Millennium : Bug or Feature?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Lord of Spirits — "Millennium: Bug or Feature?"

Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young
Date: June 23, 2023
Theme: The Seen and Unseen World in Orthodox Christian Tradition, the concept of the “Millennium” in Christian eschatology, and how time, ages, and the “Messianic Age” are understood in Orthodox thought.

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the show's eschatology series, focusing on the biblical and theological meaning of "the millennium"—especially in light of Revelation 20. The discussion dissects historical, scriptural, and theological understandings of time and ages, examines the roots and errors of chiliasm (belief in a future material thousand-year reign of Christ), reviews the claims around St. Irenaeus being a chiliast, and explores what “living in the Messianic age” means for Christians now.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Eschatological Table

• Millennial Anxieties: Jokes about Y2K, the Mayan calendar, and pop-culture end-of-the-world fears. The “millennium” endures in Christian thought because it’s biblical (e.g., Revelation 20).
• Why is the Millennium a Theological Issue?
  • Explores terms like “world without end” and “ages of ages.”
  • Raises controversial questions, e.g., Kiliasm (chiliasm), the figure of St. Irenaeus and whether he was a chiliast.

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2. Biblical Language of Time and Ages

(06:06–44:00)

• Hebrew ‘Day’ (Yom): Not always a literal 24-hour period. Used analogically for periods/ages.
  • “Day of the Lord” as a transitional moment: a movement from one age to another.
  • Terms like “in that day,” or “the days of Noah” refer to epochs, often loaded with theological meaning.
• Greek ‘Aeon’ (Age/Eon): More than just sequence, includes a “world order/state of things” that prevails for a period.
  • “Seculum” (Latin): Applies Augustine’s Platonic schema—earthly ages come and go, but God’s “age” is eternal.

“Ultimately what the millennium is, is an age.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (06:38)

• Notable Quote:
  “The word ‘aeon’ conveys more than just a period. It has the resonance of a particular order, a particular state of things that prevails for a period of time.”
  —Fr. Stephen De Young (19:19)

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3. Scriptural Ages: Breaking Down Biblical Periodizations

(31:07–48:00)

• Major Scriptural Ages discussed:
  • Creation (before humans: a different order of reality).
  • Paradise (before the Fall; humans experience time, but differently).
  • After the Fall: The era between expulsion and the flood (characterized by disorder, violence, and Nephilim).
  • Post-flood: A “new order” leads up to Abraham; then the giving of the Torah at Sinai (initiates the Israelite order).
  • Sinai to Exile; Exile to Return (Great Tribulation era of Daniel, the “hinge” to Messianic hope).

“It’s a different age, it’s a different world. Creation is ordered differently…It’s the same creation, but the creation is ordered differently before.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (36:37)

• Key Point: Ages in the Bible are not all the same length or measured with equal metrics—they represent meaningful, often metaphysical shifts, not units of time.

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4. Callers: Symbolism of Moloch and Mammon, the Meaning of “Aeon,” U.S. Empire & Eschatology

(53:30–71:19)

a. Moloch vs. Mammon & Modern Idols (54:03–61:08)

• Demonic “powers” represent both real spiritual beings and the societal patterns (‘gods that our society is inadvertently worshipping’).
• The worship of profit, indulgence, and success is shown to demand the “sacrifice” of family, humanity, and social bonds.

“Our worship of this prosperity and success…is destroying our humanity. And if that’s not demonic, I sort of don’t know what is.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (60:29)

b. “Aeon” and English “Eon” (62:07–64:45)

• English "eon" comes straight from the Greek "aeon," meaning an age or long period, sometimes even “eternity.”

c. Is America the Linchpin of this Age? (66:10–71:19)

• The U.S. is just today’s manifestation of world empire (“the beast”), not the eschatological axis of the world; the ages are not tied to one nation’s fate.

“The end of the United States is not the end of the world, necessarily.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (71:08)

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5. The Messianic Age in Scripture & Tradition

(71:29–99:14)

• Expectation in Second Temple Judaism: The “Great Tribulation” is not a future reality for Daniel—it's what Daniel’s people are living. The Messianic Age is anticipated as a future definitive transformation.
• New Covenant as Messianic Pivot: Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 11/36—focus not on abolition of the Torah, but that the law will be internalized, written on hearts by the Spirit.

“The Spirit is going to empower...the Holy Spirit is going to come into you and empower you to keep it. That's how it’s going to be different than last time.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (81:44)

• Covenant Theology vs. Dispensationalism: Covenant theology (esp. in Reformed Protestantism) emphasizes epochs defined by covenants; dispensationalism reduces salvation down to different ‘deals’ in different ages—this is contrasted with Orthodox metaphysical/ontological renewal in Christ.

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6. Joaquin de Fiore and ‘Trinitarian History’

(102:06–111:40)

• Late 12th c. thinker who periodized history into three ages (of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), with the final age as a utopian era of the Spirit starting in 1260 (it didn’t work out!); although condemned, his ideas subtly undergird a lot of modern Western utopianism/postmillennialism.

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7. Defining the Messianic vs. Ultimate Age

(122:02–131:24)

• Penultimate, Not Ultimate: The Messianic age is not the final age; the final, endless “age to come” is after the Messianic era (“Kingdom” now, “final judgment” later).
• Daniel 7, Psalm 110, Hebrews 2: The Messiah rules “in the midst of His enemies”; only afterward are all enemies vanquished.
• Key point: We are living now in that Messianic age—Christ rules in the midst of His enemies.

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8. Chiliasm/‘Millennialism’ Debunked & St. Irenaeus Vindicated

(135:08–176:42)

• What is Chiliasm? (136:08)

  • Early Christian expectation of a future, physical thousand-year reign of Christ on earth (“chiliasm” ≈ “millenarianism”). The church eventually rejected this—not on the level of like Arianism (a core heresy), but as a significant theological error.

• Why did some Christians adopt this?

  • Reaction to Gnosticism: overly “spiritualized” eschatologies led to over-emphasizing a materialistic, literalist interpretation.

• St. Irenaeus:

  • It’s widely (and wrongly) claimed he was a chiliast. The hosts go through citations and show he does not teach chiliasm, but simply affirms the bodily resurrection and truly Christian hope of the “world made anew.”

“There’s no evidence that St. Irenaeus was a chiliast unless you think anyone who believes in the bodily resurrection is a chiliast, which is just Christianity.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (176:12)

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9. Revelation 20 and the True Millennium

(176:42–185:57)

• The Actual Text:
  • Satan is bound for 1,000 years; the saints reign with Christ; after the “thousand years,” Satan is loosed for a final conflict/Judgment.
• Orthodox Interpretation:
  • The “thousand years” is a symbolic age—the Messianic age, which began at Christ’s ascension and enthronement; this is “now.”
  • The “first resurrection” is not a future event, but the reality of saints living in Christ, now reigning with him.

“Saying Christ’s kingdom is now…is not saying it’s ephemeral, spiritualized, or allegorical. It’s very literal.”
—Fr. Stephen De Young (192:25)

• The “second resurrection”/final judgment marks the transition to the ultimate endless age.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Models of Time:
  “Age…has the resonance of a particular order, a particular state of things that prevails for a period of time.” (19:19, Fr. Stephen)

• On Universal Knowledge of God:
  “There has been a radical transformation... Now you look at today. You can go almost anywhere in the world and say the word God, capital G… There has been a transformation of the very way we view ourselves and each other in society.” —Fr. Stephen De Young (187:53)

• On the U.S. as Centerpiece of Eschatology:
  “The end of the United States is not the end of the world, necessarily.” —Fr. Stephen De Young (71:08)

• On Hope and Christian Living:
  “When we talk about the millennium, when we talk about the Messianic age…it’s fundamentally about having the perspective that we need in order to be faithful, to do his work in the places where we are and to participate in his putting all of his enemies under his feet.” —Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick (199:01)

• On Enjoying the Messianic Age:
  “Feasting with each other, enjoying each other, is as serious as we take fasting. At least as seriously as we take our fasts.” —Fr. Stephen De Young (207:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |----------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 00:21-06:06 | Episode opening, overview, millennium pop-culture| | 06:06-44:00 | Biblical language of “age,” “day,” “aeon” | | 44:00-71:19 | Historical breakdown of scriptural ages & calls | | 71:29-99:14 | Messianic Age in Jewish & Christian thought | | 102:06-111:40 | Joaquin de Fiore, utopian/postmillennial ideas | | 122:02-131:24 | Messianic vs. Ultimate Age, Psalm 110, Daniel 7 | | 135:08-176:42 | Chiliasm, St. Irenaeus, debunking misconceptions | | 176:42-185:57 | Revelation 20: actual meaning of “thousand years”| | 192:39-207:55 | Exhortations: hope, joy, and living the Kingdom |

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Final Thoughts & Exhortations

• The Messianic age is now—not to be postponed or spiritualized away. Christ reigns; transformation is real and visible in history.
• Our hope is not escapist, but participatory: We join Christ in the ongoing work of putting all enemies under his feet.
• Orthodoxy values both ascetic struggle and joyful communion: Fasting and feasting; monastic withdrawal and Christian fellowship.
• Rejecting chiliasm means living fully the reality of God’s reign today, not relegating all joy and fulfillment to some future paradise.

