trinity like explain everything in the order of grace just so beautifully. And Duong, I know you've done you've done some some work on this yourself. So everyone should check out Duong's videos about the Trinity cuz he he he touches on this.
But I like Father Dominic Legge was the first person who really like exposed me to that way of thinking about like how grace itself I I can't even like do it justice by just like recalling off the top of my head. I once again, it's a book I have to return to and study again. But just like it made me fall even more in love with Catholic theology.
Um So so yeah, Father Thomas Joseph White, Father Dominic Legge, and then right now I'm also I'm going through The Mysteries of Christianity by Father Matthias Joseph Scheeben.
I'm at the very beginning of it so I can't say too much, but like it's you know, it's very profound. Like it's it's incredibly incredibly beautiful. Um so so there's so many great Catholic theologians out there. I I could probably name many other ones.
Um But and then of course, I mean if we're just talking like in general like in the history of the church, favorite theologians, obviously St. Thomas Aquinas. I mean he's the reason I converted to the Catholic faith. Um and even when I was Orthodox, I would consult the writings of St. Thomas before I like held to any particular theological view. Um and he's just I mean he's the Angelic Doctor. Like what can you say? I mean besides besides the Blessed Virgin Mary, it's hard to decide whether there has been, you know, a greater theologian in the post-apostolic age um than Saint Thomas Aquinas. Um you know, obviously you have Saint Augustine, uh my own patron saint, Saint John Damascus. I've benefited a lot from his his writings. Um also Saint Therese of Lisieux, who obviously is a doctor of the I think she's one of the female doctors of the church, correct me if I'm wrong.
Um you know, maybe a little bit different, but I think definitely a lot of interesting like theology told told like Thomistic theology almost like in the you know, to use like a musical analogy, like in the the octave of the range of you know, spirituality and stuff like that. Um so I'm sure there's many more that I could think of that aren't coming off the top of my head, but gives you a good idea of kind of like the things that I I enjoy enjoy reading. So, um yeah, good question. Thanks for asking.
Let's see.
Have I ever received any good responses to my papacy article? Um nothing official.
Like I haven't As far as I'm aware, I've not seen anyone you know, write like a formal like article reply to it or a video reply to it. Um I did have Craig Truglia left like a number of comments on it, but they included just copious amounts of personal insults, so I ended up just removing those comments because I you know, my first of all, my my Substack is not a platform for heretics, so I don't give heretics a platform really on my on my Substack unless I think like they're acting in good faith and genuinely inquiring. And so if you come out guns a blazing just insulting me, I am probably just going to remove your comment, which is unfortunate cuz maybe you have a good substan substantive thing to say, um but if you say it in the wrong way, it's it's not going to go anywhere and you'll have wasted all that time writing it. Um, so it just goes to show you how important the way we say things um, are very important even with people that we disagree with. And of course Craig Truglia, I think he has a personal um, personal axe to grind with me because I was kind of in his circle and he would he was promoting my work before I became Catholic and I think he was very personally offended by my conversion and so he's been very keen on trying to attack me personally rather than my arguments. Uh, however, in terms of the actual arguments themselves, I did a live stream with Eric Ybarra and Elijah Yasi on Suan Sonus' channel a number of months ago at this point um, in response to a video that Sye from Hamilton made about like why he thinks Orthodoxy is true rather than um, Catholicism.
And we touched on like a number of subjects that I bring up in the article.
Um, and Craig Truglia did do a response video to that and we were planning on doing a response to that, but that kind of fell through the cracks just because of a variety of things that were going on in all of our lives. We might still do that at some point. Of course obviously I I I watched through it um, and I don't think Craig's arguments are terrible, you know, unlike him I'm not going to engage in personal insults. I think he's actually he's a very creative thinker um, and I I actually really appreciate that about him. And so I actually do think his arguments are worth engaging. I don't find them very persuasive at the end of the day, you know, cuz he relies very heavily on like the empty honorifics argument that like all these things that are being said about the Pope are just kind of like empty honorifics or at least um, they can be understood that way. Um, and I just don't think that's I I just don't I am personally not persuaded by that line of argumentation um, and I think his creativity is both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness because you know, when you're very creative and stuff, you tend have a tendency to overlook certain things to support a narrative you're trying to creatively construct And I think he unfortunately falls into that a lot.
Um so so Craig Truglia, he did that response video. Also, um Father Patrick Ramsey's.
Um he So I I turned one section of that article into a video on my channel about uh you know, the Vatican one being in the Bible.
>> [snorts] >> And Father Patrick Ramsey's did like a very lengthy reply to that video.
Um and I left some very lengthy replies in the comment section. So we did have like a good back and forth.
Um and at the end of the day like I just did not find his arguments persuasive. You know, he was trying to argue a variety of things like actually saying like well, the the apostles aren't actually bishops. Like he was he was going down all these routes that I knew that as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I was not comfortable going down those routes. Um and I think most people who are very serious about this discourse wouldn't be comfortable going down those routes.
Um but feel free yeah, check out his uh response to me on YouTube and read our interactions in the comment section. And I think uh you can judge for yourself how successful you think those arguments are. I didn't find them very successful.
I appreciated the engagement though. Um but as far as I'm aware, those are like Craig Truglia, Father Patrick Ramsey's are the only two people who I think have really um tried to engage with the arguments.
Um and like I said, I did not find them very very persuasive. But can leave that up to you to decide. Um but yeah, obviously I I welcome any more critique.
So if there's any Orthodox people listening who you know, really want to challenge my view of papacy, I I would actually very much welcome it. I I I spent a lot of time working on that article. It kind of was like the summary of like everything I had been thinking about the papacy that led to my conversion.
Um and so I would I would be I would actually very much enjoy more interaction on that article because I think the subjects that I bring up, um I think they're all the relevant subjects related to the papacy. Obviously, I'm a little biased cuz I wrote it. Um but I do think those are the subjects that we ought to be talking about in this discussion of the papacy. Um so so yeah.
Just some water.
>> [clears throat] >> Okay, let's see what we got here.
What do you think of Tridentine doctrines in Augustine?
Um I guess this is this question kind of a broad question um because obviously there's a lot of, you know, different things that could be said about this like are are we talking about Augustine's doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass and, you know, or purgatory and like how that relates to Trent and justification, predestination, and grace, how that relates to Trent's decrees, um or perhaps just all of that. Like there's there's a lot that could be talked about here and I and I must say like it's not uh the doctrines of grace and justification, those really are not my areas of expertise. Um you know, I very much defer to others who have done a lot more research on that area than I have.
Um especially in Augustine.
Um you know, I just I have not It's it's not a subject that interest interested me that much um as I was becoming Catholic, you know, I mean it's like obviously you can't become Catholic without, you know, debating certain Protestants about justification and all that. But like when I was Orthodox and before I became Catholic, um I made a lot of really good like reformed friends and I realized at the end of the day I'm like it seems like the Catholics and at least like the reformed are really kind of just saying the same things in like different ways, which I know is kind of like the most normie take ever.
But, I really think that's true. Like, I actually don't think there's a whole lot of like substantive or like meaningful I don't want to say there's I don't want to say there's no difference between like the Catholic and Reformed views of justification. But, like I don't think it I don't see why it has to rise to like the level of seriousness that it has historically risen to. I honestly think that the more uh like serious practical disagreements between like, you know, like Catholics and at least like Reformed. Not talking Not talking about Lutherans, by the way. That's a different story.
Um but, like Reformed in particular um has to do with like the sacrament of confession and whether or not you actually to what degree you need sacramental like the priestly um mediation of sacramental grace um in order to be restored from a state of mortal sin to a state of grace. Um like that actually seems to be like in my own discussions with like Reformed Protestants in my life, that seems to be more like the crux of the issue is like around like apostolic succession and the sacraments. And in that sense, Augustine in his understanding of like mortal venial sin and like the relation of the sacraments to those is one is definitely in line with Catholicism and not Protestantism. Right? Like Augustine, like St. Thomas later, um definitely has that view of like to go from a state of not justified to justified, you need a sacrament, right?
Like for those who are unbaptized, you need baptism. For those who are baptized, you need confession and absolution. Right? Like there's no other way to do that because we cannot of our own merit, right? We can't like get ourselves from that state of mortal sin or not being justified to justified. We need an outpouring of extraordinary divine grace into our souls to do that, and that ordinarily only happens through the sacraments.
Um So, I think doctrines like that are very clearly present in Augustine and obviously at the Council of Trent. Um Augustine's doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass, I don't see really much difference with it and the Council of Trent. Like I know all most people focus on the doctrine of like transubstantiation and like the mode in which Christ is present in the Eucharist and they like focus all around that and they say like, "Oh, what about these early fathers who say that like the bread is still present? And like what about consubstantiation?" All this.
And I think that's like that I don't want to say secondary, but that's like like the first thing we need to tackle is it what is the Eucharist?
