← The Lord of Spirits
The Lord of Spirits
Fiend Folio
What if Guardian Angels had an exact opposite—Guardian Devils? Are some of those demons actually the evil dead? Or what about the ones who come for you while you’re asleep?
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- [00:00]
A
He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits and angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.
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B
Good evening giant killers, dragon slayers, succubus slaughterers, foot stompers of dragon footed giants. You're listening to Lord of Spirits podcast and my co Host, the Very Reverend Doctor Father Steven DeYoung is with me straight from the swamp in Lafayette, Louisiana. And I'm Father Andrew Steven Damick in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, atop the Eldritch Tower of podcasting, perched above a gateway to the underworld. And we are live. And if you are listening to us live, you can call us at 855-237-2346 and you can talk to us and we're going to get to your calls in the second half of the show and Matthia Trudy the Tank Richter will be taking your calls.
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Sitting with her in the studio right now is Dr. Christopher Phillips, professor of meteorology at Valparaiso University, who besides studying how to protect our planet from meteors thrown at us through space as almost happened to the planet Daeron 5 in season three, episode eight of Star the Original Series for the World Is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky, apparently also wrote about the Orthodox Church.
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C
Kirak was happy.
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B
Apparently he also learned about the Orthodox Church through this very podcast and then went crazy and joined it. So hello Dr. Phillips. Thank you for all you do to protect the earth from meteors and your screwdriver. Thank you. This episode is sponsored by the Orthodox Studies Institute at St Constantine College which exists to advance the study and application of orthodox Christianity in faithfulness to holy tradition. OSI's next live course is Tolkien Gods, Monsters and Myth, taught by none other than your humble servant. The class starts on November 12, runs for five weeks. To check out the syllabus and to sign up, go to orthodoxstudies.org.
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So tonight is our annual Halloween episode. So, of course, we're going to discuss the darker side of the spiritual world, namely demons, and how they were understood in the ancient world, including even as late as the fourth century. And we should mention even after. Even after. Even after.
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Myth. Oh.
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Yeah. I didn't think anything happened after the 4th century that you were remotely interested in.
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C
Not so much. But, you know, we got some. We got some St. Augustine knocking around this episode.
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B
There we go. There we go. So. But yes, we should say that this is. We have to drop a little parental advisory here at the beginning of this episode. There are some. Some sections, especially in the third half, but throughout, really, that parents may want to listen to before they share it with younger children.
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C
Demon sex.
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B
Yes.
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C
That's.
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B
Why would be discussion of demon sex.
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C
Before the episode started, John Maddox said something about sordid details. And I'm like, well, if you're into sordid details, have we got a show for you tonight.
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B
This might be the one that finally gets Father Stephen canceled. So who knows? We should tune in. This could be the last episode, everybody.
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C
Entirely possible.
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B
He's just hear us get cut off.
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C
Suddenly, like, Trudy's like, shut it off.
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B
Turn it all down. So to follow the trash compactors of the detention level. That'll be the one. So. Yes. What are demons? Where do demons come from anyway? Are they born in little. Little demon villages?
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C
Yes. No, that's not. That's not true. You're thinking of the Smurfs. Who? Oh, I know. In the 80s, they told you those were demons.
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B
I mean, they did come from an evil wizard doing weird experiments.
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C
Well, the evil wizard was the bad guy, though.
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B
Yeah. Wait, did he make. I think he just made Smurfette.
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C
He made Smurfette.
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B
See, my Smurf lore is not really that great.
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C
See, there are certain parallels here, Right? It's kind of a reverse Nephilim, Right? Like he creates the only female Smurf.
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B
Oh.
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C
To seduce the other Smurfs.
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What a great lead in to the rest.
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B
So Smurfette is a watcher.
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C
I don't know. We could go with it.
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B
I'm going to go with that. Smurfette's a watcher, everybody.
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C
The cat's name was Asriel. So, I mean, there's something. I mean, yes, a little on the nose.
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B
Smurfette left her former estate.
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So. Yeah. Where do Smurf's Gargabel and demons.
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C
It would have been her first date.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Yeah. Gargabel should have focused more on curing his male pattern baldness and less on trying to, I think. Was he trying to eat them or something? Weird.
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B
I. I think that's true. I. Man, again, my Smurf floor is lacking. It's been a long time since I delved into that.
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C
It's your anti Scandinavian racism.
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B
I like Scandinavians. They have excellent pastries.
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Among other things.
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C
That's a stereotype. Anyway.
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So, yeah. Demons.
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B
Demons.
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C
What are they good for?
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Absolutely nothing. But.
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So we're starting with.
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Where did say the Greeks and the Romans think they came from?
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B
Yeah.
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C
And so we're starting as is your want more than mine with some etymology.
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B
I know I still don't have the jingle, like, lined up here, even though I said earlier today I would do it so I could sing it for everybody.
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C
See, it's the lack of follow through. Father Andrew.
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B
I know, I know. Father of Andrew's etymology corner. There we go.
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C
Like just last night, Bible study, I was talking about the sacrificial offerings you would have to make for having not completed your vow.
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B
Oh, to have that. Are you in? Are you in Leviticus.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Or. Oh, nice, nice.
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C
But anyway. Yeah, so Greek, of course, is where we get the word demon from demon.
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B
Which not a ranking.
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That's true. Yeah. And not just a computer program that manages things in the background.
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C
Yes. Which is kind of creepy when you think about it, that your female's being handled by a demon.
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B
I know, I know. Yeah. So, yeah. Daemon demon comes from a proto Indo European root that means dividers. Like, you know, like in your desk. Dividers. Yeah. Dividing up. Right. Sharing out, apportioning spoils, Gifts.
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C
Yeah, Land.
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B
Land things. Yeah. And I mean, this. This comes from this idea. I mean, as we've talked before about these territorial spirits. Right. Spirits that are over a thing or, you know. Yeah.
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C
Place, but also very, very early on, takes on the connotation also of having to do with fate and destiny.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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C
Because of course, you got to remember paganism.
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Incredibly deterministic.
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Completely fatalist.
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So then in Latin, we're talking about the word genius.
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The modern use of which term is analogical to its original usage. And that actually is a word. It comes from genii, which was.
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A word that meant a father, specifically a father in the sense of a producer of offspring.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Like someone who fathers.
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B
Yeah. So like generate genesis. That kind of stuff is all bound.
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C
Up genus and gentus, which is where the word gentiles.
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B
Comes from Gentus is nation, basically in Latin, sort of like patrimony.
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C
Right. It's connected to the idea of having a single father or being a father to offspring, the people of a nation being the children of the nation. Right.
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But was, of course, seen in spiritual terms. Right. And we'll get into that more in a little bit. We're going to start, though, with.
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Our Greek friends, our pagan Greek friends from long ago and far away.
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And that begins with Hesiod.
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B
Good old Hesiod.
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C
As I commented to you earlier today, Hesiod is a pain to read.
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B
Because.
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C
It'S basically in the same Greek as Homer. But when you learn Homeric Greek, you learn Homer's vocabulary, which means 18 different words for like spear and shield.
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B
Right.
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C
So you just learn all these, like, words having to do with war and weaponry and fighting.
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B
By the time. Yeah, by the time you're done reading, you know, the Iliad. Right. You know, all the different ways to describe stabbing someone in the neck with a spear.
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C
Yeah. So then you read Hesiod and he's talking about, like, muses and waters and glades and nymphs and things. And you don't know what's going on.
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B
Right.
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C
Because you didn't learn any of that vocabulary.
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Hessian is also even more poetic. And in some cases there are lacunae in his works. There's chunks missing.
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This is all just me venting past frustrations in Greek language study. Basically, at this point, not everything is.
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B
Preserved like a cuneiform tablet.
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C
Yeah. So, yeah. See, fire, you can throw those things on the ground, it'll dent the floor. That's what I'm talking about.
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But Hesiod, for those who aren't super familiar with Hesiod, Hesiod, we're talking about. I mean, there's no firm date. We're talking about the beginning of the first millennium BC.
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So we're talking roughly. Usually, people peg Homer around 800. Hesiod is probably a little earlier.
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And what Hesiod is doing is.
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Mostly compiling oral tradition, particularly related to Greek religion.
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Now, that Greek religion is all mixed up with.
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Historical traditions, but historical traditions, not like Homer's historical traditions, but historical traditions, as in the beliefs of the Greek people at the time about their origins as a people.
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B
Yeah. This is what they thought their story was about.
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C
Yeah. And so sort of their self understanding.
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And of their identity. And so the work that everybody reads is called the theogony, which is basically the generation of the gods. It's about the different gods coming into being. Yeah.
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B
If you're looking to read a primary source about sort of the basis for Greek mythology, this is the one you go to.
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C
Right. This is where you start, at least. Yeah. This is where you get the two rounds of the successor succession myth. First Ouranos and Gaia, and then Cronus and Rhea, and then.
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B
Finally Zeus.
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C
Zeus and Hera.
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B
Yeah.
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C
You get that. And that's, as we've talked about on the show before, he's incorporating there both like an early Indo European religious layer instead of traditions with a Semitic version of the succession myth. It's probably coming from Phoenicia.
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And sort of blending those together. He's bringing all of these traditions into one place and blending them together.
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And so one of the. He has other works, however, that we have, including hymns and all kinds of things are lumped in. Of course, we're not sure all those hymns were actually written by this one guy named Hesiod.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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C
They're just. They date from that era.
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B
And so, I mean, even signed to him, even the stuff that has Homer's name on it, there's a whole big world of people that say, well, who's Homer anyway?
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C
Right. Because, of course, we don't have copies anywhere near the original. We don't have.
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So you can't prove it. But that's ancient history. Right? I mean, you can't prove that's how it is. Anything. That's why when you hear one of these modernists going around saying, oh, can you prove that that happened in ancient history? The answer is no, you can't prove anything happened in ancient history.
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B
Right. There's no.
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C
Right. Like, prove Alexander the Great existed. You can't. Right. Like, that's.
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So.
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But one theme, and for our purposes here, the theme we want to draw out of Hesiod is that he talks about the origin of daemonis. Right. Of demons.
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And for him.
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It'S. He makes abundantly clear that. I mean, assuming that there's a hymn there, just a single hymn, these works make abundantly clear that in these traditions, the Daemonis used to be people and used to be in particular, heroes. Now, hero is kind of a technical term in Greek. Right. We talk about hero as just a somebody did something cool. Right. Like, yeah, now there's some money in the bucket with the bell ringer at Christmas. You're a hero, right?
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B
No, it's kind of like a species.
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C
Right, Right. Because the heroes of myth, they did do these great exploits. That's where our use of the word hero comes from.
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B
Right.
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C
So we Use it sort of analogically to refer to exploits. That's why we had to talk about superheroes. Right. Like Superman is a superhero because he does all these exploits. Right.
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And say Hercules did all these exploits. Right.
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But that was at the core of what being a hero was. Usually you were part divine and part human.
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So these were quasi divine, quasi human beings who accomplished these feats and who, when they died.
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Then became sort of their spirit, lived on and became a daemon that was involved in various spiritual activities. So in the. The. In Theogony997.997 is the line number, by the way, not a page number. Most early Greek texts, when you quote them with numbers, there's not like a single edition where there are page numbers. Right. You list the line numbers.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And the line numbers are kind of arbitrary, too. They're from a particular collection of classics, but.
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Suffice to say, that's how it's listed. So this is line number 997 he talks about in the Theogony Phaeton becoming. Who was one of the heroes becoming a daemon. But then in works and Days, which is a lesser red hesiodic work, in lines 122 to 126, he talks about how Zeus transforms heroes and by them being transformed into daemon at the time of their death, they sort of become his children, if they weren't already. Now, some of them already were because, you know, Zeus is on the loose, dude. Got around. But even if they weren't directly, they sort of became them by virtue of. Of becoming daemons, worst moved by God ever.
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So.
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Yeah, Zeus too, man.
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So.
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You have this picture then of these sort of great men who are considered divine, at least partially. They die, their spirits then become spirits in the world. So.
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One thing a lot of people don't know. I know we've mentioned it on the show before. I don't know how much depth we've gone into on it. Is that Greek temples.
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And this is.
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You know, this is the level of nerd I am. I was playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and got all excited that their temples were actually correct.
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B
Ooh.
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C
That'S. There's a lot of other stuff that's historically iffy, like the female protagonist. But.
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The. They got the temples right. That you have the main body of the temple, which is the temple to a God.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And then adjoining it, there is a shrine to a hero.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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C
So if you're talking about, like.
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Athens or any other city, you're going to have the main temple to the God. Right. The big temple. And then there's going to be a shrine to the founder. Right. Here was the founder of the city. Right.
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Who was probably considered a child of the city's God, either before and. Or after their death and becoming a daemon. And they generally considered.
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That the grave. Obviously there's no way to prove this. Right. At excavations, but I mean, how would you even demonstrate this anyway? Whether there was even a grave in a lot of these, we don't know. But supposedly that shrine was the site of the grave of the person. Right. So they left their body to become a daemon and their body was buried there.
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But those shrines were seen to localize that daemon in a way not identical to, but parallel to the way in which the temple would localize the God.
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B
Yeah. It sort of anchors them there.
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C
Right. Because we've talked a lot about, when we've talked about idolatry and stuff, how you localize a God in a temple, in an idol, to try to be able to interface with it. And often that means manipulate it, leverage it, get it to do what you want. Right.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Whereas with one of these daemonis, one of these wandering spirits, that was the problem. The problem was now they're just out there wandering around. And so you would build the shrine to localize them in order to sort of give them a home.
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B
Yeah. Because if they're left wandering, they're going to be kind of unhappy and cranky and might do terrible things to your city.
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C
Right. Angry. They'd be angry and mean because they have no place and no one's honoring them and no one's doing anything for them.
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B
Which, I mean, this fits in. This fits in with the general Greek idea that people need to be buried in order for their spirits to be at rest. Right. You know, for non heroes, non demons, they have to be buried so that they can enter the. Enter into Hades, you know, Otherwise they're kind of left hanging.
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C
Yeah, yeah. So this is you put them in a place of shrine and then you come to the shrine and you make offerings. Right? Yeah.
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B
Pour out the blood sacrifice.
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C
Pour out the blood of sacrifices into the grave.
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And you offer incense. Right. To the hero. Right. As well, to sort of keep them happy and pacified. But this extended to, by the way, two ruined cities.
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B
Hmm.
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C
So Greeks avoided ruined cities.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Greek culture, you stayed away from ruined cities because the. The daemons and even some of the gods of that city were sort of wandering the ruins.
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B
Yeah. And not being worshiped. So.
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C
And were unhappy because of that.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Right. And so that was the stuff of horror movies for Greeks. They would not like if they're on a long trip and they need a shelter for the night, they would not be going into an abandoned city. Right. That would be like the, the weird chainsaw shack in Texas. Right. Like you don't go in there whatever you do. Right.
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B
So.
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C
We also get. Right. So that's, that's sort of the connection to heroes. Of course we've also read, and we're not going to read it again because we've read it several times in several episodes. The quotes from Plato about the age of Cronus, sort of the golden age in the past.
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In which the daemons were given, demonists were given by lot were given the different nations to shepherd.
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And this develops. Right. We talked about that connected to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis. But also so in later traditions.
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It'S not just.
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Nations, but people.
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That people have them.
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And Socrates of course is exhibit A. We've read those quotes too. Socrates talking about demonion.
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It's sort of unclear.
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And this is by lot too. Like they're allotted people. Right. Different people are given to these different demons.
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It's not clear if it's everyone or just particular people. And part of the reason it's not clear is we have to remember, and this is going to be important to remember when we're talking about the Romans here in a minute too.
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That ancient people, like ancient Greeks and ancient Romans didn't consider all humans to be people.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Right.
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B
Not all people are persons. Yeah.