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If you want to delve deeper into Christian eschatology, understand your place in the Kingdom now, and avoid errors of ancient and modern literalism, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

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.

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, this union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

Good evening giant killers, dragon slayers, serpent and scorpion stompers. You are listening to Lord of Spirits podcast. My co Host, the Very Reverend Almost Double Doctor, Father Steven DeYoung is with me from Lafayette, Louisiana. I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, with considerably fewer academic degrees. If you're listening to us live, you can call in at 855-AF-RADIO. That's 855-237-2346. And Matus Gutrudi is back on the job tonight, taking your calls. We're going to get to those in the second part of our show.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And of course, Elijah just disappeared. Perhaps he was speaking up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Poor Elijah.

You can come back, Elijah. Everything is. It's fine. We want you back.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We've got this open chair for you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Tonight we're going to consider. Consider. Well, consider continuing our series on eschatology.

With the dawn of the year 2000, just 23 years in the rear view mirror, which makes me feel a little like I'm shriveling a little bit.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Bones turning to powder.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. It might seem like the much prophesied millennium bug is old hat. I also remember the halcyon days of 2012 when we were told that the Mayan calendar had reached its spicy end. Yet the millennium remains an element to Christian theology because it's in the Bible. Funny how that works. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. What exactly is this millennium? Why do the British like to say world without end at the end of their prayers? A lot of people have been wondering that. I bet. What is the ancient heresy of Kiliasm and Is it true that Saint Irenaeus of Lyon was actually a Kiliast and the church swept that under the rug or just had a general agreement not to talk about it? So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No.

Man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Spoilers, dude.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Spoilers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not until the third half.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, okay. Sorry, sorry.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I guess we got to make sure we hold everybody's attention.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, we don't want to startle anybody. That's true. We're just talking about how old we are.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Pearl clutching St. Irenaeus wasn't Achilleast.

Yeah, I mean, we're Gen Xers though. So, like, are we even allowed to talk about our feelings about the millennium?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No. There are only two appropriate things to do with feelings. Number one is to tamp and stomp them down until they build up pressure and you explode like a volcano, destroying everything around you. Or two, drown them in hard liquor until they're as dead as you are inside.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. We're going to get emails about that one.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That one. There we go. Like, you're always like, I'm going to get canceled for this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, it's going to be that. It's going to be that. That.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm going to get the emails. Last episode, it was the great online pasta wars of 2023.

I think that that may have spawned.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

More comments than any other, like throwaway comment.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And this week it's going to be my.

Tongue in cheek. Or was it anti feelings tirade, but.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Getting very Dutch right from the get go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So, yeah, some say the end is near. Some say we'll see Armageddon soon. But we've been told a lot of lies about the millennium.

I don't know if you remember back in the year 2001, Willifred Albert Smith told us all that this was going to be the Willennium.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't remember that. I mean, I remember Will Smith, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, that hasn't panned out so well. Right. For him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I told there was a Robbie Williams song about millennium as well, but I don't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Lance Henriksen's hair turned white. Yeah. Also in the year 2012, we were told by John Cusack that you can flee the crumbling earth in Winnebago. Successfully.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Checks out.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, I think that is also a lie.

That's what Maury Povich told me at least.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Glad we have Maury Povich to tell us these things.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Yes. If you want to find out if the baby's yours or if someone is lying, you go to Maury Povich. That's it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. He will adjudicate he would never lie to us.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All such matters.

Yeah. I mean, he's married to Connie Chung. Like what? You know, if you can't trust Connie Chung, who can you trust?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Maybe no one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There's so many people I could trust in front of Connie.

Anyway. Yes. Millennium. Yes. What are we talking about again?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, the millennium. And so.

The main place in scripture.

That talks about the millennium as such is Revelation, chapter 20. So as is our want, we'll be talking about that dead last at the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

End of the show, as one does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But until then, we're going to be laying groundwork as again, is our want.

So we're going to start with the whole concept of an age in scripture.

Because ultimately what the millennium is, is an age. And so before we can get to that particular age, we have to understand the concept of an age in general.

And the most common way in which an age is referred to in the Hebrew Bible is with the term day yom.

And so just connecting the idea of day and age, I know, has triggered a bunch of young earth creationists, but that's not where we're going, so relax.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think we lost them a long time ago, honestly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That may be, but. Right. That's not where we're going with this at all. Right.

But the word day, in addition to just referring to a day, Right. It does sometimes in the Hebrew Bible just refer to a 24 hour period or to the daylight hours, like day, night. Right. But there are also more specialized usages of it.

So when you see day with the definite article, so hayom.

Or the day as it's usually translated in English, that is in most cases a reference to the day of the Lord.

The day of Yahweh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. When God shows up and puts everything right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. He visits his people. Right. And settles things.

And things are resolved. So this is true. By the way, though, we're not going to go too deep into this now. This is true Also in Genesis 3.

There'S that weird phrase that gets translated in all kinds of weird, contradictory ways in English is like the heat of the day, right. God, the heat of the day, or the wind of the day, or the cool of the afternoon, or it's translated all these. What it literally says there is Ruachayom, the spirit of the day.

And God comes walking after Adam and Eve have transgressed, and he comes walking in the spirit of the day. So this is deliberately in the Hebrew, evoking the idea of judgment. Right. And that's what's happening. This is sort of an early intrusion. Right. Now, of course, the day of the Lord. The day of Yahweh. Right. The day is this pivotal transitional moment.

Right? It is. When we're talking about the day of Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures, we're talking about this transitional moment from one age to another.

That's why it's relevant here. Because as we're understanding the concept of an age in scripture, we have to not only understand that there are these ages. Ages, but that there are these pivotal and decisive moments where things happen.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Inaugurate a new one, where.

There is passage into a new one. And so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And sometimes the Bible will use the same word to refer to the period, but also to that moment.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, Right. So.

Another way in which day Yom is used in this next is a reference to that day.

Right. And that will be, take the form in English translation of in that day.

Right. And in that day can be sort of retrospective.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Talking about the past. Right. In. In that day. Right.

The did, the city of Dan was called Laish.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or it can be prospective. It can refer to the future in that day. No man will teach his brother. Right. Saying know the Lord. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So the first one, like back in the day, as we say colloquially in English.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Retrospectively. Yeah. Back in the day, or in my day, kids, we didn't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Express our emotions. Yeah. So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You'Re triggering a lot of people with that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's okay.

I already told them what to do with those feelings I'm triggering.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so this is a reference to an age or an era. Right. And it's referring to it sort of as a whole.

Right. Just referring to it simply. Right. That era, that time period, that age as a whole. You also get the days of. Fill in the blank.

Right. So the days of Noah is a very common one in Scripture.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To refer back to the days of Noah, meaning the period when Noah was alive. Right. That it's taking that age or era and associating it with a particular person and through that person, with particular events in the life of that person, what is going on with that person.

The days of Sodom. Right, the days of. Right. And you could associate then an age in that way with a person, with a concept. We do that poetically in English as well, like days of wine and roses. Right.

These are the days of miracles and wonders. This is the long distance call.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Anyway. Nice. Yeah. That was the first. That was the first cassette tape I ever owned.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There we go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Was. Yeah, it was Graceland by digging in the Graceland.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. Yeah. And so it's associating them then with this particular character or characterization. Right. Connecting the age to that. There's also then the phrase in those days.

And so you have in that day using the singular, and then you have in those days, which is plural.

And both of those are essentially the same kind of reference in that they're referring to a past or future age or era. But when it's singular, it's sort of referring to it as a unit.

Whereas when it's plural in those days, it's referring to it in terms of extent over time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. There's a plurality. Yeah. And like, like the way that I kind of worked it out was in terms. I mean, this is a rough analogy in terms of grammar. Like, so you've got the past perfect, you know, at that time, you know, in that period in those, you know, in. In that era, you know, versus sort of past imperfect. Like it used to be the case, you know, it was ongoing. Right. And I mean, even when we just use the. The singular definite article in English versus a plural one, it can make a big difference. Like, like we talk about the United States versus these United States. That's. That's a different concept, you know, and it's the sense of. In this case, it's plurality, you know, the states all together, whereas the United States is like a single unit. That's one country, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Yeah. And if people, if people have a little Greek, this is the difference between the aorist and the imperfect in Greek.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. Yeah. So this is in that day might be used to refer to something, like I said, the name of the city. And that day, Dan was called Laish. Right. It's just being used that period as a whole to locate when you're talking about the city had that name. Whereas when you get in those days, the plural. To refer to the extent, you're talking about how something was true over a period of time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In those days there was no king. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

So you have ongoing. Right. Is the idea that's being, that's being stressed there either in the past or in the future.