Is it a propitiatory sacrifice or not?
And then from there, depending on how we answer that question, that then is going to determine how we answer the question of the mode of Christ's presence in the sacrament. Right? Because if the sacrament is a propitiatory sacrifice, the one sacrifice of Christ and all these things, it better not be anything other than Christ. Right? Like because if that is the one sacrifice of Christ, if there's anything in addition to that, like bread and wine for example, that means you're adding to the sacrifice of Christ.
Right? Straight up. And so like that's why that the crux of the debate has to be about what actually is the Eucharist in terms of its action.
Right? Is it the one sacrifice of Christ or not? And then all questions about like the mode of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist are secondary to that.
And so when it comes to like Augustine and really all the early church fathers, they're all going to say that it is the one sacrifice of Christ. That literally what Christ offered on the sacri- on the cross is what the priest is offering at Holy Mass. And that this is a propitiatory sacrifice for both the living and the dead. Right? And I believe even like Calvin was aware that the early fathers taught this and he just said that they were wrong. Right?
So it's like at least that honesty um is good. But uh but yeah, so like when it comes to doctrine of transubstantiation, um I think that is present in Augustine um in so far as he teaches the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass.
Um So there's that. Uh what else do we got?
Predestination. I'm actually a little bit less uh like the early modern like late medieval early modern to like modern Catholic teaching on predestination. I'm like a little less uh I haven't researched a ton about that. Um but at least as far as I know like Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas are like in lockstep on predestination and grace and that kind of stuff and Trent I'm pretty sure is like in lockstep with them. So I'm I I don't think and I think even like the reformed would say there's really not a whole lot to quibble about with what Trent decrees about like predestination and stuff like that. Um because the condemnations of Calvinism seem to be like care like you know like certain extreme [clears throat] versions of it that most of your intelligent reformed people today don't hold to.
Um so I think you got that going on.
Um obviously yeah things like the other sacraments like uh marriage being a sacrament I think is defensible in St. Augustine's and stuff like that. The absolute prohibition on remarriage after divorce obviously I just did a live stream on that. That's uh present in Augustine as well as at the Council of Trent. Um So so yeah really like I'm not saying that Trent like dogmatizes everything that Augustine ever taught. Um but certainly Augustine is a lot closer to the Council of Trent than he is to any like modern reformed confessions of faith um in substance I would say. And even his understanding of like church authority and stuff like Augustine would defer to the church as a genuine rule of faith um as opposed to just you know like a an assistance in discovering the rule of faith or something like that.
But the the teachings of the church are actually authoritative and determinative for matters of doctrine. Um and of course Augustine also held to the Deuterocanon um famously against St. Jerome. So uh on that all those points yeah uh Augustine Augustine I think he would have said yes and amen to the Council of Trent not simply because he agreed with it theologically but because he would have submitted to to authority that promulgated it. That's first and foremost.
Um so, hopefully that's kind of what you were you were asking, but those are those are some of my thoughts on Augustine's relation to the Council of Trent.
Have you looked into Haec Sancta? Yes, I have. Um so, for those who don't know, Haec Sancta is the infamous dogmatic I think it's isn't the dogmatic constitution? Uh it's like one of the official It's one of the like central documents that's promulgated by the Council of Constance in the 15th century.
Um so, the Council of Constance, right?
This is during the time of the Great Western Schism. You have the three Popes controversy.
Um and it's just a total mess. You know, you have three three men claiming to be Popes.
Um there's not it's not clear who's actually the Pope. Like there are actually like saints on all sides who disagree. Like St. Vincent Ferrer, for example, I believe followed an anti-pope. Um and yet he was still like an extraordinary saint, performed great miracles, and stuff like that. Um so, it was a very confusing time even for very holy and learned men.
And the church in this extraordinary case was like, "We need to figure this out. Like we need to get this hammered out." Which I think let me just back up here and just say like in terms of like God's providence over the Catholic Church, the fact that actually the Haec like the the Great Western Schism got like resolved and that we don't just have three claimants to the Pope even to the to the papacy even to this day. Like I think that's actually quite an extraordinary sign of divine providence because it's not obvious from history that that would have happened. Like there have been lots of splinters and schisms and stuff throughout the history of the church and just like mankind and nations and politics in general. And so, the fact that like the church actually did come to a resolution that everyone agreed on and we still only have one successor to the papacy to this day. Um like truly I mean, I know people say like, "What about the Palmarians?" Like or like Pope Michael II. Like you know, I'm I'm not talking about like unserious things like that.
Um I think that's actually quite a testament to uh like divine providence and like like God's preservation of the papacy just because of like how influential of an institution it has been for so much of, you know, the the past 2,000 years, almost 2,000 years.
Um it's quite a testament to divine providence that we still only just have like one claimant, one legitimate claimant to the papacy, um even after things like the Great Western Schism. Um so, but that's obviously not getting to the heart of your question quite yet.
I'll take a sip of water.
So, Haec Sancta is the decree that the Council of Constance comes up with to try and like both not simply resolve the Great Western Schism, but also to try and ensure that something like it does not happen again.
And there's a way of reading Haec Sancta that can that can seem like it's declaring the superiority of an ecumenical council over the Pope. Um basically saying that like even the Popes have to um submit to the authority of ecumenical councils.
And it was also saying that there it was decreeing that there has to be a council like every like five or 10 years or something like that from that point onwards to ensure that something like this does not happen again. Um it's a very controversial decree.
Um and obviously part of that process you had two of the antipopes being deposed by the council, so-called deposed by the council. And then you have one of the one of the Popes, the the one that Rome to this day I believe is going to call the legitimate pontiff. I believe it was um Gregory, I think. I forget I forget all the claimants.
Um but he abdicates uh the papal throne. And then the uh next pontiff who gets elected at the Council of Constance, I believe is Martin V. And Martin V signs off on the Council of Constance. And specifically, he notes he signs off on all those things that were decided in a conciliar manner.
And so, there are some people who argue that Haec sancta wasn't decided in a conciliar manner, that Martin V wasn't actually signing off on this.
I'm not too sure about that. Personally, I think there are ways of reading Haec sancta that are in line with like the tradition. Cuz I mean, if you think if you think about this, a pope has to listen to the decrees of an ecumenical council. What is it that makes a council ecumenical?
Right? It's a pope being there. So, it's like it's literally saying that the pope has to listen to his own decrees. Like the pope a council is can't be like this is one of the paradoxes of conciliarism.
It's like you want to say an ecumenical council is superior to a pope, and yet there can't be an ecumenical council without the pope. So, it's like you can't So, if you had a situation where you had like a council of like all these bishops that were like rising up against the pope, that council wouldn't be ecumenical because it wouldn't have the cooperation of the pope. So, this is like one of the intrinsic like problems with conciliarism just from like a logical perspective.
Um so, I don't have that the decree Haec sancta like very fresh in my memory.
Um but I know that like, you know, there's people who talk about Martin V doesn't really fully sign off on it, um or at least he qualifies his accept- his acceptance of the council. And then, of course, his successor, um Eugene IV, who calls the Council of Florence, he obviously is very clearly a papalist. Um he also uh approves of the Council of Constance. I don't believe Haec sancta ever gets condemned. Um someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe even someone like Eugene IV, I don't think he condemns Haec sancta um per se.
But, yeah, it's definitely an interesting period in church history. I don't think it's falsifying. I don't think it's like the worst thing in the world.
Um it's definitely a unique case of uh church history, though.
And uh maybe at some point in the future I'll I'll like write up an article about it cuz I've had like I said it's not super fresh in my mind but I have done like a number of deep dives on Haec sancta Constans um at various points in my journey to Catholicism.
Um Someone's saying Pius II accepts Haec sancta. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are a number of Popes who accept it. Um and I think there are ways of reading it that don't have to be conciliar. Um but it certainly shows that like having controversial doctrinal decrees coming out of an ecumenical council is not something unique to Vatican II or the modern era. Like you have it going back even to the Middle Ages. So we have like precedent for this.
Um so I think that's important to keep in mind. And also like you don't have to have an intellectually like rigorous solution to every problem that someone might throw at you. You know, cuz I remember like when I was like before I was becoming Catholic like the whole conciliarist thing um was like weighing very heavy on my conscience. I'm like, "Oh, I should really figure out all this medieval debate and stuff before I like really become Catholic." Like but it's like at the end of the day if you're convinced that the Church is a divine legate um you know, like you you just need to have that faith and that trust in God that he has preserved his Church from error.
Like you can't be obsessing over every little thing. Otherwise, you're not really exercising faith, right? You're just trusting in your own reasoning abilities.
Um and of course we need reason to identify who is actually speaking on behalf of God in such things as this. Um but like once we make that identification, we have to have some form of trust and so we can't like be approaching these issues anxiously or something like that. Um so I'd recommend checking out the work of Daniel Castellano. He runs a website called Arcane Knowledge. Uh see what he has to say about the Council of Constance and Haec sancta and such things as that. Um he has some interesting things to say.