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C
So like, I know you've been told especially about a lot of our Greek friends about the wonders of Athenian democracy, but the Athenian demos was pretty tightly constricted in terms of who could vote.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Right. Like the Deimos wasn't like every human who lived in Athens or even every.
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B
Man, you know, like it wasn't even every man.
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C
It wasn't even every free man. Right.
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It wasn't even every native born freeman.
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B
I mean it was literally an aristocracy.
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C
Yeah. So because of those aristocratic ideas you'll get general statements, right, about like, oh well, everyone has one. But then you have to investigate what they mean by everyone.
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B
Yeah, everyone. Who's everyone?
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C
Sort of like the American Declaration of Independence saying all men are created equal. And it's like, well.
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Except if you don't own land or you're a slave or you're not literally a man, you're a woman.
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B
Right.
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C
Like.
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So you have to, you know, all men doesn't necessarily mean all men.
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B
Yeah. And I mean, and Rome, you know, I mean, we're going to talk about Romans, but Romans weren't. Weren't any better at this, by the way. Literally.
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C
They were worse.
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B
They're worse. Way worse. I mean, they literally had the category of non Persona for most people in the Roman Empire.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So.
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But they were associated with people. Right. And Socrates, of course, had this daemonion who would.
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Whisper wisdom to his soul and give him guidance, stop him from doing things sometimes or cause him to do things, as he says very creepily. But it's important here. So the idea of demonic possession, this is where that originates. So I know we hear demonic possession and especially this time of year, you think of like the Exorcist. Right. Or since we just read the gospel last weekend about the origins of deviled ham.
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You.
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Think of like legion and the pigs. Right. And that kind of thing. But that's not where the term starts being used. The term starts being used in Greek with the idea that this person possesses a daimon. There's a demon who possesses him.
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B
Yeah. And that was seen as a positive thing.
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C
Yeah. Socrates possessed one, one possessed Socrates. They were linked their whole life.
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So this is. If this is. If this is sounding like a weird inversion to you, you're thinking the right way. This is sort of a guardian demon.
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B
Yeah.
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C
This is a guardian devil. And in Greek religion.
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Name's not coming to me.
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When it comes to me, I'll come back to it. But in Greek religion, daemonis occupy this realm between gods and humans.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And so.
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They're neither the same as the highest gods, at least they're sort of a fuzzy border.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Like, is a muse a demon or a God?
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B
Right, right, right.
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C
There's sort of a fuzzy border there. Right.
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B
And especially with the ones that, you know, used to be human or it used to be demi.
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C
Right.
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B
You can kind of see.
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C
Yeah, yeah. So there's. There's kind of a fuzzy border there. It's hard to do, like, strict categorization. And the way the term gets used.
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It gets used fuzzily at the border. Right. I can even show you texts that refer to Zeus as a daemon.
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Yeah, right.
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B
Yeah.
- [28:24]
C
So, you know, this isn't. A lot of times we talk about. About these things on the show.
- [28:33]
And we get feedback that people are confused. And the reason they're confused is that they're trying to do these, like, hard and fast categories.
- [28:42]
Right. Like, these beings are in this gods of the nations category.
- [28:47]
B
Yeah.
- [28:48]
C
And these other beings are in this daemonis category and. Right. And not everything in life works that way.
- [28:57]
B
No, I mean, I mean, like, just think of the word spirit. Right. You could, you know.
- [29:02]
C
Yeah.
- [29:02]
B
The human spirit, the spirit of a nation, the Holy spirit. Like these are all. We use the word spirit for them, but these are radically different kinds of beings.
- [29:11]
C
Right. And since the. Right. The.
- [29:17]
Ancient Greek pagans we're talking about were not scholastic philosophers or theologians, so they didn't taxonomize and classify everything. They just didn't. They didn't nail things down like that.
- [29:31]
B
Yeah.
- [29:31]
C
Hesiod is mostly poetry.
- [29:34]
B
Right.
- [29:35]
C
Not prose.
- [29:36]
B
Yeah. In fact, the idea that someone would do science without poetry was just not a thing in much of human history.
- [29:44]
C
Yeah. So.
- [29:47]
This is something we talked about very early on. Right. We can't plug everything into a spreadsheet.
- [29:54]
Right. You take a poem, you take a poem that's in a word document, you try and import it into a spreadsheet, you're gonna get weird results, man. So we have to just let some things be a little hazy, a little evocative.
- [30:08]
And not try and nail them down. Because if you try and nail them down, you'll end up confusing yourself.
- [30:15]
But so in general, daemonists are in this realm between gods and men. And what that concretely means.
- [30:25]
Is that they are primarily energetic beings. And by energetic I don't mean like they have a lot of pep and vigor. They're well designated.
- [30:36]
B
Yeah. It's this sense of so energies in the theological and philosophical sense is. Is working. Working in is what it literally means. But yeah, it's that sense of acting upon, you know.
- [30:51]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:52]
B
Animating.
- [30:53]
C
Inaction.
- [30:54]
B
Yeah. Action.
- [30:55]
C
They're countered. Inaction, meaning. For the most part there are exceptions. Right. But for the most part.
- [31:04]
You don't have people like seeing and talking to and interacting with.
- [31:11]
Demones.
- [31:13]
Right.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah.
- [31:14]
C
The Greek gods will appear to people.
- [31:17]
Seduce people, fornicate with people. If you're Zeus. Right. And some of the others. Right. Will do all those kind of things. Daemonis primarily don't.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah. They sort of come upon you.
- [31:30]
C
They're more experienced.
- [31:32]
B
Feel them. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:34]
C
Their influence is felt. Right. They act upon people, they're encountered in a more sort of existential way.
- [31:41]
B
Yeah. Like, like, like a young couple go out into the woods and then they, you know, are filled with lust for each other. They would say that a demon had come upon them.
- [31:51]
C
Like that was the sense there was a. The daemon of the woods. Yeah.
- [31:57]
And because of this, they're very rarely depicted in Greek iconography. So you'll have all kinds of depictions of Zeus in various forms and other gods and goddesses and divine beings. You rarely have depictions of Daemonis after they're dead. Right. You'll have Hercules while he was alive. Right. Or the Founder while he was alive, doing one of his great feats, like depicting this story from his life, but not afterward. Yeah, right. They're not depicted. The big, biggest exception to that is erosion.
- [32:32]
B
Yes. The son of Aphrodite.
- [32:34]
C
Yeah. Eros you do find depictions of. Less commonly than you think. Depictions of Eros are actually more common in Renaissance art than they are in pagan Greek art.
- [32:45]
B
Yeah.
- [32:45]
C
Somewhat amazingly.
- [32:46]
B
She probably just mentioned, at least just for the, you know, sake of clarity, that Aphrodite is not the goddess of love, she is the goddess of seduction. So.
- [32:56]
C
Yeah, but there's some. There's some grift. Some griff. Grist for the mill. Not grift of some.
- [33:05]
B
There's probably some grift going on over there, too.
- [33:06]
C
Yeah. Well, you know, if Pageau's listening. Right. Hero. Way more common in Renaissance art than in pagan Greek art.
- [33:18]
Though there are other very graphic things in pagan Greek art that you haven't seen because.
- [33:25]
B
Yes. Don't just Google stuff up, especially with your kids next to you with some of this related stuff.
- [33:31]
C
I won't say what, but this happened with something earlier today when we were preparing for this show and Father Andrew Googled something I mentioned.
- [33:37]
B
I have regrets.
- [33:38]
C
Yes. A few.
- [33:40]
B
I'm scarred for life. Made me want to become a grifter.
- [33:47]
C
But Eros is, for example, referred to in the Symposium.
- [33:53]
As the great daemon.
- [33:58]
And associated with, shockingly, Dionysus.
- [34:04]
B
Yes.
- [34:06]
C
Who could figure.
- [34:10]
But. So.
- [34:12]
That gives you a little bit of a picture of what's going on with the Greeks in terms of daemonis. Now let's talk about the Romans.
- [34:24]
And so now we're going to be talking about genii, which is the plural.
- [34:28]
B
Of genius, not to be confused with genies or Gene.
- [34:33]
C
Yeah. Although I have a suspicion there's some relation.
- [34:37]
B
But there may be. Yeah.
- [34:39]
C
Maybe that's a rabbit hole we're not going down right now.
- [34:41]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [34:45]
C
So a genius.
- [34:49]
Was a spirit for the. In Roman religion that was associated with a person, with a place.
- [34:58]
With a geographical feature or with a people group.
- [35:02]
B
Yeah. And they would say that, like, every person has it. But remember, not everyone is a person.
- [35:08]
C
Not everyone is a person.
- [35:10]
B
Yeah.
- [35:11]
C
Right. And they also, though.
- [35:15]
Striking. Striking a blow for women's rights. They believed women were possessed by demons, too.
- [35:25]
There were.
- [35:28]
So.
- [35:30]
Brief note on that. Right. You may be thinking, well, there were women like the Pythian Oracle. And the Oracle at Delphi. Right. Who were women who were possessed. They were female slaves.
- [35:42]
B
Yeah.
- [35:43]
C
Who were possessed by demons.
- [35:46]
B
Right. Like if you read, like just read for instance the Aeneid, you know when the Sybil gets possessed by Apollo.
- [35:54]
C
Yeah.
- [35:55]
B
It's not like a nice experience.
- [35:58]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a big difference between that and what Socrates said was going on with his daemon.
- [36:05]
B
Right, right. He has more of a relationship.
- [36:07]
C
Whereas the Romans more broadly had Junia related to Juno.
- [36:17]
That were spirits associated with women. When we're talking about a genius associated with a person.
- [36:27]
And then places. Right. These are, this is similar to Greek religion. The sacred places, groves, springs of water. Right. Etc, Etc, geographical features means like a mountain, a valley, a cave. Right. As opposed to just a place in general. Right.
- [36:51]
So you might have a mountain that has some genius, some spirit associated with the whole mountain. But then there may be individual shrines, glades, things on the mountain, mountain associated with other spirits in those particular places on the mountain.
- [37:08]
B
Yeah. And also like people groups. So for instance, like with Rome, the genius of Rome is the Roma Patria, you know, like the goddess Rome basically. And Athens, I mean by the way, the name of Athens in Greek everybody is Athena. Like it's literally Athena. It's exactly the same as the goddess. So you know, that's, that's who their genius would be from the Romans point.
- [37:32]
C
Of view, from the Roman's point of view. Right. And.
- [37:37]
This of course, since we're picking on the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
- [37:43]
As we were.
- [37:44]
B
Yeah, we don't really hammer them anywhere near as much as we, we do 19th century.
- [37:48]
C
Go look at early American. I'm talking about like early 19th century and early French Republic iconography. Right. Lady Liberty was supposed to be the genius of America.
- [38:04]
B
Oh yeah, yeah. And, and what is, you know like the, the apotheosis of Washington that's in the, the Capitol dome. I mean, is that, is that Washington becoming a daemon? Just put that out there.
- [38:15]
C
That is what that is. What was the other name for Lady Liberty? What was her name? The female figure.
- [38:23]
B
Oh.
- [38:24]
C
Who they used in the depictions of Manifest Destiny. And.
- [38:31]
B
Trying to look this up now.
- [38:33]
C
This was the Holy Spirit.
- [38:36]
B
Yeah.
- [38:39]
Yeah.
- [38:42]
I mean there is this idea of the goddess Libertas.
- [38:45]
C
Yeah, no, no, no. She had a particular name.
- [38:50]
Was it Columbia?
- [38:52]
B
Oh, I, Yeah, I think Colombia actually was this idea of.
- [38:59]
C
Yeah.
- [39:00]
B
A Goddess of America kind of thing.
- [39:02]
C
And that's what the District of Columbia is named after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, lots of paganism in early 19th century history. But we've talked about that before, how the rise of nationalism always brings about a kind of return to paganism.
- [39:24]
Including today, where I saw a person.
- [39:28]
Promoting Aristotle's view of natural slavery.
- [39:33]
In the present day.
- [39:35]
B
Yeah.
- [39:37]
Yeah, I've seen that actually here and there. This idea that certain groups of people are. Are, you know, fit to be slaves.
- [39:46]
C
Yeah. When. When this is how ubiquitous paganism is, when Christianity starts to recede, it comes rushing right back in.
- [39:54]
B
Yeah.
- [39:57]
C
Yeah. And it's not going to be any better this time, so.
- [40:01]
Pick your poison, atheists.
- [40:07]
So there is. So he said there's a genius associated with a person, with a place, with a geographical feature, with a people group. Right. And the connection between the spirit, this spirit and the person place thing. Right. What have you.
- [40:33]
Is sort of this direct reciprocal relationship, meaning they share traits and features.
- [40:40]
B
Yeah. So like, if you're. If your genius is, let's say, warlike in his personality, then the person or nation that's attached to may well be warlike as well. There's sort of similar personalities.
- [41:00]
Not super clear, like, which direction the influence goes.
- [41:04]
C
Always it seems to be pretty clear with. With a person that the influence is the spirit influencing the person.
- [41:12]
B
Yeah. But.
- [41:13]
C
But it becomes unclear. Is like a volcano, right.
- [41:18]
B
Is it that, you know, a volcano burst out and so therefore a genius was attracted to it and was influenced by it, or that the genius is doing that to the earth? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:30]
C
Not completely clear. But in any case, despite this close and reciprocal relationship, they were also distinguishable.
- [41:38]
Right. Meaning they weren't the same being.
- [41:41]
Right. So we're talking about this more in a minute. But the daemon that possessed a person was not just.
- [41:51]
Their spirit, right? Like their spirit.
- [41:55]
B
Yeah, no, it's a separate entity.
- [41:57]
C
It is a separate entity, but that is allotted to a person and in a sense is obviously more powerful than a person and is sort of guiding and shepherding that person. So again, we have this idea of a guardian demon.
- [42:12]
B
Right.
- [42:14]
C
For the record, Theodosius, when he became emperor at the end of the 4th century, outlawed sacrificial offerings to Genii.
- [42:25]
Because people would offer them to their own.
- [42:28]
B
Do their own. Yeah. And I mean, that's a heck of a thing to do for the Roman Emperor, because for centuries the test of patriotism was offering sacrifice to the genius of the emperor.
- [42:40]
C
Yeah.
- [42:42]
Yes. This is just, you know, having to make all these offerings so that your genius doesn't become mad and kill you or to keep it at bay or to get it to stop driving you to crimes.
- [42:53]
Just one of the many Beautiful pagan traditions that Theodosius outlawed. That intolerant jerk.
- [43:00]
B
Yeah.
- [43:04]
C
So we have to touch on, as I briefly mentioned, a certain revisionist interpretation of this that has arisen more recently.
- [43:14]
And this is based on. Man, we're just bashing the Enlightenment today.
- [43:20]
We've talked about this before, that.
- [43:24]
Contemporary scholarship, and this is really a recent thing. This is like a 20th century thing. It started in the. In the Enlightenment, but has really gained traction now.
- [43:36]
In the Enlightenment, they sort of wanted to cast the Greek philosophers in particular, and also Roman philosophers as being very much like them.
- [43:47]
So because, say, the French philosophes had decided that, oh, Roman Catholicism is base superstition, that the rabble believe, right. We're above it. They projected into the past, oh, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. They can't possibly have believed in all this pagan.
- [44:03]
B
Because we love those guys.
- [44:05]
C
That's even worse than. That's even worse than Roman Catholicism. Right.
- [44:10]
So they can't possibly have believed that. They must have been above it. And like I said, that's just intensified until now. Like, you've got people trying to argue that Hegel wasn't a Lutheran. He's like the most Lutheran guy in the world. If you read what he writes, like, Luther would have looked at him and been like, dang, right?