So that's sort of the Hebrew use. And that's. Since that's centering around the word day, that obviously is an analogical use.

Of the word day that denotatively is referring to really a 12 hour period, give or take, depending on time of year.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

Versus the night.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. To refer to another time period which.

Generally would be considered to have a beginning and an end. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, we do that with other units of time. Like we talk about something happening in a hot minute or, you know, in that hour, such and such. We don't mean in those 60 minutes or in those 60 seconds. Right. It's. Right, yeah. It's extended outwards to mean a period.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. An hour is even used that way in scripture. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

By saying my hour has not yet come. Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It doesn't mean, look, it's going to be at 325.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. To 425. Yeah. Yeah.

So in Greek, what we generally have for age is aeon.

Right.

From which we get the English word eon.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Aeon is usually literally translated age.

And that's why we've been using the term age so far. But age, obviously, I mean, on the face of it, when you talk about this age and then there's the next age and then there's the age to come. Right. That language de facto, is a way of periodizing time.

Right. Of taking time in all of its extent and dividing it into finite periods.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To say this age and then that age and then the next age. Right. The same way that you would, you know, you could take a desk and say, all right, this is the left side of the desk. This is the middle of the desk. This is the right side of the desk. Right.

You are dividing it.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And in that sense, periodization can be arbitrary. Right. So in the sense that, to use an example from time, we talk about, oh, Late antiquity.

The Dark Ages. The Middle Ages. Yes, the early modern period. Right. And you could, of course, argue and publish journal articles about where exactly those begin and end. Were there even Dark Ages And. Right. Because those are somewhat arbitrary divisions.

Based on various. Various things. But.

The word aon or age includes more than just the concept of a division of time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that word conveys more than that. That takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, because ultimately it has the resonance of a particular order, a particular state of things.

That prevails for a period of time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

When the terms like Middle Ages, Dark Ages, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, Neolithic. Right. When these are used.

Quasi scientifically in a scholarly manner, that's what they're actually being used to refer to not an arbitrary number of years, but a period during which a certain ordering of the world prevailed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Like Bronze Age is specifically about that metallurgical accomplishment and its effects on civilization.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And there are certain political forms that prevailed during that Period, Right. And we talk about the end of the Bronze Age and the Bronze Age collapse. That was the collapse of a sort of world order that had developed during that period and then comes to an end. And when we talk about Late antiquity, it's late antiquity for a reason. The Western Roman Empire is close collapsing, Right. And there's a shift happening in the whole order of things. And this is really include in this idea of aeon. It's a world order or state of things. And so this then.

In Latin translation.

Is where we get into the word seculum.

And the word seculum.

Really conveyed that same kind of idea of a world order. Right.

Of a world structure. And St. Augustine really develops the way the word seculum is used, really innovates in terms of how that word is going to be understood going forward in the west in City of God. Because he.

Being, being the Platonist he was.

Uses the sort of Platonic schema of being and becoming and applies it to the City of God, the sort of age in which God eternally exists.

On the one hand, and then on the other hand, on the Earth, there is this constant sort of churning and turning of one seculum, one order, one world into another.

And that's very much the point he's wanting to make in City of God. He's like, yes, Those of you who think because the Western Roman Empire is collapsing that the world is ending. It sort of is, in a way. Right. In a sense, that world, that ordering of things that had prevailed until now for centuries, is now dying and dead.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. All this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And now a new order will rise and that will continue to happen over and over and over again.

In this world. Right. Meanwhile, the age above, the age in which God dwells, is eternal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which is then why I don't remember exactly how the phrase goes in Latin. Is it seculus secellorum, or am I getting the grammar wrong? I don't remember something like that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'd have to look it up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which, you know, in Latin translates istucion estonion from Greek.

Which we usually translate into English as unto ages of ages.

But that seculus secularum in some of the early modern English translations becomes world without end, world without. Because of. It's the idea that it's a world without end versus these worlds upon worlds, you know, one world after another, that characterizes this world in the Augustinian conception.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right, right. And that's going to have some consequences, Right. That are relevant to what we're talking about tonight.

Because in that Platonic schema, right. This then sees God as being a very platonic fashion, unmoving, right?

Pure act, separate. And then when humans leave this life in this world, we escape from this becoming, right? And this material world enter into this sort of eternal now in which God dwells, this age in which God dwells, right. And then this plays into the whole idea of the beatific vision. And then the problem becomes how. How you match that up with the bodily resurrection.

And so that becomes a tension. I know I've commented on this on the show before. You see this tension all the way through the third part of Thomas Summa, which I know he didn't actually write himself. It was compiled from his notes. But then maybe he had a resolution to the tension. But there's still a tension there between the beatific vision and the bodily resurrection.

In the Western eschatology that develops. And it's really because of this platonic understanding of St. Augustine.

When it gets kind of followed out. Right. I don't see a lot of evidence that St. Augustine ever followed it out that far, but other people do, like Bnselm.

But yeah. So then we have this idea of world without end. And a similar idea to that world without end is expressed in some of our orthodox liturgics when it talks about the day that has no end.

In some of our liturgics. And that day there's is being used in this sense of age, right. That there will ultimately be an age that has no end.

And this is reflected in Revelation.

21, when St. John says that in the new heavens and the new earth, there is no night.

If there's no night, that means there's no end to the day, meaning it goes on forever.

So certain folks.

Who are of a certain bent.

Maybe primarily identified by three initials.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sorry, I appreciated the. Of a certain bent that was. I couldn't let that pass by.

They.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Would very much like to argue.

That when the scriptures in the New Testament in Greek, they point out that when it talks about, for example, eternal death or eternal condemnation.

What we might colloquially call hell.

That what it actually says in Greek is death or condemnation of the age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Meaning of the aeon. It has a beginning and an end.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so they then point out, well, see, it's of the aeon. Aeons have beginnings and ends. Days have beginnings and ends, Right? Yes, usually they do.

But that doesn't mean that the concept of a day without an end or an age without an end is inconceivable.

And ultimately, where that kind of argument falls apart is that sometimes literally in the same verse, in the same sentence in the original, it will talk about life of the aeon.

Of the age, which we translate as eternal life, Meaning that if.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If condemnation has a beginning and an end, then you have to translate it that way about life as well. If condemnation is not eternal, then life can't be eternal either.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. If we can't conceive. And when they're used parallel, it's kind of hard to argue when someone parallels eternal life and eternal death, that they mean different things by eternal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It seems to me it doesn't stop some folks with three initials. Some say, yes, someone somewhere has said, hey.

Yeah. So that argument, that particular argument, without wading into the whole thing of universalism, that particular argument just does not work. Right. It just does not work. So age aion does not imply a beginning and an end any more than.

Day implies a beginning and an end. Yes, in its normal usage, it has a beginning and end, but one can certainly conceive of. And the scriptures do conceive of a day that has no end and an aeon that has no end and a life that has no end.

Which means they can also. It is also possible for them to conceive of death or condemnation or what have you. That has no end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So we won't go further down that rabbit hole because that's a whole can of worms. Maybe in a future episode. That'll make everyone mad.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Let's do it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So there are a. There are a bunch of ages.

That are talked about.

In the scriptures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. The first stage, which is when the silmarils are made, and then.

Sorry, wrong scriptures.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Yeah. Bible, Rathicon.

So.

Yeah. So there are these ages described in scripture. Most of these are in the Old Testament period.

For reasons that are probably obvious.

And they're described and the transitions are described. And these are worth going through because they kind of exhibit different things that help us understand what we're talking about, what we're talking about in age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, yeah. And I think one thing that's really important to note about this is that.

There'S not a sense that they're all the same length and they couldn't. There's no way to make them all the same length. You know, looking at what's in the scripture. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So it's not a discrete unit of time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the first one is.

Sort of creation, sort of Genesis 1.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. The period where God is actually making.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The world Right before Humans are created. Yeah, right. Before humans are created. So there are no humans having human experiences and experiencing time the way humans experience time.

Right.

This is an age which sort of has no beginning.

Now you say, well, wait, creation kind of had a beginning. It's like. Well, sort of, except.

It'S not like God was.

Sitting around. I mean, sitting. God was alone.

God was the only thing that existed through this sort of infinite succession of moments of time. And then one day, and then one moment decided. This is the moment where I'm going to make everything.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, creation is not uncreated. It's not without beginning. But when we think of beginnings, we tend to think of moments in time.

There wasn't time in any sense.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So before God created time, I just used the language before. Right.

Right. But that's temporal language.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Like when I say, so there's this moment of creation. Right. The first moment of creation you and I could conceive of. Well, there's a moment for that. There's a second before that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We can think that before that moment. Right.

But there wasn't because moments were created at that moment. So this is something we can't wrap our head around.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Because as we said before on the show, this is a really important. That's why we talk about not knowing what it's like to be a bat so much. We have to keep this sort of epistemological point, this point about how we know what we know and the fact that we can only see things from a certain human perspective, etc. We have to sort of always keep that in mind.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It can be said that some things are true only from a certain point of view.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So when we focus, Right. And we try to think, we try to imagine the moment of creation.