So, check that out.
Let's see.
Do you know if the Eastern Orthodox have a stance on the validity of Anglican orders.
So, you know, saying what is the official Orthodox stance on anything is a little tricky because they can't really agree on on that, right? That's one That's one of the problems is like they can't really agree.
Um I I do know I've heard I haven't looked extensively into this, but I've heard that there were like agreements between various Orthodox patriarchs at in the early 20th century and different Anglican groups I mean and even Old Catholic groups that like call themselves like Anglican Orthodox something Old Catholic.
Um and there was like a mutual recognition of orders and like there's like these signed letters from various uh Eastern patriarchs recognizing this cuz something that a lot of people don't remember is that the ecumenical movement um hit the Orthodox Church before it hit the Catholic Church.
Um so like the the Orthodox Church was kind of experiencing an ecumenical movement in like the 1920s and '30s. Um like in places like Greece. Um I mean this is why you have like the Old Calendarist like, you know, like the Orthodox version of Sedevacantist starting in like the 1920s and '30s. Um and then it's like actually a lot of that that goes on in the Orthodox world is what's going to end up influencing the Catholic world and especially with Vatican II and all those things. Um and so it's not that unlikely that you had Orthodox patriarchs in the early 20th century who were fully accepting the validity of Anglican orders. Once again, I'm not I have I have not looked into that fully, um but I do believe there's even like some pictures of like Orthodox bishops and Anglican bishops like together. Um and there's kind of like that mutual recognition. But as far as I know like the Orthodox do not have anything like Apostolicae Curae like Leo the 13th declaring Anglican orders null and void.
Um I think it really it really goes back for them like they can't even agree whether or not Catholic orders are valid. Like in the Russian Orthodox Church, they fully accept if a Catholic priest became an Orthodox priest, they would the only way they would receive him is by vesting.
Right? So, they would actually recognize his orders as being legitimate.
Um however, if that same Catholic priest were to go to Mount Athos, he would probably be treated as a catechumen and like be rebaptized and all that stuff.
Um so, there's really there's no consistency in the Orthodox world about whether or not, you know, like there even are valid sacraments outside of the Orthodox Church. Um you know, even like baptism, they're not like fully unified on whether or not there's baptism outside the church or confirmation outside the church. This is another interesting divergence between the East and the West is in the Catholic Church, like I did not have to get reconfirmed when I became Catholic.
However, if you know, if you were if you're Catholic and you become Eastern Orthodox, like they will reconfirm you. Like they will readminister the sacrament of confirmation on you even if they believe it was a legitimate valid sacrament. Um so, they believe that the the sacrament of confirmation can be repeated several times, which is something the Catholic Church teaches um in fact cannot be done.
Um so, I think that's interesting but it's not really talked about a lot. Um but like the fact that you know, it is one of the sacraments of initiation, um the idea that it can be repeated multiple times to me is just it it always was very very strange or confusing. Um so, maybe an Orthodox theologian can explain that better.
Um but but yeah, that that that's what all those factors are what makes answering this question particularly difficult um is that there really is no Orthodox consensus on on these things.
So.
Let's see.
Also, is everyone else experiencing that the the super chat function is not working? Um cuz if so, I apologize for that. I will have to figure out what to do about that for future live streams. But if you want to support me financially, and you want to support my um research into the First Vatican Council and the presentation that we'll be doing on it in hopefully in Rome this September, uh feel free to go to my Substack, and you can you can just subscribe for like 1 month if you want to give me like five bucks or something like that.
Um you know, it would just every every every amount would help just because, yeah, books cost money, research costs money, airplane tickets cost money. Um so, I would really appreciate that. So, um yeah.
By the second ecumenical council, interesting.
Let's see.
Kind of a normie question, but do you think Catholicism has an appeal in a certain sense compared to Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, that we don't just have the Latin Rite, but we have 23 others, too? Yes, in fact, I was actually I was just having um lunch with um some inquirers into the Catholic faith uh yesterday, and we actually had a lengthy discussion about this.
Um I think you definitely get the sense that the Catholic Church cares the most about Christian unity out of any other ecclesial body.
Um and the fact that we have 23 other rites is a testament to our willingness to put our money where our mouth is on all of our talk about desiring unity.
Um cuz I mean, even like going into like the 19th century, like the Eastern bishop and like even or sorry, even going back into like the medieval era, like with the Council of Lyon, the Council of Florence, it's always the West taking all these initiatives to try and reunite with the Eastern churches. Like, and one can criticize the ways that they did that, you know, like maybe the Jesuits who were going to like Ethiopia and stuff, maybe they weren't always engaged in the best practices, but there was certainly always an earnestness on behalf of the Western Church to reunite with the Eastern Church that was never really fully reciprocated. And I really do think it's because of the theology of the papacy that develops, where the Pope really does see himself as like the father of all Christendom, that he just has more of that desire to see all of his children gathered together in one place. And this has just been true of like all of, you know, like late medieval, early modern into the modern era Catholic history. Like when Pope St. John Paul II writes Ut Unum Sint to the Eastern Churches, like I don't think that's I don't read that as a power move. Like that really just seems like a genuine like we are in distress over the fact that there is this division between us and we want reunion.
Um and like even like going back to like Leo the XIII, uh Pius IX, who write write letters to the Eastern bishops to try and reunite with them. Like there's just always been this desire on behalf of Rome to reunite with the Eastern Churches. And it really I don't read that as just like a power move after power move. Um like even to this day the fact that the Catholic Church gives as much attention to the Orthodox as as they as like she does is quite striking. Cuz I mean the Orthodox compared to like say like the world Muslim population, the world Orthodox population is pretty like small. Right? Um even compared to like, you know, different like Protestant groups throughout the world. Like if if the Catholic Church like was prioritizing her ecumenical dialogue simply in terms of like who has the most like cultural clout and influence, she would not be giving as prominent a place to the Eastern Orthodox as she does.
Like the reason that the Orthodox have the seat at the table that they do is because of the Catholic Church's genuine care and desire for union with them.
Um and like the fact that we have 23 other rites and that we're the only church in fact that has that, that we're like the only church that has actually been successful in causing like reunions um at like a massive scale and like you know, at like a hierarchically relevant scale. Like I'm not talking about like, you know, the Orthodox have like their Western rites and like these like offshoots of the Anglicans who wanted to become Orthodox. Like that's not the same thing as having like the entire Patriarchate of Antioch come back into communion with Rome, which is in fact what happened in century with the election of Patriarch Cyril VI and the creation of the Melkite Catholic Church.
Um that has never happened in the opposite direction, right? Like you have never had like an entire like at least as far as I'm aware, like an entire hierarchy uh like an entire patriarchate that was like Catholic like joined like the Orthodox Church or something like that. It's always been the other way around. It's always been the Eastern Churches coming back into union with Rome, um which I do think certainly from like the normie Catholic perspective, someone who isn't like as in all the scholarly sources, like you just look at that and you're like yeah, that's kind of what I would expect of Christ's Church. Like it's not like a demonstrative proof, but it certainly is a good fruit that comes out of the Catholic Church, the fact that she has that ability to reunite um that other churches just don't. Cuz I mean like even just thinking about what would it mean for like the Catholic Church for Rome to like submit to the Orthodox Churches? It would mean repudiating the doctrine of the Filioque, a doctrine that she is like you pretty universally taught in the West since like the 4th century. Same with like her understanding of the papacy, like that idea like goes back to like the Ecumenical Councils and the early Church Fathers, uh like you know, and like having to repudiate like her greatest like doctors and theologians of all time, like those are the things that the East would demand of the West in order to come back into union. Whereas like for the East to come back into communion with the West, all we have to do is say like, "Hey, just like do what you were doing in the first morning, which is like listen to Rome.
Like we can have like a different theological approaches, right? But like you guys agreed to the papacy, you agreed to the Filioque, like like the the the the West always respected the customs of the East, you know, like the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist, you know, different fasting practices. The West always respected those practices. It was always the East telling the West that they needed to change, even when the West had never done things that way. Like the East would always criticize the West for their for her fasting practices, like you don't fast correctly during Lent, you fast on Saturdays.
Um Um, though the West had like pretty much always done those things or at least always, you know, done them at in the same way that the East had always done the things that they're doing. So, like there's always just been this attitude, which I'm not saying by the way that the West like never had its polemical moments against the East, that we never messed up, never made any mistakes, it's always been one way. But, there is just like that sense you get like even at the Council of Florence where like the Western bishops are like, "We can work with both the Eastern and the Western traditions and we can bring them together in the Catholic Church, but that really can't happen the other way." Like if it were to happen the other way, that would just mean condemning the entire Western tradition.