- [44:37]
But somehow we got to read him in this way that he wasn't really religious because how could he possibly be? He was smart. Yes. Which is just a stupid and weird bias. Okay? But the way that works itself out in this discussion is they're like, well, wait, Socrates can't possibly have believed in demons.
- [44:55]
Right? Socrates is too smart. He can't have believed that there was some spirit whispering to his soul. He can't believe that. He must have just been talking about his own spirit. His own soul.
- [45:09]
Right? That must be what he was talking about. That must be what all these philosophers believed in, because they couldn't believe that pagan nonsense.
- [45:14]
B
Of course.
- [45:18]
C
And so here's the kernel, right? The kernel of truth in that is that when you get into the late third and early fourth centuries, especially in the fourth century, where we're talking about the last generation of pagans, right, Of Greek and Roman pagans within the Roman Empire, paganism changed a lot over the course of that last 85 to 100 years. We talked about that in some recent episodes, like with Plotinus trying to sort of redo Platonism and make it more Christian. Ish. Right?
- [45:52]
But the same happened to paganism. They pretty much stopped sacrificing animals.
- [45:57]
For example. It was mostly incense and Prayers and hymns and stuff.
- [46:04]
They. What does that sound like?
- [46:06]
B
Yeah, right.
- [46:09]
C
So they were shifting under the influence of Christianity to try to survive. Paganism became a very different thing. So when you look at some of those last generation pagan philosophers like Labanius and stuff, they may have very much interpreted those earlier texts that way because they were trying to find a more refined version of philosophy and paganism. Right. That would get around Christian critiques. Yeah, right. Of their beliefs. But it's very clear, it is abundantly clear, it is incontrovertibly clear that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
- [46:52]
Fully believed in. In demonis, fully believed in spirits, believed in a spiritual world, believed it literally. You know, Aristotle's academy was, it was. Or his school was inside a temple to Apollo. These were full blooded pagans. Right. Albeit of a very intellectual sort, you know, who intellectualized elements of their practice and that kind of thing. But we're very religious in their time and place. So if anybody comes to you with that interpretation, just know they're trying to retcon it because they're embarrassed by religion. That's why they're making that argument.
- [47:37]
But so as we mentioned, right, to sort of sum up what, what we've been talking about in this first half. Right. There was very much among Greek and Roman pagans this belief in people having a guardian devil, having a guardian demon, a genius that was associated with them, with whom they interacted over the course of their life. Yeah.
- [47:59]
B
And for pagans that was a positive good thing. I mean, you had like a little God on your side.
- [48:04]
C
Right. Or at least who you could placate and mollify when not.
- [48:11]
And so.
- [48:15]
The.
- [48:17]
Exorcisms that we do in the Orthodox church and which have always been done at Christian baptisms, the exorcisms at the beginning were not just an oh, just in case.
- [48:32]
B
Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, oh, you know, maybe there's some kind of demonic influence, let's do this. No, no, it was a sense of, hey, there's a lot of demons running around.
- [48:44]
C
Well, and attached. The pagans who were coming there had some demon yoked to their life.
- [48:50]
B
Right.
- [48:50]
C
In their own understanding.
- [48:52]
B
Right, right, right.
- [48:56]
C
And that was being exercised. And one of the places where we see the tradition regarding guardian angels, which is in the Bible.
- [49:07]
For example, Christ talks about the little ones whose angels in heaven are always before the Father.
- [49:14]
But one of the places where that's most clearly articulated is actually in the baptismal services.
- [49:21]
B
Yeah. Because you get at the beginning the exorcisms to drive them out, but then Also a very specific prayer that a guardian angel be assigned to this person.
- [49:32]
C
Right. So here's a replacement, like the replacement we've talked about with saints. Right. And the gods of the nations, but on a personal level.
- [49:43]
B
Yep, yep.
- [49:44]
C
Right. On a personal level, the demon that's been influencing your life is now replaced. Right. With an angel who's going to guide you better in a better place. But you could also see here the origin then of the things like the prayer to the guardian angel.
- [50:02]
Right. But that is a very different character than making blood offerings so that your demon won't kill you because it's mad. Right?
- [50:14]
B
Yes.
- [50:15]
C
And that's not an exaggeration. That is something people literally had to do sometimes.
- [50:19]
B
Literally a thing.
- [50:21]
C
Right.
- [50:23]
The prayer of the guardian angel has a very different character. Right?
- [50:28]
B
Indeed.
- [50:31]
C
So, yeah, so that, that kind of replacement was something that happened on a personal level. So, yeah. So in next half, we're going to talk about, we talked about now the Greeks and the Romans. We're gonna, we're gonna talk about this from maybe a second temple Jewish perspective. Fancy.
- [50:48]
B
All right.
- [50:49]
C
On this show.
- [50:50]
B
All right. All right. We're gonna take our first break and we'll be back soon. And we're gonna take a couple calls and see you soon.
- [50:58]
A
Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.
- [51:19]
D
The centuries after the Protestant Reformation brought about a radical reinterpretation of The Epistles of St. Paul, disconnected from any historical reality. But Paul operated during his entire life as a faithful Pharisee within the Roman Jewish world. In St. Paul the Pharisee, Jewish apostle to all nations, Father Stephen DeYoung surveys Paul's life and writings, interpreting them within the holy tradition of the Orthodox Church. This survey is followed by DeYoung's interpretive translation of St. Paul's epistles, which deliberately avoids overly familiar terminology. By using words and ideas grounded in 1st century Judaism, DeYoung hopes to unsettle commonly held notions and help the reader reassess St. Paul in his historical context. Available now at store.ancientfaith.com Again, that is store.ancientfaith.com we're back now with the Lord.
- [52:17]
A
Of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855 AF radio.
- [52:33]
B
Welcome back, everybody. I feel like that break was really.
- [52:35]
C
Too short this season. It is 855-Araidio.
- [52:40]
B
That's right.
- [52:45]
I'm surprised you didn't use the word spooktacular, Father Stephen.
- [52:50]
C
So I don't know how many people remember this, but my childhood was haunted by a recurring commercial for a 1, 900 number.
- [52:59]
I remember all in here, spooky stories. Oh, but the commercial had this jack o' lantern and it was like heavy rotate because they're trying to get kids to call and run up their parents phone bills.
- [53:10]
B
Right.
- [53:11]
C
Heavy rotations during, say, your Thundercats and your Silverhawks. Right.
- [53:18]
And it's.
- [53:19]
E
It.
- [53:19]
C
I. There's this horrible Jack o' lantern puppet. Like, I mean, really poor production values. I don't remember for the amount of money they must have been making on this thing. And it always started out boo. Did I scare you? If you really want to be frightened. 1 900, whatever the number was, I'm.
- [53:38]
B
I. That does sound familiar.
- [53:40]
C
Did I just trigger a flashback?
- [53:43]
B
Wow.
- [53:45]
Wow, man.
- [53:48]
C
A1,900 number is let alone.
- [53:50]
B
I know, I know, man. All right, we are going to take a couple of calls before we roll on into the second half. So first we have Julius and his phone says he's in North Carolina. So, Julius, welcome to Laura Spirits podcast.
- [54:09]
F
Hey, Father Andrew, how are you?
- [54:14]
C
Top liver over here, I say.
- [54:15]
B
That's right. Finally.
- [54:18]
F
Well, yeah, that's okay, whoever you are.
- [54:21]
C
Yeah.
- [54:23]
F
And yes, I'm at your old parish in Raleigh. Oh, Everyone at All Saints says hi.
- [54:28]
B
Yeah, everyone at All Saints. That's a. That's a lot of people these days.
- [54:34]
Are you one of. Are you one of the like 900 catechumens they have right now?
- [54:38]
F
No, we were received this last the Alphany, so.
- [54:40]
B
Oh. Oh, okay.
- [54:41]
F
So we're the new Lumen.
- [54:44]
B
Yeah. A noob.
- [54:46]
F
But we do have a great catechumen class right now, so it's really wonderful.
- [54:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's hovering around 100 these days, I think. Right?
- [54:54]
E
Yeah.
- [54:54]
B
That's nuts. So what's on your mind, Julius?
- [54:58]
F
I want to thank you guys for helping me with my modernism brain that I didn't even realize I had.
- [55:07]
From last week. But it ties in with this week too. But. So one thing I'm really starting to realize after last week is that, and you've been talking about it tonight, is everybody in the ancient world agreed that divine revelation was a thing.
- [55:22]
And that seems to be what really clashes with our modern brain, that we gather information and facts are just neutral things. And if you get the right fact or if you get enough facts and you're good at it, you will discover the truth through your interpretation skills.
- [55:42]
But it seems like everybody in the ancient world agreed that the truth was something that had to be revealed to you from the outside.
- [55:50]
B
I, you know, I wouldn't generalize that much because, like, people do learn things from being taught or from observation.
- [55:57]
C
No, but I think, I think he's pointing to. I mean, far be it from Eastern to defend Julius after the snub here. But.
- [56:07]
F
The second question, just for you.
- [56:09]
C
But I'll get it.
- [56:12]
But I think he's pointing to the difference in sort of the views of where ideas come from.
- [56:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Right.
- [56:18]
C
So ideas and concepts are built out of facts. Right. You collect facts and then build the concepts and ideas as opposed to them coming in from outside. Right.
- [56:28]
B
Like.
- [56:30]
E
Well, yeah.
- [56:31]
F
And especially, like I said, the idea today. Yeah. That, like, people just reject divine revelation in general. That, like, if you tell somebody, you know.
- [56:41]
Oh, well, you know, how do you know it's true? Well, you know, it was revealed to me by the Holy Spirit there. You know, if they don't believe in that, they're going to roll their eyes pretty much.
- [56:50]
B
Yeah.
- [56:51]
F
At least on the inside. They might be polite on the outside.
- [56:54]
B
I mean, less likely in North Carolina than up here in Yankee land. But. Yeah.
- [57:00]
E
Yeah.
- [57:00]
F
Which I have to say I almost understand because then you get into the problem of discernment because lots of people, you know, were going around in various periods of history saying, hey, guess what a spirit told me.
- [57:13]
B
Yeah. So what's your question, Julius?
- [57:17]
F
Well, so that is the problem is, you know, I'm looking at the, the C.S. lewis quote about there being no neutral ground that God and Satan fight over every inch. And I think that's another problem that I'm having with my modern brain is we have all these things that we say, well, that's not good or bad, it's just how you use it. Or.
- [57:37]
You know, I even look over the across, far, far across the aisle to Roman Catholicism, where they have like a patron saint of the Internet or the patron saying.
- [57:48]
Something that seems totally inane.
- [57:53]
Small shipping, frigates or.
- [57:58]
Going fishing or whatever. Oh, it's not good or bad, but you can use it for good or bad. And we have this idea of neutrality built into everything, especially in marketing. They always look to use terms. They're like, well, we don't want you to judge or condemn. We just want you to say.
- [58:16]
E
That.
- [58:16]
F
This is a feeling the consumer has. So getting the Postmodernism, which you talked about last week, everyone just has a perspective. It's all relative. It's not good or bad. So there's this neutrality that's just really built into the modern age. But C.S. lewis is very affirmative that we don't really have neutrality. Everything's good or bad. And there seems to be the prescription of, sorry, the description given to us by scripture. To me, you know, especially going into the song, the two paths, the sheep and the goats, there's a lot of. It's one way or the other.
- [58:51]
So can you talk about the orthodox perspective on what is neutrality? Where. Where does it exist in the world? Or is it an illusion? Do we even have neutrality?
- [59:00]
B
I mean, so you're either being obedient to God or you're. Or you're not.
- [59:07]
But I think that one of the things I think maybe not obvious, as obvious to people is that obedience to God is actually way broader and more inclusive than disobedience.
- [59:22]
And. And by the. So, for instance, someone might say, well, you know, okay, I gotta take the trash out. That's not good or evil. That's just a thing that I have to do. But putting things in order and making them beautiful and cultivating them is literally job one as given to Adam and Eve, right? So, like, you know, caretaking this world and doing the things that have to be done and putting them in order. This. These are the works that God gave us to do. That is an act of obedience, right? That is an act of faithfulness. Right? So I mean, there are some things, of course, that it's. It's not that it's neutral in itself, but it is how you interact with it. Right? So like a classic example would be drinking God. It says. It says in Scripture that God makes wine, you know, for the gladness of the heart of man, but he didn't make it for drunkenness.
- [60:17]
You know, So I think part of the problem, of course, is that questions of good and evil are about human participation. They're not about a taxonomy of items.
- [60:30]
There's no. There's no knowledge that doesn't include some kind of participation. Right? So, you know, the idea of, like, there is no spiritual neutrality. Often we think of certain actions as being neutral, but that's because we don't understand how they're either cooperating with God or. Or not. You know.
- [60:55]
A lot of that's probably just ignorance. Like I said, taking out the trash is an act of order and beauty.
- [61:01]
So, you know, do that, everybody. And therefore, you know, it's an act of faithfulness to God. You know, all those little things that we do to keep ourselves and our lives in order, these are acts of faithfulness to God.
- [61:17]
Holiness, really. I mean, they are acts of holiness. We might not think of them as religious, but that's not, that's not what the call is. It's not to do things that we classify in this list of churchy stuff. It's to do all the things that are obedience to the way that God made us to be and the things he calls us to do. I know. Father Stephen, do you have anything you wanted to add? Subtract, actually?
- [61:39]
C
Well, it's. It's important that we don't confuse ontology and ethics.
- [61:45]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [61:46]
C
Right. Where things or even people.
- [61:51]
B
Right.
- [61:52]
C
Are good or evil as opposed to what they do or what they're used for is good or evil. Yeah, right. Those are, those are separate categories. And the danger of confusing those two is you end up with Gnosticism, right, Where the material world is somehow evil. Right.
- [62:14]
I'll use the example of alcohol that you just gave. Right? Because alcohol could be used for evil and may even be prevalently used to evil ends. That means alcohol is somehow evil in and of itself and to be done away with. Right? That's. That's the Gnostic slippage, right?
- [62:35]
Dancing. Right. Might. Might lead to something else and therefore it's evil. Right.
- [62:43]
That. That kind of thing. So.
- [62:49]
Nuclear power, right. You can use to create.
- [62:55]
Nearly infinite amounts of carbon neutral energy. Right.
- [63:01]
You can also use the same technology to massacre millions of innocent people.
- [63:12]
That doesn't mean that.
- [63:15]
Nuclear fission technology is neutral. Precisely. Right. It means that good or evil isn't a category that applies to nuclear fission technology. It applies to the use of. To which nuclear fission technology is put. Yeah, it's put to a good user, it's put to an evil use. But in and of itself, again, neutral implies that it could be good or evil in and of itself.
- [63:47]
Right.
- [63:49]
Even if you think of something that you would say, well, that's evil in and of itself. Like, let's say, pornography. Right.
- [63:57]
Pornography is not really a thing. Pornography is a subset of photography or film or videos or. Right. And film, videos, photography, all have very good uses to which they're put. And then also very evil usages of which pornography is one.
- [64:24]
B
Yep.
- [64:24]
C
Right. So, yeah, neutral, again, I think, is wrong because that still places it on the moral compass. And I think the issue there is that it's a category mistake, Right. That good and evil are ethical categories that we use to Describe actions, not things. Yeah, yeah.
- [64:49]
B
All right, I hope that's helpful, Julius.
- [64:53]
F
Real quick, Father Stephen.
- [64:55]
C
Yes.
- [64:55]
F
I would love to ask you, have you ever seen the episode of Columbo where William Shatner plays a fictional version of himself?
- [65:02]
C
Yes, of course he has. Where he has the, like, little tiny mustache.
- [65:06]
E
Yes.
- [65:07]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [65:09]
F
And he kind of plays up all of the hammy tropes about himself in the episode.
- [65:15]
C
Yes, he does. Like, deliberate self parody. Yes.