Right. We are imagining ourselves being there watching it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, who is there writing it down like, oh, God is making. Separating out the land from the waters. Write that down. Somebody.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And you were not there standing there watching it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As God points out to Job most emphatically.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where were you when I was doing all this?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And it's. I wasn't.

Right. So there is no human observer to this.

Right. So the concept of a first moment. Right. To even try to comprehend that, we'd have to understand how God experiences time, which, again, that's right off the table.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Completely off the table.

So when we talk about this age, this age of creation being before the next age which begins when humanity is created. Right. It's before in relation to the first humans.

Right. It's referring to when they weren't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But.

That is sort of an apophatic statement.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's a statement that there was when Adam and Eve weren't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And even Brian Williams wasn't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But we cannot make.

Any kind of, what we call cataphact, any kind of literal statement about what that was or what it was like. Right, yeah. And so that's why I told the young earth creationist folks they didn't have to worry about the day age thing. Right. Because the day age thing fundamentally doesn't make sense.

That there's a period of time being denoted literally by the days of creation.

Right.

Period of time. There's no humans.

So what does that even mean?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But then the next age is paradise. Right. So humans are created on day six. It's described in detail in Genesis 2. Humans get created.

And this is the time in paradise before humanity is expelled from paradise.

The fact that there are now humans means that humans experience time in some way.

But it doesn't mean that they experienced it the same way we do now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. It's a very different world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's a different age, It's a different world. It's a different ordering of things in the creation. It's the same creation, but the creation is ordered differently before. Well, and humanity is ordered differently before the expulsion from paradise as opposed to after. Right. And that's going to change how humanity experiences. And so that's why on one hand.

We have in Genesis 2 and 3, a narrative story of the creation of Adam out of the earth, naming of the animals, the creation of woman when. From his side, when he is split.

And then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because, like, we can't tell a story in another way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And even when we try, like, even when we, when we try to tell a nonlinear story, what we're really doing is telling linear stories just in different bits and in different orders. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Out of order.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't tell a nonlinear story. Like, it's just not a possibility.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So we tell this story the linear fashion leading up temptation, sin, the expulsion for paradise. Because that's the only way we could tell a story.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And a lot of times we fall into literally. This is literally a tree. It's literally a piece of fruit, a pomegranate or something.

I don't know where the commercial's getting that, by the way, for pomegranate juice. And why that would be a selling point either.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I'm like. Because, I mean, that brings all those Kind of Persephone and Hades things there going on.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You too can rebel against God. Drink our juice.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It was an apple though, in the garden. It was an apple because. Because apple just used to mean fruit.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, plus it's stuck in my neck.

We have this narrative and we tend to think of that in a very literal way. And so then we'll read some of the church fathers, like Saint Maximus who says that Adam fell as he came into being. And you're like, well, wait, what?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, which makes no literal. Like if you're. That's not a statement. That's bound by the linear, linearity of Genesis story.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. But what Saint Maximus is pointing to there, as other fathers do in different ways, like with the.

Garments of skin that we've talked about before, the difference in the human body.

Is saying this is a different order of things and that carries with it a different way in which time is experienced by humans.

Right. So the fact that we have to describe something using words and syllables and that then recounting and reading aloud those words and syllables takes place over a period of time does not necessarily mean that what we're describing was experienced over a period of time in the same way. Right, right. And think about, I could, if I witnessed a car accident, right. I could write you a 1500 word, super detailed description of the moment of impact. Right. It would still only be a moment of impact, even though it might take you 5 minutes to read what I wrote.

In the description.

Right. And that would mean that I was lying to you about.

All this stuff couldn't happen in one moment. Right. This is, you know, so many minutes worth of material.

Right. So that's an example. That's just an analogy, Right. That's not exactly what we're talking about, but that's an analogy. Right.

So then the expulsion from paradise is this transitional moment. When we talk about the expulsion from paradise, that's really what we're talking about. Or if we want to call it the Fall or one of the falls, right. We're talking about that transitional moment to now this new age, this new era, this new world comes into being, which is the world outside of paradise leading up to the flood, right. The days of Noah, right.

What's recounted in the genealogies of Seth and Cain. So everything with the Nephilim, everything with Lamech and his wives and the spread of sin and all of those things happening, right. This is a. A different, very differently ordered world, a differently ordered humanity than paradise, very obviously.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's a stark contrast between that Age and the age which preceded it.

And then when we come to the flood, the way the flood is very deliberately described, so the flood comes, this is our big transition event again. And the flood is very deliberately described in terms of the uncreation of the world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right. Like it's opposite order, right. Of the, you know, there's death that comes in, you know, removing the life. And then the unstructuring happens.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. God separated the waters above from the waters below. And we read, you know, the springs come up and the water comes down from the firmament that he put there to separate them. The dry land disappears back into the sea. Right. The world gets unmade, Right. It goes lapses back into the primordial chaos outside of the ark. Right. In which the order of the world is preserved. That's part of what's signified, by the way, by the fact that there are clean and unclean animals on the ark, even though the Torah hasn't been given yet. Right. That order is part of what's being preserved there. Not just the life, but also the order is preserved in the ark as sort of a microcosm.

And then the world is recreated, the water recedes from the dry land. Right. Everything is separated again, put back in order. But it's a new order. And so this new age begins after the flood.

Leading up to.

To Abraham. Right, Meaning we're talking about what happens with the Tower of Babel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Then we have this other transitional moment, right. And then a big important one, Right. Obviously that's going to be very important as we, as we go forward, the critical age in the Old Testament, because really, Genesis at all these ages we've been discussing, Genesis is the prologue to the Torah.

Which begins at Exodus. Right. And so we have this very critical moment for the age that is going to predominate in the well, which is going to be basically the Hebrew Bible and predominate in the Christian Old Testament, which is the age that's initiated by the giving of the Torah at Sinai.

Because when the. The Torah is given at Sinai, there is a fundamentally new order of things.

Israel now exists as a nation when the covenant is given, when the, when the Torah is received at Mount Sinai. Israel as it comes into existence now has a different relationship to the 70 nations and a role to play. There is an order within Israel of the high priest, the priests, the people, right? They have the concentric circles we've talked about of holiness that has to be maintained, leading out into the nations. Israel comes to serve as priests for the nations Right. Even as the priests proper serve as the priests for Israel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This order is established when.

The Torah is given that world. That age then is initiated. And that age ends.

When Judah goes into exile.

The temple is destroyed.

Judah goes into exile.

And the return from exile then initiates this new age, this post exilic age, this post exilic period which Daniel refers to as the Great Tribulation.

So I know we're already upsetting. This is going to be a rough night for our dispensationalist friends.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If they're still listening, I'm here for it.

Everybody get out your Clarence Larkin illustrated manuals.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Get your wall charts.

So when Daniel talks about the Great Tribulation, he's talking about his own era and the era to come in his prophetic visions that describe the coming of Alexander, the coming of.

Ultimately the coming of the Romans. Right? And so this period, why is this a Great Tribulation? Well, because this is a period when what's left of Israel, right, Judea, the tribe of Judah, tribe of Benjamin, some Levites, right? That's sort of the remnant that's left.

In which they are not in control of their own land. They're under the oppression of foreign powers. The abomination of desolation happens.

When you do get.

Some kind of independent Judea under the Hasmoneans, they're throwing the Torah out left and right. Right to the point you have John Hyrcanus being both king and high priest at the same time.

They're playing fast and loose with the Scriptures.

The temple gets rebuilt, but then gets built upon by Herod, who's an Idumean, also not a great guy, morally. Right? So from the perspective of all the way up until the time of Christ, right, The time of Christ's incarnation, time when he calls his disciples, the time when he's preaching in Galilee and Judea all the way up to that time period. This is what is considered the Great Tribulation.

And the idea is that this Great Tribulation is going to be ended when the Messiah comes to deliver his people.

When the Messiah comes to deliver Israel, that's going to be the hinge point again. That's going to inaugurate the next age.

And.

From their perspective.

All they had to do to prove that the Messiah hadn't come yet was kind of look around.

Things are terrible.

This is still, if you talk to an Orthodox Jewish person today, this is their biggest point of counter evidence. When they're going to say that Jesus is not the Messiah is. They'll say, look around. Does this look like.

To you?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We'll talk about that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. From their perspective, they've continued to be afflicted, oppressed. They're a tiny remnant. Right.

And.

So they've kind of maintained this view that predominated in the first century. So the great tribulation that's ended by the Messiah is not a future thing in Daniel, it's the current state of affairs in Daniel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It was what was going on at that time. It would continue going on. Everything with Antiochus, Epiphanies, everything with the Romans, everything, all the beasts in sequence that Daniel describes that we talked about a little bit. A little bit last time. And all of this is then looking forward to this messianic age that's going to be inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah, of the Christ when he comes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And that's what we're going to talk about in the next half. So we're going to go ahead and take our first break. And we'll be right back with the Lord of Spirits.