Right. Um, so hopefully that makes sense, but I certainly think that you're you're correct that um, Catholicism has an appeal because of its ability to unify uh, these seemingly divergent theological traditions and the Eastern Orthodox simply do not have the ability to do that in a coherent way. So, yes.
How has Seraphim Hamilton affected the way you read scripture? Seraphim has affected me a lot. I really got to do a separate video on this. Like, not In my opinion, not enough people know who Seraphim Hamilton is. I I have been reading and following Seraphim Hamilton. So, for those who don't know, Seraphim Hamilton is an Eastern Orthodox theologian.
Um, he has various degrees from various universities. I believe he's currently um, at seminary, which is why he's not as active on his social media as he once was.
In my mind, he is one of the most brilliant theological minds of the 21st century. Um, certainly in the realm of biblical theology. I put him up there with men like James Jordan and Peter Leithart. Um, you know, I I think the way he reads scripture just blew me away. So, I I discovered his work back when I was in college. Um, in fact, if someone asked me who my favorite theologian is, I I didn't think to mention Seraphim. I'd say he's definitely one of my favorite modern theologians.
Um he he was writing initially on Tumblr of all places. I think I read every single Tumblr post he ever made. And I don't think I'm exaggerating. Like I think I actually read everything he ever wrote on Tumblr. To the point where like I understood him so well, I could like anticipate the things he would the way he would answer different questions and stuff like that. Um and I don't even know how you describe It's hard to like describe the way he does theology. Basically, you know, to describe in broad terms, I mean, he does biblical theology the way the writers of the New Testament did biblical theology, right? Which is to read scripture as a unified whole, to genuinely see Christ in the Old Testament. Not just superficially, not just see like they like, "Oh, yeah, the New Testament authors they're like being very creative and they're reading Christ in places that actually he really isn't there." Um but to actually see that, no, he's really there. Like my my favorite example of this is the story of Joseph.
Right? Like Seraphim has a brilliant article called like the Messianic harvest of Joseph, where he points out just all these connections between Christ and Joseph that there's just too many. There's just too many um for it to be like coincidental. Like I mean, you have he's betrayed by his brothers for pieces of silver. Particularly, he's betrayed by his brother Judah or Judas for pieces of silver. He's thrown into a pit that has no water. Now, something Seraphim is going to do is he's going to look at a detail like that. Right? That That just gets like, "Oh, yeah, the pit has has no water." Like average people just read that and move on. Seraphim looks at that and he says, "Hold on a minute. What is the biblical theology of water in the book of Genesis?"
It's a question a lot of people don't even ask. But then you go back to like the Garden of Eden. You have the four rivers of Eden that are flowing out and watering the entire creation. Be like, and then you have in Genesis chapter 2 um as well, you have this reference to how no plant of the ground had yet sprouted forth because there was no man to water the ground. So, what is man's task? His task is to take the rivers of Eden, right, and spread them out to the entire world to give life to the entire world. And then you go throughout the Genesis narrative, where do men keep meeting their wives? They keep meeting them by wells. Wells of water. Why do they keep meeting their wives by wells?
It's because women are the givers of life. They bring new life into the world. They are right and obviously Eve herself, right, she is constructed and built from the side of Adam. She is a type of the garden itself, right? Adam is supposed to protect his bride the same way he's supposed to protect the garden. And so just as the garden is giving it has this life-giving water flowing out to the creation, Eve herself is going to have this life-giving water that's going to flow out into the creation which is mankind. Just populate mankind. Um and so men keep meeting their wives at wells because they're the givers of life and there's water. And so then you come to the Joseph story and he's thrown into a pit where there is no water.
There's no life. So, he's thrown into the pit of death. And then he is raised up out right out of the pit after being betrayed by his brother Judas, being thrown into the pit of death, being betrayed by uh pieces of silver, right, he's raised up out of the pit and he's exalted to reign over the nations at the age of 30. He's exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh as Christ is exalted to the right hand of God, right? And he's given dominion over the nations and he feeds the nations with bread.
Right? I mean, you see all of these connections between Christ and Joseph. Um and then this is I mean this is unique to Seraphim. Seraphim I think discovered this.
Um if you're familiar with Gematria, so this is in the in Hebrew there are numerical values assigned to um to all of the Hebrew letters.
Um and if you add up the numerical value of all of Genesis 1, which remember Genesis 1 goes into Genesis 2 verse 3.
That's where it ends because those details those chapter divisions were added later.
And you add it all together, the numerical value of all Genesis 1 the creation story is 110,601, right?
601 is the 110th prime number.
So you have 110,000 plus the 110th prime number. That's all of creation week.
Joseph, the climatic figure of Genesis, who succeeds where Adam failed, right?
Remember Adam abused the knowledge of good and evil. Joseph discerns the knowledge of good and evil. He says, "You meant it for evil, God meant it for good." That's the only other time in Genesis the words good and evil are used in close proximity to each other. It's in Joseph. Adam is naked in the garden, Joseph is fully clothed, right? He is and then he's also clearly a type of Christ, right? Joseph dies at the age of 110. He dies at the number associated with creation week to show that he is the climatic figure of the creation, right? And obviously as a type of Christ this means that Christ himself is the climax of creation, right? The incarnation of the son of God, his betrayal by his brother Judas, right? For pieces of silver, his being thrown down the pit of death, raised up from the pit of death, exalted to reign over the nations, feeding the nations with the Eucharistic bread from heaven, right? During the great famine that is coming over the world. All these things our Lord does as the new Adam, as the pinnacle of creation, right? And that is genuinely and authentically in the Genesis text because what does in Genesis 49 it say, the one of the first one of the like major Messianic prophecies in book of Genesis, right?
The about the scepter shall rise from Judah. It says that his brother shall bow down before him. The exact same language that's used of Joseph in his dream, that his brother shall bow down before him. So in Genesis itself we know that the Messiah is going to be like Jesus. And then we see Jesus actually reliving the life of Joseph in his own person. So, all of that to say, that is a way of reading scripture. That's just it gives you a little taste of like how Serafim Hamilton reads scripture.
Um and and that is why, you know, and so like being able to take that hermeneutic and then like run with it has been one of the greatest uh gifts to my own intellectual life as well as my spiritual life.
Um so, I highly recommend everyone check out the work of Serafim Hamilton.
Obviously, I don't agree with him on everything, especially related to like historical Catholic Orthodox issues, but in terms of his biblical theology, it is second to none in my opinion. Um so, highly recommend it.
Taking a sip of water here.
>> [clears throat] >> Last two questions. Be sure to subscribe and donate to your Substack. Thank you very much.
Question one. What do you think of the relation between the Pope and the emperor in the first millennium? How does this weigh in to the temporal power of the Pope? And then we have question two. Do you think that the Caesaro-papism in medieval Byzantium is a huge hit against Eastern Orthodoxy? Okay, great questions.
Um So, let's start with this first one here. What do I think is the relation between the Pope and the emperor in the first millennium? How does this weigh into the temporal power of the Pope? So, where do we start with this? Obviously, I think the the best place to start with this, right, is when do the emperors come into the picture of Christianity, right? This is largely under the reign of Emperor Saint Constantine, right? When you have the conversion of the empire. The first ever ecumenical council, right, is called by the Roman emperor, right?
Which is largely for practical reasons, you know, I mean, if you just think about it, the infant church, how would the infant church have been able to afford something like an ecumenical council? Like if you think about the logistics of an ecumenical council in the ancient world, um really only someone like the Roman Emperor could have even in principle done something like that. Um at that time, the church just does not have the resources um to do so. However, despite this, there's still a clearly a distinction between the powers of the emperor and the pope that gets respected from an early time.
There's a great book called Defending Constantine by Peter Lightheart, which I recommend everyone check out. Um but something that seems very clear to me is that like contrary to like the Dan Brown conspiracy nonsense, Constantine like he genuinely wants to settle the Arian crisis without like pontificating on his own. Like he is not there to like decide Christian doctrine. Like he very There's very much a recognition that like the bishops are the ones in charge of the spiritual sphere, and then he is the one in charge of the temporal sphere. And there's obviously a harmonious working together, right? He's using the temporal power to bring about this gathering of bishops, but he gives them total freedom to come to their own conclusions about what is to be done uh about and decided about the the divinity of Christ. Um and then this is a thing that they the Byzantine emperors are largely going to respect, right?
Even into the you know, it gets a little wishy-washy with like Justinian because then eventually this leads to the Byzantine emperors um enforcing the declarations of the ecumenical councils in their own um jurisdictions. And then of course when you get someone like Justinian where he is also a theologian, and he starts to have his own theological interests, um and he's like very much like running the show at the Fifth Ecumenical Council and stuff like that. Um to the point where he's like basically he kills Pope Vigilius, you know.
Um because Pope Vigilius refuses to sign off on the Fifth Council. So like you you You get a lot of tension between emperors and popes as you go throughout the first millennium history.