- [65:17]
E
Yeah, yeah.
- [65:18]
F
It's really good. Okay, well, I'm glad you've seen it. I was just going to make sure you were aware it existed.
- [65:23]
C
That mustache is unforgettable.
- [65:28]
F
Thank you, Father.
- [65:29]
B
All right, thanks for calling, Julius. Okay, we're going to take one more call before we move on. And we have Nicholas, who is apparently calling from Thessaloniki. Nicholas, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.
- [65:40]
G
Hello, can you hear me?
- [65:41]
B
Yes, we hear you.
- [65:43]
C
What time is it there?
- [65:43]
G
Yes, it is 3:06 in the morning.
- [65:48]
C
All right.
- [65:49]
G
From the airport. I'm on my way to the holy mountain.
- [65:52]
C
Oh, okay.
- [65:53]
G
Thank you for having me on.
- [65:55]
B
God bless you.
- [65:57]
So what's on your mind, Nicholas?
- [66:00]
G
I was curious about guardian angels. I know earlier in the show and also in previous episodes, you have briefly mentioned them, but I want to understand them a little better. Like, for example, like, what are they guarding? And.
- [66:18]
What I have in my mind is like, trying to get a grasp on their activity in our life is thinking back to Genesis. And I'm curious if it is like a good or true archetype or type to think of the cherubim that God appoints to protect the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve get kicked out with the flaming sword to make sure that they don't have access to the Tree of Wisdom and the Tree of Life anymore. I'm curious if the guardian angels have the same sort of activity or if this is like. Does this work as, like, a type in terms of, like, archetypes to make that comparison?
- [67:02]
B
Yeah, I mean, interestingly, like, that cherub that's placed with the flaming sword.
- [67:07]
I think the exact language is, this is a. Guards the way to the Tree of Life. But really, what, but what's, what's happening, what that means is that the cherub is actually guarding Adam and Eve from killing themselves, you know.
- [67:22]
Spiritually from. From being crystallized in evil. Right. So they don't have access to immortality is the idea. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, like, it's. It's tempting to want to taxonomize angelic beings. And of course, there's a There's some precedent for that, of course, you know, like the ranks of angels and so forth. But, but yeah, I think the function that you're talking about, the guarding, the guiding.
- [67:51]
You know, the, the taking care of. Right. That is what a guardian angel does.
- [67:57]
And that's what we, in our prayers to them that exist in our tradition, that's what we ask them to do. We ask them to help us. Help. Help us be kept from sin, you know, to protect us from temptation, to guard us from demonic attack, all that kind of stuff. So, so yeah, that, that kind of guarding function that you see not just with the angel at the door of paradise, but many cases, like, you know, the Archangel Raphael functions as a guardian angel in the book of Tobit, for instance. You know, there's a lot of that stuff in the history of the church.
- [68:36]
What do you think, Father? Is there, is there a linkage between all these concepts?
- [68:41]
C
I think St. Raphael is a good example because, yeah, I think we get hung up on the guarding element.
- [68:49]
And it's really more that concept, when you go to its roots in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, is much closer to a guiding angel.
- [69:02]
Right. You can see how St. Raphael kind of guides accompanies and guides Tobit on his journey. I mean, there are instances where he guards him from something or helps him guard himself, but overall it's more of this guiding idea. Yeah, right. And guiding and shaping. Now, when you contrast it with what we were talking about in the first half, Right, So a demonic spirit is going to try to guide people to destruction.
- [69:31]
Right. Whereas an angelic being is going to try to.
- [69:35]
Guide someone back toward God, guide them to Christ, guide them to. Back to God.
- [69:43]
And so.
- [69:46]
Part of the purpose of, like the prayer to the guardian angel is.
- [69:51]
To try to help attune ourselves to that guidance.
- [69:57]
B
Right.
- [69:57]
C
To. To.
- [69:59]
Make us more sensitive to it.
- [70:03]
Right.
- [70:07]
And, you know, and again, this isn't instead of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
- [70:13]
B
Right.
- [70:13]
C
Or instead of anything. Right. It's very much both and.
- [70:18]
B
Right.
- [70:22]
C
But I, I think. I think that guiding element is actually the, the most pertinent element. More, even more than guarding, per se.
- [70:34]
So it's a little bit of a.
- [70:35]
G
Misleading name then, perhaps, like a guiding angel. Okay.
- [70:41]
F
Yeah. Perfect.
- [70:41]
G
Yeah. Thank you. That was kind of the source of my questioning.
- [70:48]
Because I know there's also, like in my morning prayers, at least it, when I, in the prayer to my guardian angel, it mentions something along the lines of like, protect me against, like, the demons and help make sure that they don't subdue my mortal body. And like, almost seeming like it's talking about possession in the sense that you're talking about in the first half.
- [71:12]
B
Yeah.
- [71:13]
G
I mean, I'm sure you're going to talk more about it, but that's kind of all.
- [71:16]
B
It's kind of all of a piece, too. Right. Like one of the. Like a guardian angel can't go against your. Well, won't generally go against your will. Like, if you're like, I'm going to sin, you know, what can it. What can he do? Right. So, like, if, you know, and I'm going to sin means I'm going to cooperate with demons. That's what that means. So the guiding function and the guarding function in a lot of ways are kind of the same thing.
- [71:44]
C
Yeah. And we. We don't want to over literalize the metaphor. Right. There's like sort of the frank, pretty version that the attacks of the demons is like they're swinging an invisible flaming sword at you and like your guardian angel parries it with his sword or something. Right. This is going on and you can't see it. The way that demons attack us is by tempting us to sin.
- [72:05]
B
Right.
- [72:06]
C
By putting evil thoughts in our minds. Right. Those are the attacks we're talking about. And so we're asking the angel to help protect us and strengthen us against those attacks so that we don't fall for them. Right. And end up getting captured by and enslaved by sin.
- [72:29]
B
All right, thank you very much, Nicholas.
- [72:30]
G
Thank you.
- [72:31]
B
God be with you on your pilgrimage.
- [72:35]
All right, we're going to go ahead and roll on. I know we have some other callers that are waiting. God willing, we'll get to a couple at least in the third half, but. All right. Demons in Second Temple Judaism, that's a significant contrast. Yeah, that's right. Get excited, everybody.
- [72:51]
C
We're going to talk about giants.
- [72:55]
B
And I mean, there's some interesting similarities, although not exactly the same, but there's definitely some interesting similarities to the pagan concepts that we've been discussing.
- [73:04]
C
Right, right. So.
- [73:09]
Origins of demons in Second Temple Judaism. We talked about the Greek view, the Roman view.
- [73:14]
And when we talk about demons, we're not talking about all evil spirits.
- [73:17]
B
Right.
- [73:18]
C
So we're not talking about, like the gods of the nations. Right, right. In the sense that we've talked about them, like with the Tower of Babel. Right. What we're talking about are the bodiless, unclean spirits that come and possess people, that torment people. Right. That are especially prominent in the Synoptic gospels.
- [73:39]
And I say the Synoptic Gospels, because there are no exorcisms in St. John's Gospel, but in St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke's Gospels, there are lots of exorcisms.
- [73:52]
And you find.
- [73:56]
These kind of spirits in the same sense that you find in the Synoptic Gospels, for example, in Tobit that we just mentioned with the collar.
- [74:05]
So the Second Temple period, very clearly there. But you don't find that particular kind of phenomenon described that much. Well, not really at all. In the Torah, for example. Right. And the places where you start seeing references to, like, unclean spirits are, for example, in first through fourth Kingdoms, first and Second Samuel, first and second Kings. But that's one continuous story that ends in the exile. So that's. This is the text that's written relatively during the exile. Right?
- [74:39]
B
Yeah. Like, like Saul, for instance, when the Holy Spirit departs from him, he then gets attacked by this. This demon, unclean spirit.
- [74:47]
C
Yeah. And so you see that showing. But again, this is in the exilic period. Right. So this is a phenomenon that primarily gets described in the context of Second Temple Judaism in terms of texts that we have. Right.
- [75:05]
I am certain there was an understanding. So if you're asking. Right. Well, if we say that that's true and that happened to Saul while saul is around 1000 BC right.
- [75:16]
The ancient Israelite religion had some understanding of this and where they came from. And I'll say I agree with you. The problem is it's hard to know.
- [75:25]
Yeah. Because we don't have any extra Biblical texts from 1000 BC Jewish Extra Biblical text or Israelite extra biblical text.
- [75:37]
Unless you count like two and three line inscriptions. And even then, a lot of those are biblical names or related to biblical events. Right. So they're only barely extra biblical and they're tiny inscriptions and things. Right. We're not talking about a text talking about the origin of demons, but we do have those kind of texts once we get to the Second Temple period.
- [76:01]
So we at least know at that point what was being thought as we move toward the New Testament.
- [76:08]
And then we could sort of trace that out from the Second Temple period into the New Testament into the early Church and the Fathers. Right. So that's where we're going here in this second half.
- [76:20]
Now, of course, we've talked a bunch on the show, and so we're not going to belabor it again.
- [76:27]
About the way this is presented in the Book of Enoch in Jubilees. And yes, I say Enoch. I know he's a Sleestack. I don't Care.
- [76:37]
B
That's how I pronounce it. Enoch.
- [76:39]
C
If it bothers you, too bad.
- [76:46]
But the Book of Enoch and Jubilees, right, we've talked about that, right. That these are the spirits of the Nephilim who are killed in the flood, right? Now remember, the Nephilim are semi divine. The Nephilim are the heroes of old, the men of renown. Right? These are. So what we find here, as we've talked about before, is not a rejection of the pagan stories. Right.
- [77:08]
B
It's a different interpretation of what's really going on.
- [77:11]
C
They agree with the pagans on the facts that there were these heroes, that they were in some sense semi divine, that there were these demones involved in their conception and their existence and their lives. Just, you know, how that's.
- [77:30]
Morally understood is very different. In fact, opposite.
- [77:33]
B
Right, right. Just like, again, pagans having their guardian demons, you know, thumbs up.
- [77:38]
C
It's a good thing. Yeah.
- [77:39]
B
Christians looking at pagans with guardian demons, thumbs down.
- [77:45]
C
So. And we've talked about the. The story about Mastema in Jubilees where Mastema is one of the leaders of those now disembodied dead Nephilim who.
- [77:58]
They'Re gonna get thrown into the abyss along with their fallen angel.
- [78:04]
Parents. And.
- [78:08]
Mastema goes and begs on their behalf to God to allow them to stay sort of at large, wandering around, roaming the world. Again, you see the parallels. But they promise that they'll just afflict wicked people.
- [78:25]
Right? And God, of course, allows their request. He lets 10% of them stick around on Earth because God's plan is to use them afflicting the wicked, to bring the wicked to repentance.
- [78:39]
God wants to use them to help bring those people to salvation and bring good out of their evil, sort of against their desires.
- [78:51]
And this plays out in various levels of detail in different parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dead Sea Scrolls, of course, are from an Anakin community at Qumran. So you have all kinds of taxonomy about Belial and the demonic spirits, and it's all very consistent with that kind of idea. Okay.
- [79:11]
B
But.
- [79:13]
C
But one important thing to emphasize here in the Second Temple period is it's not just Enochic Judaism that has this view.
- [79:23]
Right.
- [79:25]
And this is important as we're going to now move into the New Testament and move into.
- [79:33]
The early Church fathers, because Christianity is not just a Second Temple Judaism. It is specifically a form of Second Temple Phariseeism, as we've said.
- [79:48]
So we have a nice quote from Josephus, a Pharisee, in his antiquities, about where he believes.
- [79:59]
These Unclean spirits come from.
- [80:02]
B
Yeah, okay, so this is Josephus in Antiquities 3:1. He writes this. Now, this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe and to have an entire regard to virtue for seven generations. But in process of time they were perverted and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honors to God which were appointed them, nor had they any concern to do justice towards men. But for what degree of zeal they had formerly shown for virtue, they now showed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy. For many angels of God accompanied with women and begat sons that proved unjust and despisers of all that was good on account of the confidence they had in their own strength. For the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Greeks called giants. But Noah was very uneasy at what they did, and being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their dispositions and their acts for the better. But seeing they did not yield to him, but were slaves to their wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill him together with his wife and children and those they had married. So he departed out of that land. So it's interesting. I mean, he basically says that there's this some kind of union between angels and humans, and you get giants and.
- [81:25]
C
Connects it to the Greek giants.
- [81:28]
B
Yeah, yeah, right.
- [81:29]
C
Connects it to the Greek story. Right. Regarding the giants.
- [81:35]
E
Which.
- [81:36]
C
So. Well, we'll get to that in a second. Also, I want to note, I bet that long quote swerved some of you because when he started out, he was talking about the descendants of Seth. And I bet you thought for a second that he was going to take the rabbinic Jewish tack and say it's sons of Seth and daughters of Cain, but he swerved you all and went straight for Nephilim.
- [82:02]
But, yeah. So the place where the giants are, for those who don't just know this off the top of their head in terms of.
- [82:11]
B
Of.
- [82:14]
C
Greek belief, is this is part of.
- [82:18]
So the Titans were the children of Gaia, Right. The Earth.
- [82:23]
B
They're kind of like the initial group of gods that are ruling over everything.
- [82:28]
C
And the Titans, right. Then get overthrown by the Olympians, Zeus et al. Zeus and his brothers. Right. Hades and Poseidon and.
- [82:43]
Their various relations.
- [82:46]
They overthrow the Titans and imprison them in Tartarus.
- [82:52]
Right.
- [82:55]
And.
- [82:57]
If you've played the God of war games, you've killed all these people. But anyway.
- [83:03]
So Gaia became very angry, right? The Earth became very angry that the Olympians had sort of often imprisoned her children and so brought forth these monsters. We talked about Typhon in one episode, I think it was in the Antichrist episode we talked about Typhon.
- [83:25]
But also the giants. And the word giantes in Greek literally means the sons of Gaia.
- [83:32]
B
Yeah. Those born of Gaia, the earth born.
- [83:35]
C
But. But it's not earthborn in the sense of dirt. Right, That's a materialist reading. Right, right. They meant Gaia, like the goddess who is the earth, the spirit of the earth, the world soul. Right.
- [83:49]
Right. And they then came to take revenge, basically. Right. And engaged in all this horrific evil behavior. Right. Wrecking the world, which then led to the Gigantomachy, where they had to be defeated and driven out. Right.
- [84:07]
And so that's, that's the comparison that Josephus is making there.
- [84:12]
B
Yeah. And we should say Josephus is a first century Jewish.
- [84:15]
C
Yes. And a Pharisee.
- [84:16]
B
And a Pharisee, Yeah.
- [84:19]
C
In particular. And so what we find is this isn't a unique connection that Josephus makes.
- [84:29]
Between.
- [84:32]
The Titans and the angels who rebelled in the time of Noah and then the Olympians and the Nephilim.
- [84:42]
Right.
- [84:45]
In fact, this becomes, this connection becomes part and parcel of early Christianity.
- [84:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. So early Christians again are like basically agreeing with pagans on the basic shape of the story and the players involved, but giving a very different analysis of all of it.
- [85:06]
C
Right. Because in their minds the Greeks have preserved some correct information, but it's been distorted by the demons they're worshiping.
- [85:14]
B
Yeah, right.
- [85:15]
C
In the same way that we talked about, you know, the BAAL cycle is pro devil propaganda. Right.
- [85:19]
B
Early on. Yeah. I mean, like, like, like, you know, exhibit A. Right. Is in Second Peter chapter two, where he talks about.
- [85:29]
The angels who, you know, fell from their former state being bound up in literally in Tartarus is the actual word that he uses. I mean, he just uses the straight word for the, the deepest part of Greek hell.
- [85:41]
C
Yes. The place where the Titans are imprisoned. So, yeah, that's the only place where the word Tartarus appears in the Greek Bible, Old or New Testaments.