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.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Father Steven Signiari is back with more stories about Father naum and the St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish Parish Verily, verily.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone. But if it die, it beareth much fruit. Then they sang a hymn so sad about God's memory. I don't believe there was a voice across the garden of graves who went that day without weeping. We ate so much after the Lord's Prayer, a feast in a field on a hillside by a grave. I was at a banquet in God's garden of souls, a headstone marking the name and location of each seed. And all his people, as far as I could see, came alive with us that sunny morning on the hill. God's memory really is eternal. So good, I said. The priest said it was love made edible. I wasn't exactly sure what, but something was happening. Miriam said to me, this is church, Mr. Luther. You should come and see.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This has been an excerpt from Bread from Home, a collection of short stories written and read by Fr. Stephen Signiarian, now [e-mail] we're back now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

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 8-55-AF-RADIO.

Thanks, Voice of Steve. He promises he delivers immediately.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I mean, to be fair, you know, he does do that read live every single day, so sometimes he gets a little distracted or something.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's calling in from. From Queens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Also, let me say this. One of our previous metropolitans at a certain point said, you know what? No more churches named St. George or St. Nicholas.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We got too many.

We need to vary this up a little more. We need our churches to be named after different saints. I'd like to issue a call to all of the orthodox bishops in the Americas. No more Father Stephen.

I was Father Stephen before. It was cool, but now it's getting really confusing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They're everywhere.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not that you can't ordain a guy named Stephen. You're just going to have to change his name.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Change it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't know any Father Bar Sanufi.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm sure there's somebody out there. I mean, there's a lot of names.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But I'm saying there's lots of good saints names.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, there's plenty. Yeah. Yeah. So.

It'S actually great. We are live. Had someone ask me on YouTube, like, is this pre recorded or are you like multitasking or something? But we are live. We actually have right now we have live listeners from Japan, Australia and Costa Rica at least, and I'm sure plenty from the good old US of A. As well. So, yeah.

It'S pretty. Oh, yes. Our Costa Rican listener says that their mission is named St. Nicholas.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He's apologizing for that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Ask our Japanese listener if he's excited about Forbidden Door.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, well, we'll see what he says to that. But yeah. So meanwhile, we actually do have a caller here. So, Aaron, we have you calling and are you on the line?

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yes, yes, I am. Can you guys hear me?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We hear you. Welcome, Aaron, to the Lord of Spirits podcast. What are you thinking about?

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Well, I'm surprised I got in first, but you're in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You made it, man.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yeah. Yeah. So I have been thinking a lot lately about.

I really like the movie Metropolis. And it's like 19th century leading into the 20th century, just on the topic of kind of like millennium.

Hysteria.

But that movie had this conceptualization of.

Moloch as this symbol of industrial society, like eating people. And I always, I mean, lately I was thinking about how similar in this way, that kind of Moloch as the old idea, and then Mammon as the idea of kind of like money over everything, greed, this kind of spiritual pollutant. And so I was thinking about how these two kind of come together.

I know that often the. Porque no listos answers that are these things to be thought of as symbols of sin or entities unto themselves?

Are they the same? Are they different modalities of, like, the evil of this century now, or are they just.

The same thing?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well.

There are a lot of demons around. Fewer than there were, thanks be to God, fewer than there were.

But, yeah, there's a. I mean, there's a lot of demons around. So, I mean, as we've. As we've said before, you know, they're lying chaos monsters. So like, how can we tell if there's one particular spirit that's doing one thing and then another one that's doing something else? That's super hard to tell. Right.

But. And. And even, like. So they've got Moloch, Moloch, Molech, Mammon, etc, that are mentioned specifically in scripture as names.

But those could represent a bunch of different spirits potentially. We just kind of don't know. You know, they don't stand up and, like, show us their IDs.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yeah. You know, wouldn't believe them if they did.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, exactly. Because they're lying chaos monsters.

You know, So I don't know. Father, you got anything you wanted to add or subtract or.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I mean.

First of all, kudos for liking German Expressionist cinema, my favorite genre film. Yeah. You've seen M, I assume.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Of course, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Great movie. Anyway, we won't turn this into a movie podcast.

But.

So. Yeah. So I think it's incontrovertible.

If we're trying to determine.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So sort of what are.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What are the gods that our society is inadvertently worshiping? Right. And I agree with you that that movie is kind of insightful in that respect.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That there is this worship of profit and success and indulgence.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is basically what we're talking about when we're talking about Mammon. And it is a kind of worship that demands the sacrifice of children and family.

Right. And social bonds. Right. It is sort of, you know, everything solid melts into air. Right. It's. It's.

Just this corrosive. Right. Aspect.

And so, I mean, I. I think there is. There is definitely something there. Right. As Father Andrew said. Right. We can't, like, you know, demons don't wear a name tag that Says like, hello, my name is, you know, Mammon.

My name is Moloch. I'm the exact same guy who was in that idol in the valley of Hinnom. Right. You know.

But.

That is definitely the thread.

Right, that has been behind a lot of.

The drive, the drive of our society. And this has a concrete thing, right? In the United States, Roe v. Wade gets overturned and immediately Amazon steps up and says, oh, we'll pay for abortions. We don't want people taking maternity leave. We want to keep them at work.

Right. And you look at the way.

You know, at a certain point in the mid 20th century.

Women get told, hey, we're going to empower you. We're going to liberate you from being chained to the oven. You're going to be able to go out and have a career. And then women entering the workforce creates an abundance of labor, drives down wages, and now everybody needs to have a two income household. Go figure. And instead of being free, now everybody's enslaved to have to work just to try to support themselves where they used to be able to be supported on one income.

And what that's done to the family. And now in states all over the US at least they're trying to repeal child labor laws and lower the working age. So soon it's going to be all the teenage kids are going to have to go out and get jobs to support their families too.

And so when I talk about the corrosion of social bonds, I'm not just talking on a theoretical level, I'm talking about at a really practical level.

That our worship of this prosperity and success and indulgence and a lifestyle is destroying our social bonds and destroying our humanity. And if that's not demonic, I sort of don't know what is.

So all that is to say yes.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Great.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not depressing at all.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

No, not great. Not great.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Good to know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I gave you the long answer first and then the short answer this time. Yeah, buried it up a little bit.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

I will just say I am eagerly awaiting Forbidden Door.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All righty.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Match you're most excited about.

I think, Okada Danielson.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's, that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said. Anything else, I would have questioned you.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Match of a lifetime.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Seriously. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, thank you very much for calling in, Aaron. I just got notes that we have, we have a listener from Sweden right now which, like that's dedication because it's two in the morning in Sweden.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know the people out in the Pacific Rim it's just. It's like 8 or 9, 9, 9am, 10am, depending on where they are. We have an Alaskan listener as well, so it's still, I think, afternoon there. But good for you. Bjorn. Bjorn, yes, from Sweden. That is the most Swedish name ever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, that is pretty Swedish. That's legit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I won't mention his last name because I don't want to out him, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, his last.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

His last name is very Swedish as well, so. So an actual Swede.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's not Bjornsson, I hope.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, it's not Bjornson.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bjorn Bjornsson would be a little too stereotypical, but amazing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, we do have a couple more callers, so next is Phil. So, Phil, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Hey, fathers. I called back during one of the Q and A sessions. I'm a fellow from South Carolina.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Welcome back.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

That you talk to. And I had a question about. You mentioned the word aeon. Am I pronouncing that right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Roughly, give or take, is that related to the word eon as a period of time?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, good. A philological question.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I got this. I gotta do etymology.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. I don't have my jingle ready to roll. Oh, well.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't. Man, I feel lost.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So eon is.

It gets spelled in different ways in English, like eon, like e, o, n, but. But also A, E, o, n, which betrays its roots. Right. So in English, we get it from Latin and Latin just borrows it straight from Greek, aon. Right. So it's. It's directly descended from the Greek term that we're talking about earlier. And ultimately it comes from a proto Indo European root that seems to have meant something like lifetime or a long time.

But also even used to mean things like eternity as well.

Yeah. So there's another related Greek word which is a spelled alpha, epsilon, yota, which means always.

And there's a good old archaic English word aye, aye, which isn't really used very much anymore except to mean. Yes, but like in a naval context, like I. Aye, sir. Right, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or in the old comic books that came with Masters of the Universe. Figures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, that's true. That's true. But yeah, but it also meant, you know, forever. Right.

So, yeah, it is directly. Directly descended from the English word eon is directly descended from the Greek aeon.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Okay, so it really is kind of the same word.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that the way that it is used in English even now. Yes. I mean, words do change over the. Over the centuries, but I think that English Eon. That's essentially what we mean by it is a period of time, an age. You know, like I might say, well, I've, I've, you know, I've been doing this for eons, which is hyperbole. I don't mean I've been doing it for thousands of years, but, you know, a long period of time, you know, or it's been an eon since we were speaking Middle English, you know, whatever.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, yeah, I mean.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

That answers that question. I appreciate it. And.