Um, but broadly there still does to be that there does still seem to be that respect of like the popes are in charge of the spiritual matters and the emperors are in charge of the temporal matters.
To the point where I mean that's you think about why did Justinian imprison Vigilius? It's because he recognized that, right? He recognized that if he wants to have legitimate claim to this like theological authority, he needs the pope's approval in order to do it, right? Um, so so there is a legitimate place for like the imperial officials in the life of the church.
Like you think about even like the liturgy in particular.
Um, it was largely like civil rulers who controlled certain liturgical practices that were happening in their jurisdictions. Like Charlemagne for instance, actually writes a letter to Pope Hadrian requesting a copy of the Gregorian Sacramentary so that he can influence his own liturgies with the Roman Rite, right? Because at that time in the Frankish kingdom you had the Gallican liturgies. And so Hadrian sends him the copy, right? So Hadrian clearly didn't have a problem with Charlemagne like making certain liturgical changes.
But of course when it came to like adding the Creed to the mass, no, not just the Filioque to the Creed, but the Creed to the mass, right? In imitation of what the Byzantine emperors were doing, because that's what Charlemagne wanted to do, he wanted to be like a new Roman emperor, that's when the pope opposed that, right? So the pope did have some say on what the Byzantine what the the imperial powers were doing. The imperial powers did not listen to him, but clearly already by like that's I believe Pope St. Leo the Second or Leo the Third who who writes that Charlemagne who's like you need to stop doing this. So clearly the popes believe they do have some control in the even in the temporal realm as it touches matters of worship, right? Because Pope Leo the Third, you know, he thought he he could tell Charlemagne what to do about his liturgy that was happening in his palace. He's like, "No, you need to do it this way."
And basically how this relates to the temporal authority of the Pope, um, basically the the temporal authority of the Pope is not in the same category as a spiritual authority, right? So, he receives spiritual authority over the entire church directly from Christ. And his temporal authority is in so far as he is the spiritual father of temporal rulers, right? So, temporal rulers, although they're at the height of temporal power, right? They are laymen in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and in that sense, the Pope is over them. And in so far as governing the temporal realm requires certain spiritual and moral principles, right? The Pope actually can weigh in on that, right?
So, matters of like just war theory, different civil codes. Think about even the practice of like marriage and divorce and remarriage. Divorce and remarriage was very common in the Roman Empire, in both the East and the West.
And the Popes of Rome always spoke out against this and condemned these, you know, civil laws as being unjust and immoral and calling emperors to change them.
The problem, of course, was that the Pope didn't have an army right? For most of his his history. So, like he only had he had to rely on his own like auctoritas, his own like a claim to authority to get people to listen to him.
But eventually, as we move into the Middle Ages, the Pope, you know, it's it's very it's a lot more clear the kind of authority that the Pope has. And the civil rulers start to feel threatened by this. So, you have the lay investiture controversy that happens under Pope St. Gregory VII, whose feast day is in two days, by the way.
Um And so, you basically have this attempt by civil rulers to like kind of like keep the church in check cuz they want to be the ones who actually own all like the properties and the churches and stuff like this. And by the way, I can't claim to be an expert on the lay investiture controversy.
It's an area I actually do want to do more research on it. but kind of my my normy understanding of it is that yeah, you had all these like political rulers who were trying to like appoint bishops who were favorable to their political policies, and the Pope really needed to establish he's like, "No, I am the ruler of the church, so I am the one who you know, needs to appoint bishops or settle these things, not these civil rulers." And civil rulers feel threatened by this, and so the Pope in order to have the true independence of the church, he needs to create a place where he can be not just you know, spiritually sovereign, but also temporarily sovereign, so that way his city isn't being invaded and the papacy isn't being controlled by all these civil rulers. So, that's kind of the where you get things like the Papal States and like the the temporal realm of the Pope, right? That's when the Pope becomes a temporal authority. It is for the protection of the church, right? So, it is for that the service of his role as a spiritual father of all of Christendom to ensure that the church remains independent from the state. And that kind of leads to your second question here about Caesaropapism in medieval Byzantium, because medieval Byzantium is a very clear example of what happens if the church doesn't do that. If the church does not gain political independence from the civil powers that surround it, the church is going to be subsumed by those political powers. And I think that's exactly what we saw happen in medieval Byzantium, where you basically yes, you had the Byzantine emperors basically controlling most aspects of the church life to the point where medieval Orthodox canonists I talked over this in my stream on divorce and remarriage, like they literally say that the civil legislation of the emperor Justinian was basically on the same level as canon law in the Orthodox church. So, you got this like complete conflation of canon law with civil law to the point where it was actually like overturning apostolic teachings about like remarriage after divorce and such things like that. Um And then obviously when you had the fall of Byzantium, I mean that was disastrous for the Orthodox Church and they really I mean in a certain way the Orthodox Church has really never recovered from the fall of Byzantium. They've kind of been forever fixed and stuck in medieval Byzantium and unable to move beyond it theologically, liturgically, anything like that.
Um and the in fact the only real progress they've made has been when there's been influence from like Catholic the Catholic West like the Jesuits presence in the Academy of Kiev and the Russian tradition stuff like that. Um and like the influence on like Peter Mogila um and Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem. Like the advances in Orthodox theology have always been as a result of influence from the West from medieval Byzantium going forward. Um and even like the resource monk movement in like the 20th century Orthodoxy and stuff like that. Like it's all inspired by like Western scholarship and stuff like this.
Um so I definitely think you know, however much you want to criticize the claims that the Pope made in temporal authority. If he didn't do that, I think the Catholic West would have faced a very similar fate to what medieval Byzantium did. Um which is basically to be subsumed by the empire and then when the empire falls the church is stagnant.
Um the Catholic Church is not stagnant at all. Like the fact that we still have Vatican City that the Pope is still a temporal ruler, that he still has that political independence from the surrounding nations. That is what gives him the freedom to exercise his ministry as the father of all Christians.
Um so so once again, you can criticize the temporal power of the Pope all you want, but with without it the Catholic Church would not be where it is today.
Um and there is yeah like that I I recommend reading I believe St. Robert Bellarmine has a good treatment of the temporal power of the Pope and basically like what we do need to believe about that and what we don't need to believe about that. Um and uh I think Christian Wagner also recently did a video on the temporal power of the Pope. Um and cuz there are like Catholic moral theologians who talk about like do you always have to side with like what if the Pope declares war on your nation? Do you always have to side with the Pope?
And the answer was no. Like, you need to go by the principles of just war. You need to be need to be, you know, faithful to your nation, stuff like this.
Um, so it's it's not like a an absolute like temporal dictatorship and subs- subsuming of all temporal power as some people sometimes caric- caricature it. So, um, I'd recommend checking out those resources for more on that, but great question. Thank you.
Yeah, it doesn't work. I'm sorry about that.
Is that I don't know actually how to fix that. I'd probably need to do some some research, but I will hopefully be doing more live streams like this. This is just kind of a um you know, preliminary trying to figure out uh how to how this works. So, I'll I'll figure that out. Hopefully we'll get the super chats working next time, but um yeah.
What do you plan on doing with your paleontology Substack? Great question.
So, for those who don't know, I do have a paleontology Substack. Uh the reason I made that was because, you know, I just like I do have a like a love for fossils and paleontology and stuff like that. Um my goal was like I actually I'm trying to get more into like fossil hunting.
And so, I would like my like paleontology Substack like be about like fossils that I find um and stuff like that and just kind of like my own reflections on that. Um but but I don't know really what I'm going to do with it. I am Oh, I will plug this. I am going to be writing a book about dinosaurs in the Bible. So, I had someone reach out to me and ask me if I would be interested in writing a book about like a biblical theology of dinosaurs. And I was like, "Absolutely, yes." So, I'm going to be doing a deep dive of research into the biblical theology of dinosaurs. So, if you want to financially support me for that reason, too, if you want to see the dinosaur book um in a timely manner, uh feel free to financially support me on Substack for that reason, too. Um and so, I was also going to do like some paleontological research as well. Um not It's not going to be a book about science. It's going to be a book about the theology of dinosaurs. Um kind of like, you know, I mean dinosaurs are animals and the Bible has a lot to say about animals and developing a biblical uh theology of animals, applying that to dinosaurs kind of thing. So, I was going to look into paleontology stuff for that reason. So, hopefully maybe the research I get out of that will go on that on that blog. So, you know.
Let's see.
Great answer to my question. Just saw this 700-page Mysteries of Christianity.
Favorite book of all time. Does similar thing that Father Lejay does, but even more so. I know, yeah. I Like I said, I'm only like uh I don't know, like 30, 40, 50 pages in.
Um, and I can kind of I can like see where he's going. I have read a little I have a little bit like I've seen like what future chapters. I'm I'm really excited.
Um, I I've heard amazing things about Sheen and I I can only imagine the things that that he's uh the places he's going to go with it. So, I'm looking forward to to trucking through it. So.