- [85:52]
But yeah, so it's clearly making that connection. There's plenty of other places we could talk about too, like the high altar to Zeus at Pergamum in Revelation being referred to as the throne of Satan. Right.
- [86:05]
These are connections that are just de rigueur. But this continues then past this connection between the Watchers and the Titans and the Olympians and the demons continues in the church fathers especially. The earliest church fathers.
- [86:23]
So for example, in the eighth of the Clementine homilies in section 15.
- [86:31]
B
Yeah. Which is. I don't know, I guess most people say it's third century, maybe maybe second century. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So whoever. Yeah, yeah. With discussion about who wrote it. Exactly. But in any event, it says this. But from their unhallowed intercoursed intercourse spurious men sprang. That's great. I love the alliteration there. Good translation. But much greater in stature than ordinary men whom they afterwards called giants. Not those dragon footed giants who waged war against God, as those blasphemous myths of the Greeks do sing. But wild in manners and greater than men in size, inasmuch as they were sprung of angels, yet less than angels as they were born of women. Yeah.
- [87:16]
C
The one place where that translation is bad is that who waged war against God should be who waged war against Zeus.
- [87:21]
B
Against Zeus. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing is like.
- [87:25]
You know, Zeo gets used.
- [87:29]
To mean just God. And a lot of, well, a lot of translators translated as just God.
- [87:34]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they're referring to. Right. Made war against the divine, right against the gods in the blasphemous myths of the Greeks. Right.
- [87:44]
Yeah. I noticed the myths that the Greeks sing.
- [87:49]
So we're still old school here. We're still.
- [87:53]
Singing the poetry.
- [87:54]
B
Yeah.
- [87:59]
C
Yeah. And then as late as St. Ambrose.
- [88:05]
In his homily on Noah and the ark, number four, section eight.
- [88:10]
B
Yeah. So what he has to say is the giants, the Nephilim, were on Earth in those days. So he's quoting from Genesis 6. Then he goes on to say, the author of the divine scripture does not mean that those giants must be considered according to the tradition of poets. Of course he means the Greek pagan poets as sons of the earth, but asserts that those whom he defines with such a name because of the extraordinary size of their body, were generated by angels and women.
- [88:41]
C
Right. So.
- [88:45]
Yeah, so again, right, he's directly connecting this to the story.
- [88:52]
He's reading Genesis here as correcting the pagan Greek and Roman stories.
- [88:58]
B
Yeah. And so he. And he's 4th century. He dies in the. Right. At the very end of the fourth century.
- [89:04]
C
Yeah. And then. So that's on the sort of Titans and watchers being equated side. We also have a lot of great stuff on the connection between the Olympians and the demons.
- [89:16]
B
Yeah. So Saint Justin Martyr, also known as Justin the Philosopher, in his second apology, chapter five, he writes this. But the angels transgressed this appointment. So he's mid second century, everyone, by the way, the angels transgressed this appointment and were captivated by love of women and begat children, who are those that are called demons. And besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings and partly by fears and the punishments they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices and incense and libations, of which things they stood in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions. And among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries, intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to men and women and cities and nations which they related, ascribed them to Zeus himself and to those who are accounted to be his very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Poseidon and Hades, and to the children again of these offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to himself and his children by that name, they called them. So this is St. Justin, like correcting the Greeks, correcting, you know, Greek mythology and saying, no, no, no, it wasn't Zeus and Poseidon and Hades. This was the watchers coming down.
- [90:34]
C
And for him, the dead Nephilim become demons. Yeah, right, because everybody, there's demons. And then those demons cause themselves to be worshiped and corrupt humanity and give themselves names like Zeus, Poseidon, Hades.
- [90:50]
B
Right.
- [90:51]
C
And all the other Greek gods.
- [90:52]
B
Idea that the Olympian gods are being connected with the demons, you know, of. Of. Of Greek lore or. And demons of Christian and Jewish lore, I should say.
- [91:05]
C
Right, right, yeah. The children of the fallen angels.
- [91:09]
B
Yeah, yeah. Dead Nephilim. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So another early Christian source, Athenagoras, in his text called the Plea for the Christians, chapter 25, he writes these angels then, who have fallen from heaven and haunt the air and the earth and are no longer able to rise to heavenly things, and the souls of the giants, which are the demons who wander about the world, perform actions similar the one that is the demons to the natures they have received, the utter other that is the angels to the appetites they have indulged.
- [91:43]
C
Right. Now, an important thing here is that that nature they have received versus the appetites they have indulged. Yeah, right. So the angels here are fallen from their former estate, whereas the demons, the dead giants, have become demons because they've become corrupted. More on that in a minute.
- [92:04]
B
Right. They're humans. They're dead humans.
- [92:06]
C
Yeah.
- [92:07]
B
What it is. Yeah. Okay. And Athenagoras, by the way, Is also second century, so very, very early on. Then you've got Commodianus in his instructions, chapter three. When Almighty God, to beautify the nature of the world, willed that the sun that, excuse me, willed that the earth should be visited by angels when they were sent down. They despised his laws. Such was the beauty of women that it turned them aside so that, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven. Rebels from God, they uttered words against him, then the Highest uttered his judgment against them. And from their seed, giants are said to have been born by them. Arts were made known in the earth and they taught the dyeing of wool and everything which is done. And to them when they died, men erected images. But the Almighty, because they were of an evil seed, did not approve that when dead, they should be brought back from death, whence wandering they now subvert many bodies. And it is such as these especially that ye this day worship and pray to as gods.
- [93:12]
C
Ye being the Roman pagans in this case.
- [93:14]
B
Yeah. So there's this, you know, not only is he saying that it's these are the dead giants, but he also seems to suggest that they're not going to be resurrected from the dead, but that they wander the earth and that these are the gods that the pagans are praying to. Yes, they're praying to dead humans. Sacrificing the dead humans, effectively.
- [93:37]
C
Yes. Dead giants, yes.
- [93:39]
B
Yeah.
- [93:40]
C
Yeah.
- [93:42]
Another little piece of this.
- [93:45]
Little piece of this picture we get from Kelsis by way of Origin. Right. So we haven't brought him up in a while on the show. Probably not since the queen stood at thy right hand, but maybe at some.
- [94:00]
B
Point I did, but I don't know. Yeah. Kelsis is this early pagan critic against Christianity and origin, writes what was considered.
- [94:09]
C
In the second century, sort of the great. The best attack anybody came up with on Christianity.
- [94:15]
B
Yeah.
- [94:15]
C
Right. And it wasn't just sort of a one pronged attack. It was every argument from a pagan Roman perspective that you could level against Christianity. Right. So in the queen stood at thy right hand. We talked about it from the perspective of. He attacked the idea that Mary, because she was a peasant, since the Theotokos was a peasant, how could she be the mother of a king?
- [94:38]
B
Yeah. Or of a God.
- [94:40]
C
Yeah. But he knew. He knew her name and everything in the second century, this Roman pagan, which, as we said then implies that Christians were talking about her.
- [94:52]
In the second century, such that would be an attack. But one of his arguments, one of his arguments against Christianity is, look.
- [95:02]
Christians are telling people not to worship, not to make offerings to the demones, not to worship the gods.
- [95:11]
And that keeps happening. The gods and especially the demones are going to get angry.
- [95:17]
B
Yeah, we know what happens.
- [95:18]
C
They're going to attack us and they're going to kill us all and wipe out our cities and plunge everything into chaos and destruction. Yeah. So it's the argument from demons in favor of paganism. We've got to keep them happy. Right. And Origen's response is. Origen writes contra Celsus. Right. Against Celsus responding to all of these arguments. And his response to this is, well, Christians don't have to worry about demons, about demones, because, you know, we've got the Holy Spirit and look at all the exorcisms going on. Right. We have authority over them, so we're not worried about it. It's you who are going to be in trouble if the demons get mad, not the Christians. So this sounds like a you problem. Yeah.
- [96:07]
B
If you just convert, you wouldn't have this problem.
- [96:09]
C
Yes. Just become a Christian and you won't have to worry about it.
- [96:15]
Yeah. And another interesting note here is that within this, and if you understand what we were saying in the first half about Genii, Origen says not only are sort of Christians immune to the working of demons and don't have to fear them, but he even argues Christians are immune to fate, which is an interesting statement in terms of his understanding.
- [96:43]
B
At.
- [96:43]
C
Least, is expressed here. It's hard to make it make sense with on first principles because Origen seems like he has to be a pretty hard determinist, all things considered.
- [96:55]
B
Right.
- [96:58]
C
At least the way he's been presented. But here he argues that, yeah, that kind of pagan fatalism is true for pagans because they're sort of enslaved to these demonic spirits who control their fate and their destiny. Right. But Christians are immune to fate and destiny. Christians are free to. Because they're free of those spirits.
- [97:22]
Right. Which also says something about his view of God.
- [97:26]
B
Yeah.
- [97:28]
C
Which I'd say, sorry, Calvinists, but disagreeing with Origen. Fair enough.
- [97:34]
B
Right.
- [97:36]
C
That's so I can't. I can't really throw that one at you this time, Calvinist friends.
- [97:44]
But it is interesting. It is an interesting note there. And like I said, it's hard to jibe with things he says elsewhere, at least as they're commonly interpreted.
- [97:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, he's not a saint, so.
- [97:57]
C
Yeah.
- [97:57]
B
We don't have to make it all work. And even if it were.
- [98:00]
C
Yeah. Just interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's just anybody who needs to write A dissertation. There you go. You're welcome.
- [98:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and we should say like. Like that thing that Camodiana says about no resurrection. Again, like, this is not. We're not saying that everything these guys say is dogma. And you have to.
- [98:17]
C
This is not the law of the Medes and the Persians. It's not scripture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it shows us an understanding, connections that were being made.
- [98:26]
B
Right, Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.
- [98:30]
E
Well.
- [98:31]
B
And, you know, a quote that we've mentioned in the past, but it's been. I think it's been a while, but I think it's good to bring up again from a really obscure church father that no one's ever heard of named St. John Chrysostom.
- [98:44]
C
Who?
- [98:45]
B
Yeah, who? I don't. I don't know who this guy is. Yeah, this is in his four discourses on the Rich man and Lazarus. So these are. These are. These are homilies, you know, discourses. They're homilies. He says this. He says here, before I go on, I want to remove a wrong impression from your minds. So he's going to do a little debunking. For it is a fact that many of the less instructed think that the souls of those who die a violent death become wandering spirits. But this is not so. I repeat, it is not so. It isn't the souls of those who die a violent death that become demons, but rather the souls of those who live in sin. Not that their nature has changed, but that in their desires they imitate the evil nature of demons. Showing this very thing to the Jews, Christ said, you are of your father the devil. He said that they were the children of the devil, not because they were changed into a nature like his, but because they did the kinds of things he did. For the same reason, he adds, and your will is to do your father's desires. Also, John says, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit that befits repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. The scripture, therefore, usually bases the laws of relationship not on natural origin, but on good or evil disposition. And if anyone acts like or does the same things as a certain group, the scripture declares him to be their son or their brother.
- [100:23]
C
Yes.
- [100:24]
B
So, yeah, lots going on.
- [100:26]
C
The more full form of the quote. This is a longer quote than we've read typically in the past, because we want to make a couple points here in this context. So we have the part that we've read Before. Right. Which is you don't become a demon and a wandering spirit. Right. He equates those two ideas. You don't become that because you died a violent death. And that's something people still believe today. Right. Like you have a ghost in a house because someone was murdered there. Right.
- [100:50]
B
Yeah. Right.
- [100:54]
C
But no, the person who becomes a demon, who becomes a wandering spirit, it's because.
- [101:01]
It's because of their.
- [101:03]
Evil. Right? Yeah.
- [101:05]
B
Because they lived like a demon before.
- [101:06]
C
Death and have become like them.
- [101:10]
B
But notice so.
- [101:11]
C
And this is the reason we're the longer form we're gonna make this point about. I mean, spoilers. We're making this point about St. Augustine in, in the third half too. So. Right. We've. We've dealt with. And we dealt with this in the. The, the giants episode, which will live in infamy.
- [101:29]
But the fact that there's this transition in the 5th century in terms of the fathers holding to, like the quotes we've been reading, holding to this kind of Second Temple Jewish and then early Christian consensus about the. Not just the origin of demons, but who the nephilim were, some version of the Watcher's story, etc. To adopting the rabbinic Jewish view regarding the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain. Right. And we talked about the reasons for that transition. That sort of paganism, the kind of pagan ritual life that explained what that was referring to had gone away. So they didn't see it. We talked about how, like St. John Cassian, St. John Chrysostom, in his second set of homilies on Genesis, it's not clear what his view is in the first set. In the second set of homilies on Genesis, he makes arguments about why he holds the Sethite view and not the other view, but he talked about how important it is. And St. Augustine makes arguments. How important it is that they make arguments.
- [102:37]
B
Right.
- [102:38]
C
Because none of those church fathers normally make arguments.
- [102:43]
They just teach.
- [102:45]
B
Yeah.
- [102:46]
C
They just say this is what this is referring to. But those fathers are aware that the previous fathers taught something different.
- [102:54]
B
Yeah. So they have to engage with that.
- [102:55]
C
And so they feel the need to. And they model for us. Yes. If you're saying something that disagrees with the fathers, you need to have a pretty good argument. Right.
- [103:07]
So they're interacting with that and they're making arguments. Right. But even though they ultimately reject the view that we've put forward pretty consistently on this show, that what's being talked about is not literally an angel and a human having a baby that has like half Human and half Angel DNA or something.
- [103:28]
B
Right, Because. Because just to re. Underline this, this thing here, DNA is a material phenomenon.
- [103:36]
C
Right.
- [103:37]
B
Angels no one knew about. Right, right. But however you conceive of it, like, angels are not material.
- [103:44]
C
I mean, but hybrid plants are mules or ligers, whatever.
- [103:49]
B
Like, anyone who comment. Any of the fathers. I think this is true. Any of the fathers who comment on whether angels can reproduce, say that they can't. That they don't have the ability to reproduce.
- [104:05]
Yeah, we'll talk more about that, but.
- [104:06]
C
We'Ll talk more about that in the third half.
- [104:08]
B
In the third half.
- [104:08]
C
Get that demon sex, everybody.
- [104:10]
B
Yes, right, exactly. But. But like, for instance, St. John of Damascus says that they're not male and female because they don't, you know, there's.
- [104:19]
C
No reproductive after their own kind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but, right, so. So they're not making that literal claim.
- [104:30]
B
Right.
- [104:30]
C
Those previous fathers are not making that literal claim. That's not what the Second Temple Jewish view was. But that they were understanding that within a ritual context that involved possession, that involved sexual rituals at the conception of the king, kings and temple prostitutes. Right?
- [104:49]
That's what was going on. Right. If you had the GoPro and the Tardis.
- [104:54]
B
And Chrysostom here is making this linkage between fathers and sons and saying, that's where I'm going.
- [105:02]
C
Yeah, don't jump the gun.
- [105:05]
Right. So. So.
- [105:10]
What St. Augustine and St. John Cassian and St. John Chrysostom reject is that literal view. What they argue against is that literal view, which we're saying is not what the earlier fathers were actually trying to say.
- [105:26]
B
Yeah.
- [105:26]
C
But that the later Fathers, because paganism was gone, those kind of rituals weren't taking place. They didn't understand that context. Right.
- [105:35]
To me, what we're seeing now and what we're talking about tonight is honestly the real linchpin of our argument. That, to me, proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt in this regard. Because what we're starting to see here, what we're seeing here with St. John Chrysostom and what we're going to see with St. Augustine is that they have all the pieces of our view.