I listened to myself the last time I called and I realized I had laid on my accent a little too hard and I sounded like Foghorn Leghorn. So I was trying to tone that down today.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

By no means.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

So anyway, I appreciate you all the show. And this is a. This is a good show.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank God. Thank God. I'm always happy to hear from Southerners. I lived in the south for a good long time and I love the South. Love it. So.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Well, I'll go eat some grits for you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, thank you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Crack open a cheerwind for him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

See, I'm surprised you didn't say, yeah, like grits. Really? Right. If you're like a certain parts of the south, that's a multi syllabic word. Like grits. Grits.

Yeah. I don't know how you say it in South Carolina, though, but I've heard grits. Like Alabamans will say that, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, Yankees.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Talk about a grit. And there's no such thing as a grit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

A single grit.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yeah, yeah. You don't eat a grit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not a thing. How would you do that with tweezers?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, thanks very much for calling, Phil. We're going to take one more call before we continue on. And we've got on the line.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I got to be honest, I was kind of hoping for a follow up about Aon Flux.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, well, yeah, sorry. Brett, are you there? Brett?

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Yes, Fathers, I'm here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. Welcome to Lord of Spirits podcast. What is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is the person I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, is it?

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

This is the person you know, Fathers Steven.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Is it that brat or.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's that brat, but yeah, you've met him, I think. Father Andrew.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

We didn't meet at the clerical retreat about a year ago now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. At least it's how. Go ahead.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

My true question is getting Father Stephen's opinion on something in the 41st millennium, since we're talking about millenniums today. But I'll refrain from asking that and focus on this current millennium. So in the show before we have or you have related Rome to America and you just finished mentioning about the visions in Daniel and that relating to the fall of Rome and the fall of that age.

Since Rome was an icon of that age, we could say maybe America is an icon of this current age. Would the fall of America then bring the downfall of this current age and the welcoming of the new one?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. How important is America? What do you think, Father Stephen?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not very. So, no. There, now that'll kick some people off. There's no people freaking out about that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No one ever asks about the place of Latvia in biblical prophecy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Yeah. The Latvians. Not even. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Honestly, I didn't want to throw out Lithuania because I didn't want to be.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Ethnocentric because I know the Serbs think they were the first created humans. That's from humology. Humans are descended.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The Garden of Eden is somewhere.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's Adam and Eve were Serbs. But.

Yeah. So the answer. That's new in that.

So it's correct that America is sort of an instantiation of the beast. Right.

Of world empire in the present day.

In our present day.

But.

Your core question is really about.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

How.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The lifespan of the United States of America relates to the age as a whole. Right. And within the age in which we're currently living, which we're going to be talking about more here in the second half.

America is even like the US as an existing thing is a relative newcomer. Right. I mean, you had the British Empire before that. You had other colonial empires. Right. Which were also instantiations of that same sort of reality. Right.

In fact, America really became an imperial kind of state after World War II, when the British Empire finally keeled over after its long death throes.

So I don't think it has that kind of. That kind of pivotal role now as we were talking about with the Antichrist in the last episode. I mean, eventually there will be a last one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Eventually there will be some embodiment, some kind of world empire embodiment. Right. Of Leviathan, of the beast.

When Christ returns, when Christ's glorious appearing happens.

But we have no necessary reason to believe that that's still going to be the U.S.

The U.S. could cease to exist. The U.S. could just cease to be an empire the way Britain did.

And. Right. And things could roll on without us. Yeah. For folks, all those folks who are listening who aren't in America, I'm sure they think America is weird in this respect, that we think we're that Important.

In fact, I have seen photos of a textbook used in German schools where they use American patriotism. Patriotism is an example of government indoctrination and propaganda. The Germans. Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But, yeah, we think we're very exceptional. And that just like in St. Augustine's Day, right? The end of that world order was the end of the world period to them. And he's kind of like, we need to hear the same message in the United States. The end of the United States is not the end of the world necessarily.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Might be the end of our world. We might get onto the, you know, Fall of Civilizations podcast.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yeah, yeah. But, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, thank you very much for calling, Brett.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Oh, thank you for the answers, Fathers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep, yep. All right. The Messianic age.

That's what we're doing on the second half of the yes of this Year podcast. Not for an age, but for all time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. So the age to which, during the Great Tribulation, as we said.

The people at the time of.

Christ we're looking forward to, is the Messianic age, right? The age of the Christ, of the Messiah. And so they, when they talk about it in.

In Jewish literature, when they talk about the transition, they tend to compare it to previous transitional events, Right? So they're looking forward to this transition. Like this event is going to happen, the coming of the Messiah that is going to transition us into this Messianic age. And so as a way to understand it before the fact.

They look to previous transitions. So, for example, when you read the Anakic literature, the anarchic literature is. Is all using the days of Noah and the approaching of the flood to talk about the coming of the Messiah and the coming of the day of the Lord. Right. The day of Yahweh, by way of comparison. Right. So.

This is narrated in 1st Enoch to a lesser degree in 2 Enoch, where in 1st Enoch, repeatedly. Because 1st Enoch is this composite of several different texts. But we have. There's a book of Noah that's incorporated into First Enoch, right. That's sort of directly dealing with this, the birth of Noah, and Noah being portrayed as this messianic figure through whom the world is going to be saved. And they're going to transition into this new age free from all the sin and wickedness of that age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is that the one where he's born glowing and talking?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

But. And so we get this idea that. Right. And they portray Noah's day. We don't see actually described in the text of Scripture that there's this sort of direct persecution of Noah and his family, right, that sort of the surrounding people are out to destroy him. But that does become a factor in the Anakic literature because again, this comparison is being made to the great tribulation and the things that are happening to Judea, right, during this period from which no one's going to deliver them. And so they're looking at, okay, let's look at that transition and use that as a window into this transition that we're hoping and praying for as we go through this period of tribulation.

So that's in the Anakic literature that's pretty much extra biblical. But bits of that do come into the New Testament.

Right? As in the days of Noah, right, When people are being married and given in marriage before the flood came. So will it be in the day of the Son of Man when Christ returns, Right? So you see some of those themes get picked up and used in a slightly different way in the New Testament.

Once Jesus of Nazareth has come as the Messiah. Probably the most well known way, though, in which this is described prospectively, right, Looking forward from the Old Testament, is as a new covenant.

That a new covenant is going to come. And when it's talked about in terms of a new covenant, we have to remember that what's being talked about here, what's really happening here is that this transitional event that's going to lead into the Messianic age is being compared to the giving of the covenant of Mount Sinai, which was that transitional moment.

Into the age of the Hebrew Scriptures, right? Into the age of most of the Old Testament.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so this is again a comparison being made to a transitional event, right? In this case, not the flood, but the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Right. And the. The ordering of the world and of Israel's place in it that happened at that time. And probably the most famous.

Hebrew Bible slash Christian Old Testament text regarding the new covenant comes from Jeremiah 31.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So this is verses 31, 34.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. It's interesting to me, like, one of the things I notice about this is that the new covenant is described as being with Israel. Yes. Not with some other entity.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. With Israel and Judah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So it's explicitly talking about here the northern kingdom of Israel, which has ceased to exist.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because it's been scattered out amongst the nations.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so this is a promise of reuniting. Right. Because then he switches to. First he says, new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And then he says, this is the covenant I'll make with the house of Israel, because once they're reunited, they're Israel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so the New Testament authors, especially St. Paul in Romans 9:11, this is what Romans 9:11 is actually about, especially 10 and 11 is going to see.

The Gentiles being grafted in as this restoration of the northern kingdom.

But, yes, in terms of our poor dispensationalist friends who are going to be battered over the course of the evening.

The new covenant is not with a new group. Right. This is not. I will. This is the new covenant I will make with this new group of Gentiles that I'm going to call the Church.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then so a couple more passages that talk about the new covenant are in Ezekiel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So the first One is Ezekiel 11, 19, 20. And I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

And.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. There's that covenant language again. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

And the other one is a little later in Ezekiel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And it repeats some of the same kind of language. So this is Ezekiel 36, 2632. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall Be my people and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that last little bit.

Right. Is kind of countering what would become the predominant at the time of Christ, Pharisaic view, which. The Pharisaic view at that time makes pretty good sense, right? On a logical level, they said, look, sinning got us into this mess, right? Violating the Torah got us into this mess.

So if we could all just obey Torah, then God will respond by sending the Messiah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. But he says, it's not for your sake that I will act.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, right. And so this runs sort of counter to that, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. But it's important to keep in mind what is reflected here. Right. Because these are all prophetic, not in the sense of being uttered by a prophet, but also in the sense in which we sometimes commonly use it of talking about the future.

Right. This is God talking about what he will do when the New Covenant comes. What he will do when the new covenant comes. And he is not characterizing this as abolishing the Old Covenant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He is not talking about this as abolishing the Torah.