Hit the like button, guys. Let the stream get to more people. Yes, smash that like button as they say.
As in converting to Catholicism. Not too sure what is meant by this. Um, if you could clarify that, I think I can maybe answer that.
YEC or OEC. So, this is young earth creationism or old earth creationism.
Um, so, I mean, yeah, controversial take, but I do fall into the young earth creationist camp along with Sarah from Hamilton, Eric Ybarra, Gideon Lazar, you know, like we're we're kind of the the Catholic uh crazies out there holding to I think Christian Wagner is a young earth creationist, too. I don't know.
Um, but uh but yeah, um my reasons for holding to that are outlined I think very well by Sarah from Hamilton. If you go to his Tumblr page, once again, kind of funny, he has a whole post about like why young earth creationism that I still even years later substantively agree with. Um, at the end of the day, I do, you know, I think like what Dave Aerbin says of Vatican II that we have to take anything that these sacred authors assert as true to be to have been asserted by the Holy Spirit.
And I think it is just plainly obvious that the sacred authors are asserting certain things as true that would make an old earth impossible. So things like the order of creation, the days of creation, even not just that, but even things like the global flood, the Tower of Babel incident and how those connect to like the line of Abraham and stuff like that.
I've done I've done a couple like Substack notes about that kind of stuff.
I try not to talk about too much cuz I know it's very polarizing and it can be very scandalous to some people that I hold to the uh young earth creationism. So I don't like I don't like try to push it on people dogmatically, but like if people ask me about it, I'll be honest about why I hold the positions I do. And obviously I hold this position because I think the other positions are wrong. So like there's really just no getting around that. And I have reasons for thinking that old earth creationism is wrong.
You know, I have I could I could go into it, but I would recommend yeah, checking out Sarah from Hamilton's work. Check out the work of Is Genesis History. There's actually a really good article on that website called The Gnostic World of John Walton that I think does a really good job of explaining why popular approaches to Genesis and creation theology like where those go wrong. Especially in evangelical circles. And I I think it's kind of funny that a lot of Catholics accuse young earth creationist Catholics of being like Protestant. When in fact all of the theological like rationalizations of Genesis that that like theistic evolutionist Catholics push was created by Protestants.
That's indisputable.
So you know, like at the end of the day like instead of like labeling each other these pejoratives of saying like oh, you're being Protestant. No, actually you're being Protestant. How about we actually like sit down and what see what did the fathers teach, what does the church teach, what does scripture teach?
Um let's have like a serious conversation about it. Um because if if if your disposition is just to like dismiss what whatever side you fall on this, you fall on, whether you're a young earth creationist, old earth creationist, if your immediate reaction to someone disagreeing with you on this is just to think like oh you're an idiot, you don't know anything, you're stupid, you haven't looked into this, you're just you're not a serious interlocutor in this discussion because um I can tell you that the best symbolic readers of Genesis are all young earth creationists.
Um you know, theistic evolutionists, old earth creationists, they do not raise a candle to the likes of James Jordan, Peter Leithart, Seraphim Hamilton in terms of their symbolic allegorical understandings of Genesis.
Um and so so so if you were so if you just tell those people like oh you don't understand biblical symbolism or something like that, like you're not serious and you haven't actually looked into their arguments. I'd also recommend reading James Jordan's book Creation Six Days, um which once again like if you haven't like read those stories, like if you haven't read Creation Six Days, you haven't like checked out Seraphim Hamilton, you haven't checked out like Is Genesis History. If you haven't actually done the the research into what young like serious young earth creationists are saying about scripture and science, um I don't think you should really be participating in the discussion. Um because otherwise you're just going to be engaging in polemics and you're going to say things that aren't going to be convincing people. Um cuz you could be right, that's the thing, like you could be right, but because you're engaging in that um not as serious way, you're not going to be persuasive to people who they who you should be persuasive to. Um so that's kind of my general counsel to both young earth creationists and old earth creationists. Likewise, if you're a young earth creationist, do not engage with, you know, like evolutionary science and stuff like that if you do not if you have not actually like read the best of what it has to offer. If you do not actually see how convincing these theories are. Don't just say it's all nonsense. Don't just say these scientists are lying and making stuff up. That's wholly unserious, too.
Um I I I think that like evolutionary science is just like complete not utter nonsense.
Um so I I want to make that clear as well.
Who was better or worse in the Bible, King Herod or Pharaoh from William?
Um Who was worse? I mean obviously King Herod just because trying to kill God is objectively worse than killing you know people who are not hypostatically you united to the eternal word of God. Uh so I think it's pretty clear like if if we're talking about King Herod the one who slaughtered the infants of Bethlehem was trying to kill the Christ. Um objectively yes, King Herod is portrayed as like a new Pharaoh like slaughtering the infants um because in fact one of the narrative arcs in the Gospel of Matthew, right? You think about that line out of Egypt I have called my son in reference to the flight to Egypt.
Right? What is that saying about Israel?
Matthew is saying that Israel has become the new Egypt because Israel has a new Pharaoh who is Herod the Great who's slaughtering the infants. So um and in fact in the Book of Revelation Jerusalem is or Israel Judah is literally called Sodom and Egypt um and Babylon and such things. So Israel is a new Egypt, Herod is a new Pharaoh and in fact a worse Pharaoh cuz whereas the Pharaoh the old Pharaoh merely tried to kill the type of Christ namely Moses um now you have the the new Pharaoh King Herod actually trying to kill Christ himself. So I guess in that term in those in that sense you could view Herod as being worse.
Um obviously they still are both slaughtering infants so they're both you know asking the question it's like does it matter? In a sense it does matter because of that theology um that I mentioned but uh good great question.
Good question.
Let's see what we got here.
Could you explain the connection between Eliakim and Saint Peter? Also, was this mentioned by the church fathers?
All right.
So, for those who don't know Eliakim, so he's the figure in Isaiah chapter 22, of whom it is said, you know, I shall lay on his shoulder the key of the house of David. Whatever he opens none shall shut, what he shuts none shall open.
Um and a lot of people see parallels between this and Matthew 16 when Christ gives Saint Peter the keys of the kingdom and says whatever you bind on earth shall be bound and so forth.
Um obviously, the man to go to for this is Suan Sonna. So, Suan Sonna has done more research on this particular subject than I could probably ever dream to. So, I recommend that. But, just to give like a basic rundown, you have obviously that literary connection between the two. Um of you have the key, you have and of course you have the key of the kingdom, the key of death and Hades.
Um you have the binding and loosing, the opening and shutting. So, you have like that those linguistic parallels. But, something that you also have, and this is something that Michael Barber also has a good paper on this.
Um In Isaiah 22, you have Eliakim wearing a turban and a a turban and a sash, which are two garments associated with the high priest.
And then immediately after this scene in Matthew 16, you have Matthew 17, the transfiguration. And at the transfiguration, you have our Lord taking Peter, James, and John up traditionally Mount Tabor for him to be transfigured. And this is a callback to the original transfiguration of Moses on Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus.
That's one of the reasons that Moses is there at the transfiguration.
And in the book of Exodus, you have Moses' transfiguration on Mount Sinai.
And who is up there with him? Except you have Nadab, Abihu, and Aaron, right?
Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu. Now, Nadab and Abihu, who are they? They are the brothers.
You go to the New Testament, you have Peter, James, and John. You have James and John, you have the brothers. So, you have Nadab and Abihu, you have James and John, you have the brothers. And then, you're left with in the Old Testament, you're left with Aaron and Peter.
Aaron the high priest, Peter the high priest.
Pretty interesting, right? So, not only do you have that linguistic connection between Peter um and Eliakim, but you also have high priestly imagery being associated um with both of them, as well, right? And it gets even crazier in the Gospel of John, okay? So, Eliakim in Isaiah in Isaiah 22, he's not just like some random guy, but in context, he's actually replacing this other guy named Shebna as the royal steward of the house of David, right?
So, Shebna is an unworthy royal steward, he's being cast out, he's being replaced by Eliakim, who's given this key to the house of David and so forth.