- [105:59]
Right. What we say in our view. Our view, meaning, like me, Father Andrew, Lord of Spirits, show, right. What we've put forward in terms of what was really going on, all the pieces of that are present in these fathers who, quote, unquote, reject that view.
- [106:15]
B
Yeah. I think what Chrysostom.
- [106:17]
C
They just haven't connected them.
- [106:19]
B
Yeah.
- [106:19]
C
They haven't Connected what the earlier fathers said to these pieces that they believe and affirm.
- [106:25]
B
Yeah. I think what Chris Austin is doing here is really a refinement, Really a refinement of what some of the earlier fathers were saying. Even though he's putting it in terms of. I don't. I don't agree with that.
- [106:38]
C
Right. He's not making that connection. But what he says here is, what does it mean for one of these dead people who's become a demon to have a fallen angel as their father?
- [106:50]
B
Right.
- [106:51]
C
He's saying it means they imitate them and do what they do.
- [106:54]
B
Yeah. They're evil.
- [106:55]
C
Right. Not that they're biologically descended. That's the argument St. John Chrysostom is making. Yeah. So St. John Chrysostom's argument here could be used to counter the argument he makes in his second set of homilies on Genesis, about Genesis 6.
- [107:15]
Right. And I think that if, again, we took the tardis to see St. John Chrysostom.
- [107:21]
B
Right.
- [107:23]
C
And polished up our Greek a lot.
- [107:27]
Someone could point that out to him.
- [107:30]
B
Right.
- [107:31]
C
And be like, no, when St. Irenaeus. Right. Not I'm right and you're wrong, St. John Chrysostom, but when St Irenaeus would say Justin Martyr. When they say these things, they're talking about what you're talking about right here.
- [107:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. Just a different language.
- [107:48]
C
This. This parent child language. Right. That's what they mean. Right. They don't mean it literally. Right.
- [107:57]
B
So.
- [108:00]
C
The quote, unquote, Lord of spirits view. The view Father Edward and I have put Forward here.
- [108:07]
With St. John Chrysostom here, for example, we could see reconciles what he says with the previous fathers and says they're basically saying the same thing.
- [108:18]
B
Yeah. It's a synthetic explanation.
- [108:21]
C
Right. We're not saying what is right and the other is wrong. Right. We're not saying the earlier is right and the later is wrong. We're saying actually at the core, they're teaching the same thing. There are just some misunderstandings that make. That might make that more difficult to see if you don't read thoroughly.
- [108:40]
B
Yeah. Or don't have the context of pagan sacrifice going on.
- [108:44]
C
Right.
- [108:45]
B
Yeah.
- [108:45]
C
Right.
- [108:46]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [108:47]
C
But so.
- [108:49]
And you also see paralleled here in this father son relationship between a fallen angel and a person who becomes a demon. Right. A giant.
- [109:02]
You see something parallel to the relationship between a genius and a person in the Roman view.
- [109:10]
Right. This kind of close connection, reciprocal relationship. Right. Described just in familial terms. Those familial terms being the biblical terms, as St. John points out.
- [109:27]
And so in summary, now of our second half.
- [109:32]
We'Re used to thinking in our modern terms because we've got Milton on the brain.
- [109:39]
Of the opposite of demon being angel.
- [109:45]
Right. Those are two opposite. Angel, demon. Right. Those are two opposites. Those aren't opposites. When you go deep into the tradition, as we've been trying to do, demon is actually the opposite of St. Dun, dun, dun.
- [110:05]
B
All right. Well, with that, we're wrapping up this second half of this Halloween special of Laura Spears podcast. We'll be right back. We're going to take a couple more calls and we'll see in a minute.
- [110:15]
A
Father Andrew Steven Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855 AF radio.
- [110:36]
D
People often complain that the Divine Liturgy is always the same week after week. But every ritual praise and action in the the service has meaning and purpose, drawing in worshippers with its hymns and prayers and allowing ordinary people to leave the world and enter heaven for a short time. In the new book Blessed Is the Kingdom, Father Stavros Akrotirianakis, a longtime parish priest, offers reflections on the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom to help readers learn to pray the link liturgy and to understand and appreciate the mystery that unfolds each time it is celebrated. Available now@store.ancientfaith.com Again, that is store.ancient faith.com.
- [111:28]
A
We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.
- [111:44]
B
Welcome back, everybody. Man, I have to say there's a certain part of me that envies the author of that book that was just advertised. He has a seven syllable surname. I mean, that's it's amazing. Like it's poetry. Boo.
- [112:00]
C
Anyway, did I scare you? If you really want to be frightened, call one night.
- [112:11]
B
Welcome back, everybody.
- [112:14]
We do have some more callers lined up, so let's go ahead and talk to some of them. They've been waiting very, very patiently for a long time. So we have William of Tennessee. So, William, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast. What is on your mind?
- [112:31]
H
Well, the first thing that's on my mind is that I envy the Korean surname. They just have a monosyllabic one. And that's it. It's short, simple, sweet, easy.
- [112:40]
B
I know.
- [112:41]
C
Fair.
- [112:42]
B
Yeah.
- [112:42]
H
They're the ones to envy.
- [112:43]
B
Tough, but fair.
- [112:45]
C
And kimchi.
- [112:47]
B
Hey, that's right.
- [112:50]
It's a powerful force, that kimchi. It's a powerful force.
- [112:55]
Yeah. So. So what's up? I mean, the note that Trudy sent me. William suggested that you had Shakespeare on your brain.
- [113:06]
H
Well, the stuff that Shakespeare draws from actually had a universal history on my brain.
- [113:13]
B
Oh.
- [113:16]
Yes. Are we gonna throw down against Peugeot and company here in the third half?
- [113:22]
H
I enjoy provoking drama than sitting back with the popcorn.
- [113:30]
So, talking about angels and demons. And then there was Julius's question regarding neutral spaces. I had a question about neutral spirits, or ones that don't seem to be quite lined up with angels and demons and medieval Christian and.
- [113:54]
Anglo Saxon, Irish and other countries lore, such as, for example, Robin Goodfellow or Puck, or from Midsummer Night's Dream. Midsummer Night's Dream, where you have these entities that seem to be.
- [114:13]
Helpful and at least wanting in some ways the benefit. And Shakespeare makes a point of saying that Oberon enjoys the sound of church bells.
- [114:24]
But they also seem a bit too mischievous and capricious to really fall under the angelic category. So what do we do with these fair folk?
- [114:37]
B
Yeah, I mean.
- [114:40]
I don't know. Should I reveal that when I was in high school I actually played Puck on stage?
- [114:46]
H
Yeah, no, keep it a secret.
- [114:49]
B
Hey, 20,000 Lord of Spirits listeners. Yeah, well, I mean, it's funny, like, even if you just take Midsummer Night's Dream, Okay, I mean, dude, drugs people so that they get into, you know, trysts with one another.
- [115:08]
But so here, here's the thing.
- [115:09]
C
Behavior is frowned upon these days.
- [115:11]
B
That's right. That's right.
- [115:14]
C
No room. No matter what Richard Rohipnol says over there. Universal history that might have been considering.
- [115:20]
B
Considered matchmaking in some previous generations. But now we're civilized people.
- [115:26]
So, I mean, there's a lot going on here that I think is worth. Worth teasing out some bits.
- [115:33]
Number one. Number one, God created all that is and created all that is to be obedient to Him. And so entities with free will are either being obedient to him or they're not.
- [115:50]
Right?
- [115:53]
So you're. They're doing what God made you to do, or you're not doing what God made you to do? So the idea of neutrality does not make any sense because it sort of suggests like, well, I can kind of do my own thing and not the thing that the one who created me Told me to do. Right. If God is not the creator of all, then, yes, their idea of neutrality makes sense. So neutral spirits in the truest theological sense can only exist in a pagan conception of the universe where there is not an almighty God who created all things and therefore has claim over all things. Right. So that's kind of the theology that I think we need to, you know, when we're asking this question, we needed to note that. But is it the case that within these traditions, these stories, these legends, that there are spirits that are kind of somewhere, somewhere in between, that aren't really on one side or the other or whatever? Yes, I mean, that does exist in these stories. Right. And the question then is not whether these things are depicting actual spiritual realities, but rather what is their function within the story. Right. So like Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, his task, he doesn't actually have that much in the way of agency. He does what Oberon tells him to do.
- [117:16]
You know, his task is to push the plot along by. By his use of drugs.
- [117:24]
And, you know, that that's his. That's his job. Right. He does that. And then there are other. Lots of other kinds of legends and stories that have these. These spirits. Like, another way, if you're trying to, like, if you want to try to kind of shoehorn the. This stuff in so that it. Maybe it's somehow kind of sort of works. You could say, well, maybe these are, like, elemental spirits that. That are part of the angelic beings that God created to help govern the universe. And the fact that they're, like, taking care of plants and stuff is not an obvious allegiance to God within the scope of that story. Okay, Maybe I can kind of sort of buy that, because a lot of people don't realize, like, doing things like taking care of plants and taking out the garbage are actually obedience to God, because they are.
- [118:10]
But again, like, that kind of posits a universe in which God is not actually everywhere present and filling all things and the creator of all things, you know, kind of. So, yeah, I mean, I agree that these beings exist in these stories and that they say. And there's important things being said by their existence in the stories and the way that they function in the stories. Right. But then to try to map that onto our actual demonology and angelology, I don't think it works. I don't think it works because then again, it requires a different model of who God is and where everything came from. I don't know, Father, you want to weigh in on this whole neutral spirit Thing.
- [118:52]
C
I mean, I've never even heard of half of these countries you're talking about. They didn't exist in the fifth century.
- [119:03]
B
What are you doing in England?
- [119:06]
C
Well, so I do want to comment.
- [119:12]
In that. I think when you're talking about Shakespeare or you're talking about medieval Christian usage, it's sort of like the. What was Norse myth really before Christians got a hold of it?
- [119:26]
B
Right. We have no idea. We have zero idea.
- [119:29]
C
And so there's a little bit of that. Right. You poke around with fairies very much, and they become a lot more hypersexualized and a lot more malicious tricksters. And, you know, the fomorians who are part human, part fairy, you know, like, they start to look a lot more like Damones and a lot less like Tinkerbell. Right. Or sort of Tinker Bell is a murderer.
- [120:02]
B
I just have to say that right now.
- [120:04]
C
Okay, fine. They start looking more like Tinkerbell and less like Puck.
- [120:08]
B
I mean, she. Well, attempted murderer. She's trying to kill Wendy.
- [120:12]
C
Although spicy take Puck from Alpha Flight is way cooler than Puck in mid.
- [120:19]
B
Tough but fair. Tough, but.
- [120:24]
C
But, yeah, in the sense that. Right. When you're dealing with Shakespeare, when you're dealing with even just the Christianized version of a lot of this lore, it's had the edges taken off. Yeah, Right. In a lot of ways, it's been sort of baptized, at least quasi purified.
- [120:44]
B
Right.
- [120:44]
C
And I think sometimes that perceived neutrality is because something that was malignant has been made more benign without outright Christianizing it.
- [120:57]
B
Right.
- [121:01]
C
And so you end up with.
- [121:04]
Sort of a nebulous being, whereas in pre Christian days, it may have been a lot less nebulous and a lot more clearly what we would call demonic. Yeah.
- [121:17]
B
There we go. The final word on neutral spirits from the Lower Spirits podcast.
- [121:23]
I mean, he's the Lord of Spirits, right?
- [121:26]
C
He's their Lord and of all flesh.
- [121:28]
B
Yeah. Yes. Right.
- [121:32]
Right. So that's what it has to come down to. All right, thank you very much, William from Calling. We are now going to take Rachel, who is calling from.
- [121:42]
C
Did you just thank him from calling?
- [121:46]
I think he was from. For calling.
- [121:47]
B
Yes. E. Well, yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah. My preposition's getting messed up here. It's now past 9pm that's how you fall into heresy. I know.
- [121:57]
C
Wrong prepositions.
- [121:58]
B
Right. Get the prepositions wrong. All right, well, we have Rachel calling from the state, which is round on the ends and high in the middle. So, Rachel, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.
- [122:09]
E
Thank you, Father.
- [122:12]
Yeah, so Sorry, I'm a little nervous because this, this topic in particular.
- [122:19]
Very personal to me. Yeah, about.
- [122:26]
So I've been in orthodoxy for about 18, just over 18 months. And before that I was.
- [122:35]
Involved in some New Age stuff. And we want to say New Age nonsense and say it's all silly, but no, we're playing with some dangerous stuff. And my, My former mentor.
- [122:47]
You know, she talked about genius all the time, where her practice was to help you discover and activate your genius, your, Your spiritual gift, like this hidden inner spiritual self that you can activate through like meditation and specific kind of practices.
- [123:10]
And.
- [123:12]
And I also think, I wonder if this is also linked to things like. And that you hear other New Age mentors say that sounds like fluff, like a higher self and inner being and all that where just like meditate and everything and you do these practices and help you manifest.
- [123:31]
But, but yeah, so you're supposed to do all these things. But like, what you guys were saying about it being a.
- [123:38]
You know, being that you need to like, do sacrifices to and appease. Like, we had certain little things like, you know, it's just like, oh, you have to treat yourself like royalty because this is quote unquote, an imperial frequency that you're basically like, you're courting it and you're trying to like.
- [123:59]
I mean, basically you're making yourself into a narcissist so that you can get a spiritual gift. And it kind of works. Except for, except for I do believe that God protected me and called me back. But.
- [124:22]
Yeah, like. And also like, yeah, if you don't obey it, it will reject you. And it can do anything from just not giving you the, the, the spiritual insights or now the. It's funny how the modern, you know, language and everything is now they're usually called downloads. Like, oh, I got the latest download.
- [124:44]
And you say some. Something, you know, and everyone thinks it's genius. And, and so you. But you get, you know, I've seen women. Oh, and it is women. It's mostly women in these groups. And.
- [125:02]
And yeah, you get addicted to these, like, downloads, these insights, not only for like, the attention and the potential business opportunities it can get for you, but also like.
- [125:15]
You get like a little high off of this, this new in shiny new insight.
- [125:21]
F
Yeah.
- [125:23]
E
And.
- [125:25]
Yeah, and it goes into other places too. But I, I just want to thank you guys. Thank you, Father, so much for this show. I think it's really helped me make sense of things. It did make me kind of freak out early because I was listening and I was going to get myself some takeout. You guys are talking about this sacrifice thing. I was like, oh, no, I'm not supposed to get myself this treat.
- [125:50]
Maybe I need to just do aesthetic. But I. And that makes me really value orthodoxy because everything in that, in those practices were saying, like, you have to spoil yourself, treat yourself, indulge yourself, seek out new and exciting experiences, try new things that scare you, do all these things. And it's like orthodoxy is like the. The exact opposite of everything. So that's how, that's. That's how I know it's true.
- [126:20]
So.
- [126:23]
B
Yeah.
- [126:24]
E
I'm sorry if I sound very nervous.
- [126:26]
B
No, it's okay.
- [126:29]
Rachel, thanks for. For sharing your experiences. I mean, it's interesting, you know, like, what you're saying there. You know, that these, these spirits encourage you to.
- [126:41]
To engage in. In.
- [126:44]
Self love. Right. And not in the sense of, like, taking care of yourself, but like the sense of, like, I need to treat myself, you know, all the time. Like. Right. You know, as you said, it's funny.
- [126:54]
E
You know, chronic compulsive pleasure seeking.
- [126:57]
B
Yeah, right, exactly.
- [126:58]
E
They even tell you you're on a. You're on an experiential scavenger hunt and things like that. Make a game of it. Yeah.
- [127:05]
B
What a set of deceptions. Right. Like, the whole point is to get you to. To be completely selfish.