Quite the opposite.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's that it becomes internal. Now it's going to be in your heart because the Spirit is going to be within you so that you can live out the Torah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The Spirit is going to empower.

Right. The Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, capital S. Spirit is going to come into you and empower you to keep it. That's how it's going to be different than last time.

It's not going to be different than last time because last time you had all these rules, and now we don't worry about rules anymore.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now we just go, hey, man, it's all good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's cool.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? It's different in that before.

Right? They failed to keep the Torah because they couldn't do it under their power. And now the Holy Spirit is going to be placed in them. They're going to receive a Heart of flesh and the Holy Spirit in them is going to empower them to keep what St. Paul will call the righteous requirements of the law will be kept in them. Right. So there is no. In the New Covenant, there is no lowering of the bar.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. If anything, there's a raising. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There is no scrapping of the. There is an empowering to do.

That's what's going on here. And so when St. Paul talks about the letter and the Spirit or talks about the law and the Spirit, he's not contrasting these in the sense of saying law bad, spirit good. Right. He's saying the letter.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Trying to keep the Torah. Historically, Israel failed, right? But now, walking by the Spirit, now we can keep Torah, now we can keep the righteous requirements of the Torah that God has for us.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is what he's getting at. When in Galatians, he lays out the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against these things, there is no law.

Right. That by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and producing those fruit, it has the effect of us keeping the Torah.

Right. If we love our brother, we're not going to harm him or do evil to him. Right. We're not going to be envious and jealous. Right. If we're at peace, we're not going to be. And so this is the Holy Spirit empowering us to go further.

And this isn't just something Father Stephen came up with to argue against Protestantism or to hang out with his cool Paul Within Judaism, buds in scholarly circles, this is how St. John Chrysostom reads Romans.

If you want the key element, you can go and read them his homilies on Romans. The key element of his interpretation all the way through that St. John Chrysostom points out, is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to keep the law, the righteous requirements of the law. As Christians.

Over and over again, he says that as he's interpreting and reading St. Paul.

I know we're not supposed to quote patristics on this show. There's like a rule.

We never do it, but oopsie, I just did.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Take that. Twitter. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

Right now, of course, within this concept of the New Covenant, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Comes to be.

That the shifting light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way. No, that's another. There comes to be a whole school of theology called Covenant Theology, right? And if you're like me and you grew up in Reformed circles and you use the word covenant Online, as an orthodox priest, you will be accused of being still secretly a Calvinist. Let me just tell you, for personal experience, you can't even use the word covenant because then they're gonna say, oh, you hold the covenant theology.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's in the Bible. The word is in the Bible berit people.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Anyway.

So what covenant theology is, is.

And this is particularly popular in English reform circles, more than continental reform circles, though there's some of it in continental reform circles, but it's primarily in English reform, meaning Presbyterian circles.

Covenant theology takes this paradigm of the age inaugurated by the giving of the covenant at Sinai, and then the messianic age is inaugurated by the giving of the new Covenant.

And then takes that covenant framework and uses it as the lens through which the whole scriptures are read.

Doing that in some cases provides helpful insights and in some cases is reductionist.

Meaning it causes you to miss things. Right. Because when all you've got is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.

You start trying to hammer screws in, it doesn't go so well, and you start missing things because you've got this very narrow grid that you're looking at things through. And then in actual reformed covenant theology, it kind of gets out of control and goes to the point where you're talking about.

Intra trinitarian covenants in eternity.

Right. Like a covenant between God the Father and God the Son in eternity. That's right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It just blows my mind to even conceptualize that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. And even when I was studying this stuff in a reformed seminary at one point in my life, I kind of thought the idea that God the Father in eternity past issued God the Son a Hittite suzerainty treaty was a little weird.

And maybe again, a little reductionist. Right. You find something. And this is something to which all scholars are prone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And to which I am probably prone. I probably have blind spots related to this that I'm not aware of, where you find a good insight and it's really helpful for understanding certain things and you latch onto it, but then you just try and use it like a skeleton key everywhere.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so some of your results are often weird. Right. So some of the places where I'm wrong, I'm sure that's why. So I'm not criticizing. You know, I am admittedly prone to the same criticism, I'm sure, in various ways. But that's ultimately where covenant theology kind of goes sideways.

As helpful as it is in some cases. Right. In some instances for understanding parts of scripture.

Dispensationalism proper.

Is a sort of subspecies of covenant theology.

So the word dispensation is being used in place of the word covenant.

Thomas Darby, who's credited with sort of inventing dispensationalism, was a Presbyterian and was coming out of a covenant theology milieu.

And so.

Part of.

What separates then dispensationalism as such is a question of.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

The.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Level of continuity and discontinuity between the covenants or the dispensations.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was. I was raised with this stuff. It was taught in most of the churches that I grew up in. I mean, and at least the way that it filtered down to, you know, me as a kid, I guess. But I think this is still generally true with dispensationalists. The key parts is the idea that God sets up this dispensation of the Old Testament, and this is how you get salvation, is by obeying the law.

And then. And you know, that dispensation is still in play for Jews now. They can obey all the law and they'll be saved. Right. And then there's another dispensation, which is the dispensation of grace. And that's how Christians get saved. You become a Christian by. By doing that. And so there's this. There's this. It's not just the idea that there's different eras, but, like, there's different deals that you can attain salvation through. You can either go obey all the law, or you can accept Jesus into your heart and acknowledge him as the Lord of your life. You know.

And I mean, there's a lot of people that still, like, they'll say things like, you know, Judaism is completely valid, and if you really do that, then you can be saved, but Christianity also. And so there's this kind of side by side, two different paths that you can potentially take. And that's the way that it kind of plays out for a lot of people. Of course. I mean, this not only has big theological implications, but it has geopolitical implications and all kinds of other stuff that we don't need to get into. But, I mean, dispensational thing is really Lincoln's fault. Yeah, yeah, it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But I'm not going to say any more than that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

See, it's always some Yankee. No.

But yeah, it's not just some weird little corner of Protestantism. It has a huge impact, actually, on the way a lot of people think.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And so there's this fundamental discontinuity between the dispensations rather than continuity. Right. They are fundamentally different. They are separate. There's no overlap. The Venn diagram is two circles next to each other, Right.

Of the. Of the dispensations. So how is. How is a dispensation or even a covenant really right in the way it's talked about in covenant theology? How is that different than what we're talking about when we talk about these different ages? Right.

So when we talk about different ages.

We'Re talking about different metaphysical realities, even though metaphysical reality is kind of redundant.

We're talking about different structuring of the cosmos. Right. Different fundamental structurings of the human person, the world in which humans live, and therefore the relationship between and the experience of the world that those humans have. There's a metaphysical element, there's a real element to it that is transformed in these transitions from age to age. Right. This is, by the way, since we're in this New Covenant context, you know, every once in a while I get asked the question, especially around Pentecost, we're talking about Pentecost. Well, now everyone has the Holy Spirit, the Old Covenant. Only these certain select people had the Holy Spirit. We've talked about this on the show before, right. Well, how's it different?

Does it feel different? I could ask this question.

Did humans in the Old Covenant, who didn't have the Holy Spirit within them feel differently than I feel now, having been grizzly?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

How would you know how to.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Exactly, exactly. Because.

To an extent, humans were different then. Humans were ordered differently then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. This transition has taken place. This is a different world, in a sense, not a materially different world. Like, materially, that world ceased to exist. It was destroyed and a new one was created ex nihilo. Right? Like, yeah, but the matter, I mean, but it's been reordered.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And human consciousness, I would say, has a different character. I mean, at least, like.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's evident even. Like, that's evident even now between cultures. Right. I mean, you know, there. Now, we have more in common now with each other than we would with an ancient person. But there is different. A different sense. Like, I. I learned recently, and I'm sure I'm getting this wrong on some level, but I learned recently that Korean, the Korean language, like, has different sets of verbs and vocabulary that you use depending on the formality of the relationship of the other person you're talking to. Right. English has nothing like this except for there's, like, maybe a sense that there's certain words you shouldn't say in certain.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Situations like that they're Bad profanity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But you're not using fundamentally different grammar and nouns to talk to your superior versus your kid, you know, so, like, that's a very different way of thinking, and that's just between cultures that exist now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And so we're talking about a whole different metaphysical structure. Whereas, as Father Andrew was kind of indicating.

The idea of a dispensation or even of a covenant is. It's sort of a deal. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's a set of conditions.

Leading to the reward of salvation. Right. Meaning it's not metaphysical.

Right. The difference is not how a human is ordered or the nature of the human person or the nature of the world around them. The difference is just, well, this person living at this time needs to do this to inherit eternal life, and this other person living at this other time needs to do that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's like there's. It's like the laws have changed, you know, like. Like getting a green card in 2023 to the US is different than getting it in, you know, 1940.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. And so that means transitions. Right. The transitions between ages, as we've talked about, are these transformations.