In the Gospel of John, right? Just as we meet Caiaphas, Peter, right? We also meet someone with a strangely similar name, namely Caiaphas. We have Caiaphas and Caiaphas. This is something that James Jordan, who's a reformed theologian that I've mentioned several times in the stream, he wrote an article about this, about how Peter is portrayed as the high priest in the Gospel of John. There's many ways, but one of the ways is in the trial of our Lord before Caiaphas. I believe it's in like John chapter 18. Um if you pay very close attention, when Christ is brought before Caiaphas, it's interspersed with the denials of Peter. Nothing is ever said about Caiaphas. It's only said about Peter. You have a scene where you have Christ Caiaphas, and then you have something about Peter, right? Christ goes somewhere else, he comes you know, there's a reference to Caiaphas, goes back to Peter, right? As Jordan says, right? Nothing is ever said about Caiaphas, only about Peter, because Peter is Caiaphas, right? Caiaphas is the wicked high priest who's being cast down and replaced by the new high priest Caiaphas, right? Just as Shebna in Isaiah 22 is being cast out, and he's being replaced by the new high priest um, Eliakim. And also the fact that, you know, the Gospel of John is a literary walk through the Tabernacle, right? So, you start at the offer of burnt offerings, behold the Lamb of God. You move through the, uh, the bronze basin, right? The the laver, the water in the the Tabernacle. That's all the discourse about water early in the beginning of the Gospel of John. So, you have, um, the water of life discourse. You have the, uh, dialogue with Nicodemus about water and the spirit, uh, being our salvation. You have the healing at the pool of Siloam. Right? And then after the bronze basin the Tabernacle, um, you know, you have things like the lampstand menorah, or sorry, you have the table of showbread, right? In the Tabernacle. And then, of course, you have the bread of life discourse. All this talk about bread, these bread miracles in the Gospel of John. And then the next thing you have is the lampstand menorah. And so, the next thing you have in the Gospel of John is the I am the light of the world discourse. Um, and then, of course, you have like the altar of incense. You have the high priestly prayer, right? In the Gospel of John, kind of corresponding to that high priestly entrance into the Tabernacle.
And then, of course, what is the holy of holies except the tomb that has two angels at the head and at the foot, right? Just as the ark of the covenant had two angels that were overlooking the mercy seat. So, the tomb is the holy of holies that only the high priest could enter.
And so, that's why in John chapter 20, you have the apostle, the beloved disciple, arriving at the tomb, but he doesn't go in. Who does he wait for? He waits for Peter. He waits for the high priest to go in first, right? And so, just as, once again, Eliakim is that new high priest who replaces the old one, uh, Saint Peter is the new covenant's high priest replacing the old one, um, as well. So, I think the connections between Peter and Eliakim, I think they're incredibly strong. Um, in terms of whether or not it was mentioned by the church fathers, that I'm not sure. I think Swuan has uncovered at least a handful of early writers, um, especially in the, uh, Syriac tradition, who, uh, seem to talk about this connection between Eliakim and and Shebna. Because it's important to note that that tradition, that that language is preserved more so in the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint text. So, the Septuagint does not have the same language about the key of the house of David and opening and shutting that the Hebrew text does. And because a lot of the church church fathers were inheriting the Greek text of the Old Testament, it makes sense why they weren't drawing that connection because they were dealing with that different text. However, in the Syriac tradition, where they did preserve that uh textual history, they do see that connection coming out. Um it's also just important to note that like something does not have to be mentioned by the church fathers in order to be an accurate interpretation of scripture because the church fathers, right? I mean, they are post-apostolic writers, right? They are witnesses to the Catholic faith. Um but the spirit is still working and so like there we we never we have never like fully plunged into all the depths of scripture. So, it is still very possible to discover connections in scripture that have never been discovered before because the depth of scripture is infinite and we can always learn new things about God's word. So, we should not be surprised if there are some new things that we learn about sacred scripture, right? Obviously, um if it's a new thing that like contradicts an official teaching or something, then that's when we question it. Um but if it's like a new thing that just um deepens a teaching that we already have and that we already believe and have believed that goes back to the patristic era like the papacy does, um I really don't see an issue with like new arguments. As long as like we don't use like the Eliakim argument as like the number one best argument for the papacy, but rather as a supporting argument, right? I think we're we're in good company even if like no father ever mentioned it. I think we would be just fine making that argument because, you know, we're supposed to be um you know, like part of the development of the church is like we go deeper into scripture and we can uncover new connections and stuff like that and we shouldn't be afraid of doing that.
So, um that's what I have to say about that.
It's interesting to see that you are still active theologically after so long a silence. I remember you back from when you were Codex Justinianus and Ancient Insights. Yes, right. So true. I actually still have the blog Ancient Insights. Um ancientinsights.wordpress.com.
That's where I I initially wrote my um my theology going back all the way to 2018. Uh that was my first blog post, I think, was January 27th, 2018, the vigil of Feast of St. Thomas. And the article was about St. Thomas. I had That's a providential coincidence.
Um but that blog is still up there. I do most of my writing now at benjaminjohn.substack.com.
So, I have not been silent. I have just been silent mostly on YouTube. Uh I've been quite active on Substack, so feel free to check out my work there. And once again, kind of the point of this stream, I'm hoping to raise some funds to support my research, um as well as hopefully to um you know, be in person for the symposium in Rome this fall. So, um but yeah, happy to see a uh long a long-term uh viewer.
All right.
Think I am probably going to wrap up this stream within the next 10 15 minutes or so.
But I can take a few more questions.
Let's see.
>> [clears throat and cough] >> Oops.
Could you also explain the difference between the priesthood in the Old Covenant versus the new, something I've been trying to explain to my dad?
Um Yes, let me think. What is the best way to go about explaining this?
So, couple things important to establish. The Old Covenant priesthood, right? So, the the priesthood was initially originally supposed to belong to the entire nation in a certain sense.
Right? Like this is affirmed in the book of Exodus, right? That he has called Israel to be a nation of kings and priests, right?
>> [gasps] >> Uh like a royal royal nation. This is obviously going to get quoted by St. Peter in one of his letters famously. Um and that because Israel sins, right? Um the priesthood gets limited to the tribe of Levi and then specifically to the tribe of Aaron, right? And then eventually later on um it's going to get limited even even further in places like the book of Ezekiel, the line of um Zadok, I believe, right?
So the priesthood is getting continuously whittled down. And a distinctive feature of the new covenant is in fact the fact that the priesthood is extended to all believers, right? So you think about the rituals that we undergo in the Catholic Church, uh baptism, washing yourself, getting anointed, right? With chrism oil, right?
And then partaking of the sacrifices of the Holy Eucharist, right?
All of those things are things that priests in the Old Covenant did, right?
So Old Covenant priests, when they were getting ordained, they would be washed with water, right? They would be anointed with oil, and then they would get to partake of a share of the sacrifices, right?
And so already the fact that we partake in the sacraments demonstrates that the Catholic Church has an idea of the so-called priesthood of all believers in a sense. So there is a distinction in that sense, that the Old Covenant priesthood has in fact like been fully all people all Christian baptized Catholics have been fully integrated into the priesthood in that sense. Okay.
So now, when we're talking about like the priesthood, we're talking specifically about the ministerial priesthood, right? The ones who are offering those sacrifices, who are administering those sacraments, and so forth, right? The idea that that has been limited to one group of men, right?
That's It's not just like a strict continuity with the Old Covenant priesthood. I mean, Christ himself was not a descendant of Levi. So, Christ was not a Levite. He was from the tribe of Judah. And yet, as Paul says in Hebrews, he is after the order of Melchizedek.
Right? And this is very Okay, you ready for this?
There's a point that Eric Ybarra makes in his excellent book about transubstantiation and Melchizedek in the last supper. Highly recommend you check that out for the argument that I'm about to make, but here we go.
Excuse me. So, in the book of Hebrews, it says that every priesthood has a sacrifice that is proper to its priesthood.
Right?
And it also affirms in that same section that Christ is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, you go back to the book of Genesis, you go back to the figure of Melchizedek, and you and you wonder, who [snorts] is it?
Okay.
Who or sorry, what is it that Melchizedek offers? What is it that is proper to the priesthood? What offering is proper to the priesthood of Melchizedek? And the church fathers are absolutely unanimous on this, that it is the offering of bread and wine that is proper to the priesthood of Melchizedek. However, there's a problem. Because as the book of Hebrews itself affirms, Christ's offering is not bread and wine.
Christ's offering is his body and his blood. Right? That is the offering that in the priesthood of Christ, which is an extension of the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. Right? That is the offering that is proper to Christ.
And so, you wonder, how is Christ a priest in the order of Melchizedek if he is offering his body and blood as the sacrifice proper to his priesthood?
And that's when you get into thinking like, what if there was a way that Christ could be offering bread and wine at least in appearance while simultaneously offering his body and blood. Right? Even just reading Hebrews and reading Genesis, you could imagine that Christ maybe would do something like that. And then you go to the Last Supper narrative with this in mind, and you see Christ take bread and identify it as his body and take wine identify it as his blood, right? And then he offers that to God, right?
That is the doctrine of transubstantiation. That Christ is offering not bread and wine, right? It's not bread and wine. It's bread and wine is not the sacrifice of the new covenant. Okay? The sacrifice of the new covenant is the body and blood of Christ on Calvary. That is what Christ offers to his father under the the the figures of bread and wine because bread and wine was the offering proper to the order of Melchizedek, which is the priesthood that Christ inherits, right? Not the priesthood of Levi of the Levites, but the priesthood of Melchizedek. But he transforms this to make an identity between the bread and the wine and his body and blood, which is what the doctrine of transubstantiation is attempting to explain, right? And so then you see at the Last Supper he's telling his apostles, no nobody else is given this command. Only the apostles are told to do this in remembrance of me, which itself is sacrificial language as many people have pointed out, right?