- [127:12]
E
Yeah. And I mean, I. Glory to God that I took it to some of its logical conclusions. And it was just leaving me very confused because it's like, wait, this thing felt good initially, and now it's turned into a total disaster. And, you know, it was telling me that this is. This was my inner being or this is my higher self. This is my genius leading me to all these things. And it literally led me, though, to get an apartment that's within walking distance of my. My parish now. And. And I want. And. And then I had a good spiritual insight that when I was praying the Hail Mary to go to the church, and it happened to be like 15 minutes before holy Monday last year.
- [127:56]
B
So.
- [127:58]
Thank God.
- [127:59]
E
And thank God.
- [128:01]
B
So.
- [128:03]
Thank you so much for. For sharing that, Rachel. That's. That's valuable to us and I know, to other people listening as well. God bless you.
- [128:11]
E
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Father. Thank you.
- [128:14]
B
Thanks for calling. Thanks for calling. All right, we're going to continue on with this third half of our Halloween episode. And I just want to reiterate for everybody the parental advisory that I mentioned at the very beginning, because this is the part that especially needs it.
- [128:30]
C
So. Demon sex.
- [128:32]
B
Demon Sex. Yep, yep.
- [128:36]
C
So third half is all demon sex all the time.
- [128:43]
Pardon me while I burst into flames. We're not gonna be graphic, but yes, like still, you know, demon sex.
- [128:54]
So, yeah, I mean, to put a finer point on it, we're literally here going to be dovetailing off of what we've been talking about and talk about incubi and succubi.
- [129:05]
B
Yeah.
- [129:08]
C
Which is the plural. Which are the plurals of incubus and succubus.
- [129:15]
Incubus.
- [129:19]
In Latin literally means the thing that lays on you, particularly when you sleep.
- [129:28]
Related word incubate.
- [129:30]
B
Right. Like sitting on, you know, a hen sitting on her eggs.
- [129:34]
C
Right.
- [129:37]
And then succubus relatedly literally means what lays beneath you, especially when you sleep.
- [129:46]
B
Yeah. And it's fun. I mean, weirdly enough, in Latin it's really succuba because it's a feminine image. Succubus is English's attempt to make it conform to the word incubus.
- [129:59]
C
Right. And so it makes. It puts it in a masculine form, but same root in Latin is the word succumb.
- [130:08]
B
Yeah.
- [130:08]
C
You can understand lay beneath succumbing. Right.
- [130:13]
We won't put a fine point on it, but the sexual elements of that, if you're an adult listener, you can figure out for yourself.
- [130:23]
But also. Yes, as Father Edrew mentions, the incubus is the male version. This is a male demon who.
- [130:33]
Has sexual relations with.
- [130:38]
Humans, particularly.
- [130:42]
At night.
- [130:45]
Usually women.
- [130:47]
B
Yeah.
- [130:48]
C
Not always.
- [130:51]
And the succubus is the. Or succuba in Latin is the female version, demonic spirit who expresses of feminine terms and. And has sexual relations with primarily men.
- [131:08]
Primarily at night.
- [131:11]
And this goes.
- [131:13]
Way back. Right. So I mean, we're going to be picking up sort of where we left off last time. But just to set the way back machine. The first examples of this go back to as far as we have written texts. So sumeria.
- [131:26]
B
Right.
- [131:29]
C
And they take the form of the masculine leeloo and the feminine lil. Tu Lil too is cognate with lilit. Like Lilith.
- [131:39]
B
Yep.
- [131:40]
C
And I believe it was in our second. Was it our second or third Halloween episode where we talked about Lilith?
- [131:47]
B
I can't remember now, but yes, we've discussed Lilith. And if anybody needs a quick refresher, it's in the book by the name Lord of Spirits. So, hey, there's a whole Lilith section in there.
- [131:58]
C
There's some more self shilling. There we go. Hey, take his class.
- [132:02]
B
Read his book. I didn't write that book so people wouldn't buy it.
- [132:05]
C
Are you endorsing like a snow cone brand or something.
- [132:14]
So. And Leeloo appears really early. So Leeloo, that masculine form.
- [132:21]
Is Gilgamesh's dad in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- [132:24]
B
Yeah.
- [132:27]
C
Because remember, Gilgamesh is one of the Nephilim, according to the Book of the Giants and according to the Epic of Gilgamesh, really, because he's 2/3 divine. Right.
- [132:37]
And then so Lilu and Lil2, or Lilith are sort of the. The archetypal ones. And then they have quote unquote children who are other spirits who do similar things.
- [132:50]
And those are the masculine form of that is the idlu, Lili, and then the Ardat lily is the feminine form. Idlu means young man, Ardat means young woman. So Lili is the same. It's one of those spirits. It's a little Lilith, basically, or a lesser Lilith.
- [133:09]
Or Lilu. But then either the young man version or the young woman version. And obviously, as we just mentioned with Gilgamesh, the connection there to what's going on in the Nephilim story should probably be pretty obvious. Right. That these are particular forms of spirits who are engaged in sexual activity with humans, especially late at night. So now we come to St. Augustine.
- [133:37]
B
Yes. Who, as promised, famously rejects all of this stuff that we've been talking about.
- [133:44]
C
Well, supposedly sort of. Yes. So he has a very, very lengthy. We're not going to read the whole thing because it would take a long time and you'd get bored.
- [133:55]
Very lengthy discussion of this whole issue in City of God, book 15.
- [134:04]
Talking about what's going on in Genesis 6 and all that. Right. And back and forth. It is so. But he rejects the literal version that we've talked about. He rejects the idea that fallen angels literally had sexual relations with human women and literally impregnated them with some kind of human angelic hybrid being. Right.
- [134:28]
B
Yeah.
- [134:29]
C
Which again, we argued, is not actually what the previous fathers were saying. But that's what he rejects very clearly. Okay, but in terms of what we were talking about with St. John Chrysostom, we're going to see something similar because he firmly believes in incubi and succubi.
- [134:47]
B
Yes.
- [134:48]
C
Their existence. And so Father Andrew here in a second is going to read City of God, book 15, section 23. And so he's going to start this with. Nevertheless. So this is coming right after he rejects that literal version of the Book of Enoch story in particular, because he's talking about the Book of Enoch. Yeah, Expressly. He rejects that literal reading of that story. And then he says this.
- [135:17]
B
Yeah. I should also preface this by saying that I'm going to ruin Narnia for everybody.
- [135:24]
I know, I know. Now I'm getting. See, this is my version of spicy.
- [135:28]
C
Yeah, you get some real heel heat here with the. With your own crowd.
- [135:33]
B
That's right.
- [135:34]
C
All the homeschoolers stuff are going to turn people. I know they expect that kind of thing from me. But you, Father Andrew. I know, too, Father Andrew.
- [135:45]
B
Yes, so St. Augustine writes. Nevertheless, it is the testimony of Scripture, which tells us nothing but the truth, that angels appeared to men in bodies of such a kind that they could not only be seen, but also touched. Besides this, it is widely reported that Silvani and Pans, that is to say, satyrs and fawns, commonly called incubi, have often behaved improperly toward women, lusting after them and achieving intercourse with them. These reports are confirmed by many people, either from their own experience or from the accounts of the experience of others, whose reliability there is no occasion to doubt. Then there is the story that certain demons, whom the Gauls call dusii, constantly and successfully attempt this indecency. This is asserted by so many witnesses of such a character that it would seem an impertinence to deny it. Hence, I would not venture a conclusive statement on the question whether some spirits with bodies of air, an element which even when set in motion by a fan, is felt by the bodily sense of touch, can also experience this lust and can so mate in whatever way they can with women who feel their embraces. So. But I'm gonna just, you know, as I'm ruining Narnia. This was one of. This is one of Tolkien's objections to the early parts of the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, because he's like, look, you can't have a faun show up and hang around a little girl that's indecent. Because we all know what fauns do in the stories, and that's what he's referring to. Is this so? Yes. I'm sorry. It does kind of ruin Narnia for everybody at two.
- [137:26]
C
Tumnus.
- [137:29]
Tumnus. Secretly a pervert. Could it be true? Wow.
- [137:36]
Just say it, is all.
- [137:38]
B
Yeah, I know.
- [137:41]
C
Yeah. That. That you did kind of just ruin it right there for all kinds of people. Send your hate mail to Father Andrew.
- [137:51]
B
It's true. I mean, in Lewis's defense, I think he's trying to say that our stories about fauns and satyrs and so forth are, you know, messed up versions of the reality. That's In Narnia. I think that's his claim, you know.
- [138:04]
C
Oh, so he's trying to say that the real fauns aren't demons.
- [138:08]
B
Right, Right.
- [138:09]
C
I think that's wrong, though.
- [138:13]
Okay. Though.
- [138:16]
We don't need to go hard in the paint on C.S. lewis.
- [138:18]
B
Yeah, no, no, not at all. Not at all.
- [138:22]
C
So hearing this from St. Augustine. Wait, so St. Augustine accepts that there are demons who could have sexual relations with women.
- [138:33]
So the difference must be. He must think that those demons can't get women pregnant. Right. That's what you'd think.
- [138:41]
B
That's what I was hoping.
- [138:43]
C
But not so, my friends.
- [138:45]
B
Not so.
- [138:47]
C
Get ready for it.
- [138:48]
B
I know. I can't believe this, but it's true.
- [138:51]
C
That we're going to be talking about this on the air on Ancient Faith, too.
- [138:57]
This may be our last annual Halloween.
- [138:59]
B
Episode or the last episode ever.
- [139:03]
C
So not just St. Augustine, because this doesn't stop with St. Augustine. Okay.
- [139:09]
B
Yeah.
- [139:10]
C
This goes on particularly in the west.
- [139:15]
And I think because following St. Augustine, there's kind of a preoccupation with sexual matters in the West.
- [139:23]
B
Yeah.
- [139:24]
C
Not that sexual sin isn't dealt with in the east, but not the same way. Not in the same way. Yeah. Yeah. We'll leave it at that.
- [139:36]
Right. But we're talking about. And I'm not. Father Andrew made me maybe promise I wouldn't describe the contents of this, but there's a lengthy treatise by Thomas Aquinas about how this works.
- [139:48]
B
Yeah.
- [139:49]
C
About how demons could get people pregnant.
- [139:51]
B
I know.
- [139:54]
C
There'S a whole bunch of stuff about this. It's a whole rabbit hole. And it's a deep, dark, creepy rabbit hole that you don't necessarily want to go down.
- [140:02]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [140:04]
C
But St. Augustine's answer, and this is actually the most popular answer. Everyone weighs in on this, by the way. Like everyone. Peter Lombard, Peter Abelard, they all weigh in on this. Right. All the scholastics.
- [140:21]
But.
- [140:23]
The most popular answer is St. Augustine's answer, which is incubi and succubi are the same beings. They're the same demons. Because, of course, demons don't have biological sex because they don't have biology. Right, Right. So there aren't, like, male and female demons.
- [140:39]
B
Not so this.
- [140:40]
C
The same demon can appear as male to seduce a woman and appear as. As female to seduce a man. Right. And his idea is that the way in which such a demon would impregnate a woman would be first to appear as a woman and seduce a man, thereby receiving male gametes. Saying this as gently as we can and then take on a male form and seduce a woman and bring those human male gametes to the human woman.
- [141:14]
Thereby causing the human woman to conceive a child.
- [141:19]
With technically, the gametes of that man that the demon also seduced.
- [141:26]
B
Yeah. I do think that this moment now qualifies this as the truly weirdest episode of a kind of weird podcast in general.
- [141:34]
C
Yes. We have reached a new low.
- [141:40]
B
So. Yeah.
- [141:42]
C
And this is worth thinking about for a minute, too.
- [141:47]
Because this is something Father Andrew said. Right. Because we were talking about the different views, so we had a more expansive and somewhat more graphic discussion between just the two of us that we're going to put on the air for Ancient Faith. You're welcome.
- [141:59]
B
Sorry, everybody.
- [142:04]
But people can research this stuff themselves if they're really lurid. Interesting.
- [142:09]
C
Yeah. And Father Andrew made the comment that. Well, they're just. They're trying to explain the reality. And my response was, yes, they're trying to explain the reality of demons getting women pregnant. Right, right, right.
- [142:23]
B
Like, it's. Because.
- [142:24]
C
Treating like it. Like that's just a thing that happens. How do we explain it?
- [142:28]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I want to say this like it's. Yeah. This is so crazy. Which is why we're kind of laughing a little bit. We're not laughing at it. Like. Like it's funny funny. Like it's not serious. That's not the point. It's just that it's so crazy, you kind of have to laugh so you don't cry. But.
- [142:45]
C
Yes. Now let me take it to one more tier of insanity. Or do you want.
- [142:49]
B
Yeah, go. Go for it. Go for it.
- [142:51]
C
Okay.
- [142:51]
B
I won't lose my thought as to why this is. Okay.
- [142:53]
C
King James.
- [142:55]
B
Oh, yes.
- [142:56]
C
King James Bible fame.
- [142:57]
B
Right? The King James guy.
- [142:59]
C
Well, a lot of people don't know. Is that King James. Good old Stuart.
- [143:06]
He was an amateur witch hunter in addition to authorizing the King James Bible, etc. And he wrote books about it, and one of them is he wrote a book called Demonology.
- [143:19]
B
I know.
- [143:22]
C
And in it, he has his own theory.
- [143:25]
B
Yeah. Which is worse.
- [143:28]
C
Which is worse.
- [143:31]
About how demons. How a demon could get a woman pregnant, and that's that he says that a demon could possess a man's dead body.
- [143:42]
And use it to get a woman pregnant.
- [143:44]
B
So wrong. All right.
- [143:45]
C
Or if you're a Twilight fan, super romantic. Anyway, go ahead.
- [143:52]
B
Okay. So. All right, all right.
- [143:58]
So this is not my final thought, but I just want to say something about this deeply weird, weird, weird moment is we're not pulling this Stuff out to just say, look at these freaky things some of the Church Fathers say. But rather the point is they are reading the Scriptures, right? They're reading, particularly in Genesis, but also looking at other stuff. They're looking at their world. And we heard Augustine, for instance, talking about all kinds of stuff he's heard from people that he, that he regards as reliable, credible people, right? No reason to disbelieve them, he says. And they're taking all this stuff very seriously and trying to make sense of it because for them there's no like, word in scripture that shouldn't be made sense of. You know, they're, they're really trying to confront it and make some sense of it. And obviously they're saying there's some things that, there's theories that they're coming up with that just are just way the heck out there. And the reason why they seem so weird and kind of bizarre, very bizarre, truly bizarre to us is because at least especially in terms of these kinds of mechanistic theories about like demons transporting human gametes, like, the Church has basically left that stuff behind because it, it said, you know, we don't really need to go into that. You know, the point is that humans can be deeply involved with demons and including with sexual sin. Like, this is truly a thing and it is demonic. Sexual sin is demonic. You know, that's, that's like the landing point of all of this. It's not just to be interested in weird, fake, freaky stuff in, you know, seldom read corners of some of the Church Fathers. It's, it's that they're taking all these things seriously and we need to as well.
- [145:53]
C
I gotta be honest, I brought up that thing about King James just to kind of make fun of him because.
- [145:57]
B
He was kind of just for the weird fact. I mean, King James was a weird dude. He was a freaky dude.
- [146:01]
C
He believed a strange person.
- [146:04]
But the St. Augustine part, I was not bringing up to make fun of St. Augustine in any way.
- [146:09]
B
No, no, no.
- [146:11]
C
The reason I wanted to focus on the St. Augustine part and on and on. His answer to that question in particular is that I think this shows the same thing we saw with St. John Chrysostom.
- [146:25]
B
Right?
- [146:26]
C
Meaning.
- [146:29]
So he's rejected what, he's rejected a really literal, a really literal interpretation of the Watcher story, a really literal interpretation of who the Nephilim are, which as we've argued, is not what the earlier Church Fathers meant.
- [146:46]
And we've put forth our argument about what the Church fathers meant. And notice once Again, we see with St. Augustine, he has all the elements of the view that we've put forward.
- [146:56]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [146:57]
C
He has the idea that a demon can be involved sexually with two humans and thereby be involved in their human reproduction.
- [147:15]
Which is essentially what we argue happened. Right. What the Nephilim story is actually about. Right. So St. Augustine believes all the component parts of our view. He just hasn't understood St. Irenaeus, St. Justin, martyr, etcetera, to be teaching this view.
- [147:40]
B
Right.
- [147:42]
C
And it seems to me that if he did understand that this was what Saint Irenaeus was saying, he would accept it because he believes all of the component pieces.
- [147:52]
Of that view.
- [147:54]
B
Yeah.
- [147:55]
C
So again, I bring this up about St. Augustine not to make fun of or pick on St. Augustine.
- [148:00]
B
No, he's doing his best.
- [148:04]
C
All the pieces. Quite the opposite. I'm bringing it up to say, look, St. Augustine, the most renowned opponent of views like ours of who the Nephilim are, basically agrees on all the component elements.
- [148:19]
B
Yeah.
- [148:20]
C
With the Fathers before him, it's just there's this disconnect and this miscommunication where he doesn't make the connection. That's why I'm bringing up St. Augustine. King James. Weirdo. That thing I read from Thomas Aquine is deeply weird.
- [148:36]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [148:37]
C
Deeply weird. I don't want to tick off all of our Roman Catholic friends more than I already do all the time, but not his best moment. Deeply weird.
- [148:50]
But St. Augustine I don't think is being deeply weird. I think St. Augustine is.
- [148:56]
Dealing with biblical issues and trying to understand Genesis 6 and trying to understand first Peter 3 and trying to understand these passages. Right. And I think there's just this disconnect. Right. Where he again believes all the component parts but doesn't sort of put them together. Right. And they're even in close vicinity. Like he's talking about the Nephilim when he expresses all of these component parts, it just doesn't come together.
- [149:24]
B
Right.
- [149:25]
C
For him.
- [149:26]
B
Yep.
- [149:28]
C
Now, that said.
- [149:31]
These traditions about incubi and succubi persist all over the world in various forms. We're going to give just a few examples here at the end of the half three. But they persist all over the world in different forms.
- [149:46]
And this is in part. Right. Why bring this up that it persists that people have these views? Well, because remember one of St. John Cassian's arguments against.
- [149:57]
The Watcher story, Right. Was if this happened then and then it happened later in the Old Testament, why isn't it happening today? Right.
- [150:08]
And our response to that has been. Well, St. John Cassian didn't have pagans around anymore, so he didn't see it happening. But it was happening in that day in different places where paganism was still alive and was still going on.
- [150:23]
B
Yeah.
- [150:24]
C
Right. And so when you go into Germanic Europe, you get the Alp, you get.
- [150:30]
B
The Mara, which by the way, Mara is the origin of our word nightmare. So a nightmare is literally a kind of succubus. I mean, literally a kind of succubus idea.
- [150:45]
Yes.
- [150:46]
C
In North Africa. By North Africa here I primarily talk about Sudan and Egypt, although there are related traditions throughout the Arabic speaking world.
- [151:01]
There are. So there's a, there's a word, kareem, that basically is very similar to genius.
- [151:07]
B
Yeah, right.
- [151:09]
C
The way we've been talking about genius.
- [151:10]
B
Very similar idea.
- [151:11]
C
Caller talked about genius. But in North Africa there's this view of the Karina which puts this sort of succubus style.
- [151:22]
Spin on it, where the relationship between the person and the spirit is very overtly sexualized.
- [151:33]
B
Yeah.
- [151:34]
C
And even though it's gender reversed, it's a lot like.
- [151:40]
The story we read in Tobit.
- [151:44]
B
Where.
- [151:49]
C
Would be bride. Right. Asmodeus is killing all of her suitors.
- [151:54]
Right. On the wedding night. This is sort of the reverse version of that where the female like succubus type spirit, the Karina, has this sort of sexual possessive relationship with a man and will kill or do things to women he's attracted to or to him if he's attracted to a woman or tries to get married. And the belief is that that spirit then has to be placated with sacrifices.
- [152:27]
And even in Muslim communities in that part of the world, they will offer these animal sacrifices to this spirit when they think a man has one in order to sort of placate it and ward it off. And you have to sacrifice an all black animal. Let's just make it as creepy as possible. Right. But this is true. You can look it up.
- [152:47]
Yeah.
- [152:47]
B
I mean, there's this idea of sacrificing black animals. You can see that in, in the Odyssey as well. Yeah, yeah.
- [152:54]
C
And then a little closer to home for us Orthodox folk.
- [152:59]
In Ukraine.
- [153:02]
There is the phenomenon of the paralyznic.
- [153:08]
Which is a spirit that assumes the form of a dead lover or a dead spouse.
- [153:17]
B
Yeah. To come and fly through your window and seduce you.
- [153:21]
C
Yes.
- [153:22]
B
Yeah.
- [153:24]
C
It also apparently sometimes appears as a dragon.
- [153:27]
B
Yeah.
- [153:27]
C
That would be a tip off.
- [153:29]
B
Yeah. If you see a dragon flying through.
- [153:31]
C
Your window, that this is a demonic spirit and your deceased lover back from the Dead.
- [153:36]
B
That's weird. You look like a dragon just now. Oh, don't worry about that.
- [153:40]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [153:43]
All right, well, so these things persist there being, there being the point. Because the kind of phenomena we're talking about in the pagan world, in the world of pagan ritual, still goes on.
- [153:57]
B
Yeah. Because it's about humans interacting sinfully with. With demonic beings in one way or another.
- [154:10]
Yeah. So here at the end of. I'm going to go ahead and say this is in fact the weirdest Lord of Spirits episode so far.
- [154:19]
What are we to make of all of this?
- [154:25]
This isn't just, you know, trotting out a bunch of deeply weird stuff, although it is definitely trotting out some deeply weird stuff. But I think that one of the big takeaways from this is that.
- [154:38]
The Christian understanding of the human person and of the world in general, but particularly the human person, is that he is permeable. He's permeable to the spiritual world. Right. I mean, most of us, you know, the way that we're sort of trained by our culture is to think that we are a, you know.
- [155:04]
A spirit inside some kind of biological shell. And, you know, we sort of drive it around like. Like mechs in 1980s anime.
- [155:18]
And so, you know, the idea that. That spiritual beings are influencing us all the time doesn't, you know, doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not how we think we're experiencing the world.
- [155:31]
But that's not the Christian teaching about human person. The human person is understood to be permeable. Right. Not just by thoughts, as we've talked about, with what the noose is being a sort of sensory organ that receives thoughts, but also by spirits. Like spirits are influencing us. Right. And.
- [156:00]
In fact, the word spirit, as we've said in the. The episode we did, what's the spirit, when it's at home explicitly is about when some other entity is asserting an influence on us and guiding and animating and. And so forth. We've talked a lot about in this episode about the sinful.
- [156:21]
Side of that. Right.
- [156:26]
But.
- [156:29]
We didn't spend a lot of time on. And maybe in the future we will spend some more time on this. The side of that. That. And we have spent some time on in other episodes, for sure. But the side of that, that's not the sinful side, which is that we have guardian angels who function as guiding spirits. They assert an influence on us, but it's not a controlling influence in the sense of, like, they make us do things. Right. And the Holy Spirit, same Thing, not a controlling influence in the sense of making us do things, but rather that it is about guidance, about relationship, about love.
- [157:11]
And therefore also about freedom.
- [157:15]
You know, as, as Rachel, our caller from Ohio, said, you know, people interact with, with some of these dark spirits. They, it seems great at first, but then eventually it turns dark. And that's because it's not about love. Love always acts in freedom and acts for the other person's freedom.
- [157:38]
Whereas when you yoke yourself to a dark spirit, you are being enslaved, you are being addicted, you are being controlled.
- [157:53]
The good news is there is a path out of that. There is a path out of that. And we, we heard, you know, I saw some of those comments in YouTube, I saw you people saying some of this. And of course, as I said, we heard from, from Rachel as well. There is a path out, right? And we also heard about the exorcisms that are done as part of baptism in the Christian church. There's a path out. You don't have to be addicted. I know that it is seductive. I know that it promises all kinds of lovely things, things that seem lovely, promises pleasure, promises warmth, promises, you know, intelligence, promises strength, whatever, right? These are all the things that these, the pagan gods and these, these lesser spiritual beings always have whispered in the, the ears of humanity for thousands of years. Just sacrifice to me, just devote yourself to me and I'll give you all this stuff. But it chains you down, it controls you, it addicts you.
- [158:57]
Distorts you, it deforms you.
- [159:02]
Darkens everything. Christ gives freedom from all of that. Christ gives freedom. And not only does he say, I'm going to let you free, I'm going to set you free from all that, but also I'm going to exalt you to be equal to the angels. I'm going to exalt you to become like myself. I'm going to exalt you so that you are on that infinite path of theosis, of becoming more and more like God.
- [159:29]
That's what Christianity is about.
- [159:33]
That's what it's about. And so, you know, the reason why on this podcast we explore the dark side of a lot of these things is because I think because in our modern world, in the modern, at least in modern America, I know we have a lot of listeners from other countries as well. So, you know, your mileage may vary, as we like to say.
- [159:57]
There's so much that we've set up to make ourselves comfortable.
- [160:02]
Right? That the fact that we are enslaved to our passions, we are so kind of anesthetized that we may not even realize that that is the case.
- [160:13]
And so I think that trying to understand some of this dark stuff, not in a way because we're fascinated by it and want to focus on it or whatever, that's not the point at all. If you think that's the point, then you're not. You're not. You're not listening. It's rather to give us a clear view of where we are spiritually and that each person should look at his own soul and ask, okay, okay, what am I addicted to? What spirit have I handed myself over to?
- [160:45]
And how can I repent? How can I receive that rescue, that release, that freedom from Christ? How can I advance in holiness? And how can I listen to my guardian angel? How can I listen to the Holy Spirit and be led on that path rather than on the very, very dark one?
- [161:12]
Father Stephen.
- [161:15]
C
Father Andrew, you might as well face it. You're addicted to love.
- [161:23]
B
Thank you.
- [161:25]
C
So.
- [161:29]
This is our Halloween episode. We're rolling up on Halloween.
- [161:36]
And, you know.
- [161:39]
I don't know, in our listener base, I like to think more people will indulge in a little bit of horror movie action or something for Halloween.
- [161:50]
And have some fun with it.
- [161:54]
But, you know, when we're kids, we're scared of the monster in the closet or under the bed.
- [162:01]
When I was a little kid, there was actually this weird old 70s curtain. It was like olive colored. And there was this. It had a weird pattern on it. And there was this one spot where it kind of looked like a kind of sinister face that I would sit there and stare at at night when I was trying to go to sleep to make sure it didn't move.
- [162:26]
Then we grow up, you know, we think there's these monsters lurking and demons lurking and creatures lurking. And in our materialist world, the way we get past that is we tell ourselves, well, that's not real.
- [162:39]
Look, silly. Look under the bed. There's dust bunnies. You should clean that. There's no monsters, right? There's nothing in the closet but old junk. Right. That's just a dumb pattern in the drapes, right? We'll replace the drapes. They're old anyway, Right?
- [162:57]
And unfortunately, that's not the truth.
- [163:03]
The truth is there are monsters and demons out there in the world.
- [163:11]
The world isn't safe, spiritually or physically.
- [163:18]
B
Right?
- [163:20]
C
But.
- [163:22]
The problem is not that, you know, oh, we're scared of stuff that isn't real. And really, there's nothing to be afraid of. The problem is that we're responding with Fear.
- [163:34]
Right. It's not often on this show or anywhere else where I'll hold up Origin as an example. Right. But honestly, in that one little bit of Contra Celsus, where Origin is just saying, you know, oh, really? Demon attacks.
- [163:53]
Sucks to be you.
- [163:55]
B
Right.
- [163:56]
C
And is it worried at all? It says, us Christians, we're not worried about that at all.
- [164:03]
Whatever.
- [164:04]
B
Right.
- [164:06]
C
Is kind of inspiring.
- [164:11]
The idea that.
- [164:15]
We don't respond by fear, we respond by fighting back.
- [164:21]
Because we know that ultimately the battle has already been won by Christ.
- [164:27]
And so that we not only have a protection, again, defense, this defensive talk, you don't have to be afraid because you're protected. No, no, no, no, no, no. We have authority. We're on offense.
- [164:39]
B
Right?
- [164:39]
C
We're on offense.
- [164:42]
And importantly, this includes the human monsters out there. And this came to my mind because of a couple of the calls we had.
- [164:51]
Right? About neutrality, of things. Right. About good and evil being adjectives that we ascribe to actions, to verbs, not to things, not to nouns, not to people.
- [165:06]
There aren't good guys and bad guys out there in the world. I have read more comics than any of you. I guarantee it. That's not the real world. There's not good guys and bad guys. There's just a bunch of guys.
- [165:21]
Every person, the most evil, wicked person you will meet.
- [165:26]
A giant, if he's still alive, is a person who God loves.
- [165:36]
Is a person who Christ loves so much he was willing to die for them.
- [165:41]
No matter what they've done, no matter how horrific it is.
- [165:47]
So when we go on the offensive.
- [165:51]
We'Re not going on the offensive against that person. We're not going on the offensive against the people who have wronged us.
- [166:01]
We're not going on the offensive against the bad people.
- [166:06]
To politically take our country back from the bad people.
- [166:12]
E
Or.
- [166:12]
C
To try to force people out of our church who we've decided are bad people, or out of our community or cut off people in our family who we've decided are bad people.
- [166:23]
We're going on the offensive against the spirits that have led those people who God loves to do bad things, evil things, sometimes horrible things to themselves and to other people.
- [166:37]
That's the enemy. We're going on the offensive against.
- [166:42]
That quote, unquote, evil person is the prize that we're fighting over.
- [166:50]
That's the person we're trying to win.
- [166:56]
That's the person who needs the salvation and the transformation that we're finding in our own life.
- [167:03]
As evil people.
- [167:10]
So I think it's important.
- [167:13]
Right? It's important this Halloween to remember that there are real monsters.
- [167:21]
And while they can be scary, we shouldn't fear them.
- [167:28]
If those monsters are spiritual, we need to face them boldly and without fear because we've already won. We're the boss of them.
- [167:41]
And if they're human monsters.
- [167:47]
Then we need to face them with the love and the compassion and the forgiveness.
- [167:55]
B
That.
- [167:55]
C
Can help win them over and set them free.
- [168:01]
So they can become reformed monsters like us. Or at least like me. I'm semi reformed.
- [168:10]
Still a little monstrous now and then.
- [168:15]
Those are my thoughts.
- [168:16]
B
You are kind of an ogre.
- [168:18]
C
Yeah, I have layers.
- [168:20]
B
Ogre in a swamp. That's our show for tonight everyone. Thank you very much for listening and thanks for all of you who called. If you didn't get through to us live, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us@lordofspiritscientientfaith.com you can message us at our Facebook page. You can also leave us a voicemail@speakpipe.com Lord of Spirits and if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish, go to orthodoxintro.org Join us for our live.
- [168:47]
C
Broadcast on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. I lay my head onto the sand. The sky resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it.
- [168:56]
B
If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page, you can join our discussion group, leave reviews and ratings, and share this show with a friend who's going to benefit from it.
- [169:06]
C
Finally, be sure to go to ancient faith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. I'm counting UFOs. I signal them with my lighter and in this moment I am happy. Happy.
- [169:17]
B
Thank you. Like Kirok, Good night and may God bless you all.
- [169:31]
A
You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio and I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 then thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.