Remembrance uh like memorial offerings and stuff like that, right?
>> [snorts] >> So the apostles are told to consecrate bread into the body of Christ and to consecrate wine into the body of Christ, which we know from Hebrews that this is the offering proper to the sacrifice and the priesthood of Christ, right? And that is something that only the apostles, and by extension their successors, because if there are people today who have that authority to offer the body and the blood of Christ, right?
Um even though they're not mentioned directly in scripture, there has to be some real connection between them and the apostles, and that's where the doctrine of apostolic succession comes from. But because it's a succession of authorizing one to perform the priestly ministry of Christ, the unique priestly ministry of Christ, his priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, which not everyone, right, fully shares in that of being able to offer the bread the bread as the body of Christ and the wine as the blood of Christ. Right, that's how we know that there has to be a ministerial priesthood in the new covenant is because Christ chose a subgroup of men to share in his priesthood in a unique way that he did not choose other people to share in his priesthood. Right. So, that's kind of a preliminary case of like the difference between the priesthood of the Levites and the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek as it has been transformed by our Lord with the sacrifice of Christ. So, um there's much more that can be said about that, but um that's where I will leave it for now since we are wrapping up a little bit here.
Is the new ark both the humanity of Christ and the Blessed Virgin? Uh yes.
So, we could we could conceive of the ark of the covenant as Christ himself, right, because obviously Christ in his human nature is created, he's a creature um in his human nature, but his uncreated divine person perfectly dwells within his created human nature. So, in that way he is um the fullness of the ark of the covenant. I mean, like it it would almost be like not enough to say that Christ is the ark of the covenant. Like, he is the divine presence that dwells in the ark of the covenant. Right, that's how it's portrayed in the Gospel of Luke. So, in the Gospel of Luke, right, the Blessed Virgin Mary through a series of allusions to 2 Samuel chapter 6, um also in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 1 through a series of allusions to um 2 Chronicles chapter 5, the Blessed Virgin Mary is clearly portrayed as the ark of the covenant. And so, if Mary is the ark of the covenant by having the physical body of Christ dwell within her, I mean, how much more like Christ has to be something even more than that than just the ark. So, I almost think just calling Christ like the ark of the covenant, I think almost doesn't go far enough.
Um but, certainly I think there are a number of fathers who use that imagery because you do have the divine like the fullness of the divinity dwelling within Christ as St. Paul says, right? That the the fullness of the Godhead dwells within him just as it did in the Ark of the Covenant but perfectly um in his human nature. So so we can certainly speak that way, but the scripture also portrays Mary as the Ark of the Covenant which signifies that Christ is something even more than the Ark, right? He is the very divine presence itself. Right? He is God himself. He's not just He's not just the box that contains God. Right?
He is God himself. Right? So that's very important. That's also one of the ways that the Gospel of Luke clearly attests to the divinity of Christ is by portraying Mary as the Ark of the Covenant which just shows how Mariology always complements Christology. How Mary always points the way to Christ. So yes.
What about the argument Seraphim Hamilton uses about the Elijah and Peter connection being about all bishops? So I actually I dedicated um if you go to my Substack and you look at just the pinned article there uh what Eastern Orthodox apologists miss about the papacy, the uh the second-to-last section of that article which I actually turned into a video. It's also a video on my YouTube channel if you want to check it out. Um I go into this in extensive detail um about the Orthodox attempt to kind of shoehorn all bishops into the imagery of St. Peter and just leave it at that without any papal implications.
Um Seraphim is actually interesting because he does in certain places affirm that there is a unique sense in which the papacy is appropriated to St. Peter.
Um so I remember actually reading an article a while ago. I don't know if it's still on his Tumblr, but he actually like did come away with some very like papal conclusions and I think there were a lot of people who were like kind of questioning that.
Um so I think Seraphim he does see like how the papacy is implied by this, but he does kind of try and shoehorn in this, you know, like more modern Orthodox idea about like all bishops being Peter and just leave it at that. Um, no implication like for Peter being the Pope. I guess like them I'll just give like one way that I go about tackling this is to show like all bishops can't be Peter because the bishops are the successors of the apostles and Peter is the head of the apostles.
Right? And so if every bishop were Peter, then that would mean that every bishop is the head of every other bishop, which is an incoherent idea.
Right? That if there is a group of men that we call the the episcopal college which succeeds the apostolic college, right? And the apostolic college had a head, then the successor to that head has to be the head over all the bishops. He can't just be identical to all the bishops. Otherwise, he's not actually the successor of that head.
You see?
Um, so there is a sense in which we can affirm all bishops as being uh successors of Peter in a relative sense, in relation in relative to their dioceses, but in terms of actually succeeding Peter's role, which was to be the head of not just a diocese, but to be the head of all bishops, all apostles, right? That can only be uh delegated to one man, which is explicitly affirmed by the way at the Third Ecumenical Council by Philip the Legate, uh Philip the Presbyter, the Legate of Rome.
Um, and it is agreed to by Saint Cyril of Alexandria at the Council. So, once again, check out my article uh on my Substack for more information about that.
What do you make of the silence in the Ante-Nicene Fathers on saintly intercession? I think this will probably be the last question I answer for this live stream.
Um, well, first, I don't know for sure that there's silence. Like I'm pretty sure, you know, you can make the argument uh Saint Hippolytus of Rome has the invocation of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three holy youths in the furnace.
Um, so you have that. I want to say Saint Melodius of Olympus or something to that effect. I think he's technically pre-Nicene. It's very close, though. And I think he also talks about like Saint intercession also even image veneration interestingly enough.
Um but and even I think origin of Alexandria I think also has maybe something to say. I could be misremembering that about Saint intercession.
Um but I think one of the reasons this is kind of my own speculation about this but I think the doctrine of like the communion of the saints and like the indication of the saints and intercession of the saints largely comes from the book of Revelation. Um and was specifically revealed to Saint John the Apostle and in the Antonite scene church the book of Revelation was a very controversial book for a lot of reasons and especially after the Montanist movement you wonder why did the Montanist movement happen in the Asian churches that it did? Um it's because those are the churches that Revelation was written to.
Um and so it makes sense that like they they received this special revelation from the Apostle John and so they might start to think that they're going to be getting other revelations as well and then you have figures like Montanus and his two women disciples who pick up on this and start spreading Montanism and the new prophecy. And so I think the book of Revelation kind of gets a bad rap in the early church it gets like associated with Montanism um and just there's a lot of skepticism around it. It doesn't get included in a lot of canon lists in the Antonite scene church. And this is also yeah like this is the book where we get most of our teachings about Saint intercession from.
So to me it makes a lot of intuitive sense why we would have to wait for the book of Revelation to find a more prominent place in the life of the church before um we start getting a developed theology of the intercession of the saints um but there also is just the fact that like in the early church we're also still hammering out the divinity of Christ and to what extent we can be like praying to Christ cuz I think even origin of Alexandria talks about like a controversy over whether or not we can actually even pray to Christ or if we could just pray to the Father.
Um and like whether or not you can pray to the Holy Spirit so like at that time the church hadn't even fully hammered out whether or not you can like pray to Christ and the Holy Spirit. So, it would be a little surprising if the church had fully hammered out whether or not you can pray to the saints at that point, too.
Um so, there's probably much more that could be said about that. I would recommend checking out a book by a 20th century Anglican scholar, Henry Percival, who wrote a book about the history of the intercession of saints um and the invocation of the saints particulars in in particular.
Uh in the church uh he's a Anglo-Catholic, so he's like, you know, basically like a Catholic on the issue. Um but he documents the history that quite well. Um you know, the scholarship's probably maybe a little bit dated, but it's worth checking out.
Um so, those are some of my thoughts.
And uh yeah, with that I think we'll pass the 2-hour mark, so I think I'm going to end it there.
Um yeah, I apologize I couldn't get the super chats working. I actually, like I said, I I'm this is my first time doing something like this. Um so, hopefully there'll be more in the future and I'll have that worked out uh for future streams. But uh yeah, if you are able to financially support me um through Substack, um that would be fantastic. Or like if you don't want to go on Substack, you can also just feel free to like private message me and I can I can help you find a way if you can want to donate to me personally. Um I'll I'll help you do that.
Um cuz yeah, I'm doing research on the church's condemnation of pantheism at Vatican I.
Going to be hopefully presenting on this um at a at the St. Basil Institute Symposium in Rome this September. So, if you guys could uh if you are interested in supporting my work, supporting me financially, that would be very much appreciated. And like I said, next time I do this I will have it worked out. Um s- uh the super chats and stuff like that. So, uh yeah, thank you all for all the questions.
And uh yeah, hope to uh see you next time. So, take care. Bye.
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