Sometimes kind of apocalyptic in the more common modern sense of the word. Transitions. Right. From one to one, one world, one ordering of things to another. Right. Whereas in Covenant theology or dispensationalism, it's sort of, I mean, literally, with code of theology, the issuing of a new document, the cutting of a new covenant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Here are the new terms.

And so this is not coincidental.

Right. This is sort of built into the different ways in which.

Classically Protestantism. Right. Especially Reformed Protestantism and Orthodoxy see salvation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Because I mean, the big question in Protestant soteriology is what is my relationship to God? And it's broken, so I need to fix it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, which. Which is just another way of kind of working through the satisfaction theology that was already present there when the Reformation came on the scene.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. It's that relay. It's a relational. It's not a mesophotaphysical, it's not an ontological transformation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which is why you can even get like this, like, you know, Luther's snow covered dung thing. Right, right. Like you're still garbage, but God sees you differently now. You know, it's. I mean, that's, that's, That's. I said it nicer than he did. Right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And this is. And this is across the board. Right. We're talking about transformation, we're talking about theosis.

You know, what we were talking about before was St. John Chrysostom.

Right. Christ kept the law, so you don't have to.

Because you couldn't anyway, versus the Holy Spirit keeps it in you.

Those are two very different positions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And two very different ways of reading St. Paul. Yeah, right. In Romans in particular.

Yeah. And so that plays out in our understanding of. Of even history in this sense.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And of end of ages.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That that same basic difference is reflected.

So the New Covenant is one way. Right. That.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That the Messianic age gets talked about. Another way it gets talked about is in terms of this being the age of the Holy Spirit, as we were just kind of mentioning. This is the age in which the Holy Spirit is going to be poured forth on all flesh. And of course, sort of the locus classicus, for that is in Joel, chapter two.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. So Joel two, 2832. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth. Blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So obviously this gets quoted at Pentecost in Acts.

As being fulfilled at that time. You could see how we read a couple extra verses there in Joel, how the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh is tied to this day of the Lord imagery. Right. The day of Yahweh imagery.

With the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood. St. Luke, of course, applies that imagery to Christ's crucifixion.

And then, of course, at the end of his Gospel and at the beginning of Acts, we get the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it's important to remember that this is Pentecost. Right. Pentecost is the feast.

At which.

The giving of the Torah at Sinai is commemorated and the people recommit themselves. Right. To keeping the Torah. So this imagery of the age of the Spirit.

Is not sort of at odds with the New Covenant imagery.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The covenant at Sinai.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is Looking at the same reality of the messianic age from another angle. And of course, those quotes of the New Covenant talked about the Spirit coming and dwelling within people, too.

And so we would be remiss.

In talking about the millennium and in talking about the age of the spirit to not talk about Joaquin de Fiore, Who.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everybody knows about Joaquin de Fiore.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I thought folks did. But you didn't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I did not. I. I realized. I realized I had heard of him. And I was like, I don't remember who this guy is. Yeah, yeah, he's late 12th. Very, very early 13. Like, he. So his dates are 1135 to 1202, and with the name of. Like that. Of course, he is Italian.

But. Yeah. So what's his deal? He's got.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Joaquin is a form of Joachim.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's the saint he's named after.

So, yeah. Joaquin de Fiore had a theory.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It was a theory about the ages of the world, about the. How to periodize the history of the world and the future from his perspective at the very dawn of the 13th century. So he divided the whole history of the earth.

Of the world, into three ages.

Based on the Holy Trinity. Right. So this seems like an interesting thing to do. Right. We like having things in threes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, it's good. It's trinitarian. And parts of this may even sound kind of intuitive. Right. So he says, so the Old Testament period, from the creation of the world. Right. Through the whole. Right. Christian Old Testament. This is the age of the Father.

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, there's. There's people these days that kind of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Talk that way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. That's why I say it may even seem kind of intuitive to people. You might see why he did this. Now, it is a little problematic when we start going into details, as we have on the show before, to just say, oh, the God of the Old Testament is the Father.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right. Because something shows up and talks to God. Yeah, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But. Okay, Right, sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then beginning with the Incarnation, right up until the year A.D. 1260.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

1260. Which happens after his death, 58 years after, Joaquin de Fiore dies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. He says this is the age of the sun.

Right. Christ is born.

Lives, dies, is resurrected, ascends into heaven.

And the gospel goes out to all the nations of the world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And this period ends in the medieval period in 1260.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In the year 1260.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He predicts it will end in 1260. And now here's where things get a little interesting.

Because Joaquin de Fiore believes that in 1260, this will begin the third and final age.

The age of the Holy Spirit.

Which is going to be this sort of utopian age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where. And. And it's going to sort of be the end product of the Gospel having gone out to all the nations.

So just in my description of that. Right. Some of our listeners who are familiar with more modern post millennialism.

May see shades of that here. You're not wrong. Right.

Joaquin de Fiore's Thoughts Thought sets a bunch of these sort of theological thought trends in the west in particular.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That then take these little currents and branch out in different ways.

I at one point had a professor who swore that one of those rivulets down at the end of one of those branches was George William Frederick Hegel. But we definitely won't go there right now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, one thing that's kind of amazing to me, like, if. If this utopian, I mean, I would hope it would be obvious that that defiore is wrong about these things, if only because, you know, 80 some years after his utopian age commences, the Black Death sweeps through Europe and kills a third of the population.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But, but, but you got to remember what history has shown us.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Humans have a great ability to look at something like this and say, this guy had great ideas. He just got the dates wrong.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I mean, my favorite being, My personal favorite being what was called the great disappointment in the 19th century where, you know, Jesus was supposed to come back in. What was it, 1844. In October of 1844. And he doesn't. And they're like, oh, actually he did, but it was a thing that happened in heaven. Yeah, it was the thing that happened in heaven.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's sort of what happens here with Joaquin.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And Joaquin himself is never condemned as a heretic, but just about everybody who picks up where he left off with his ideas does end up getting condemned.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So there's some interesting groups. There's the Amalricians, A M A L R I C I A N S, the Dulcinians. And then this is my favorite, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, which.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All of which were condemned by Rome.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But also there's Medieval West. There's shades of this right. In post millennialism, in. Even in things like utopian socialism. And there's even shades of it. I think. I think you have a better case for this big an influence on Marx and some of the early Marxists than on Hegel himself.

This idea that although they take it in a Material way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This idea of there being humanity growing toward this utopian end. Right. That all of this is going to resolve itself into utopia being brought about by the spread of the gospel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. As an interesting side note, apparently there are some, and I'm not a scholar of this stuff, but there are some who say that he influenced Dante. So kind of an interesting read, I guess.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So he's a fascinating guy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And his thought is fascinating, but there don't seem to be a lot of really strong cohesive tethers of it to say scripture or preceding Christian tradition. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's just sort of a neat model in a certain way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But what is he basing it all on?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And especially once. So, I mean, if you really dig into it, there's a reason why he picked 1260. He was doing. Working with numbers in the Bible regarding ages. And even though it's very easy for us to say, hey, these are cool ideas, he just got the numbers wrong. Eventually, if the numbers are wrong, the whole theory falls apart. Right. Because some of it is based on the math.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

So you can only kind of do that to a limited degree. Right.

Unless again, unless you take it in a purely materialist way and then it's like, well, yeah, it doesn't have to be connected to the Bible or anything.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's just, this is a good idea. Let's bring about a utopia right on Earth through education or revolution or whatever.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That has sure to work this time either historically. Yeah, that's.

So. Yeah. So. And that's.

I mean, I think that has to color how we then look at the views that are downstream of his, including like post millennialism.

There sort of isn't a strong tether in Christian tradition for them.

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, from his point of view, Right. Like, he thinks that this, his age is going to end in just a few decades. So there's a sense of like, it's all coming, you know, And I mean.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We'Re in this transitional period.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, this is a thing that's still with us. And they're even, God bless them. Some orthodox people, like, oh, yes, it's the age of the Antichrist, you know, or whatever, which we talked about that last time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But that's. This is where this stuff comes from.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Millenarianism is not, not, not, not orthodox.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There are orthodox sources, especially modern ones, that are probably clearly under some German influence.

That. Where you could see shades of this kind of thing. Brothers Karamazov, Elder Zosima's speech about how the Church will expand to encompass the whole universe is. Is kind of this kind of post millennial fiorent kind of thinking a little bit.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Interesting.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that did rub up against the Orthodox Church too, in a few places.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In the. Yeah, in the modern period.

So those are a couple of ways that the Messianic age is talking about. But obviously the most common way the messianic age is talked about is that it's the age of the Messiah. Hence Messianic age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And.

That is kind of clearly talked about. Described with reference to the Messiah in a couple of places in Isaiah. At least a couple representative places in Isaiah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So one is from Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 4. He shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. So it's that sense of peace and the nations.

No longer going to war with each other and God himself deciding disputes between them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And this is the. He being the Messiah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The Messiah judging between the nations. So he's governing the world. He's governing over all the nations of the world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep, yep. So there's another one from Isaiah. This is chapter 11, verses 6 through.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

9, which spawned a thousand cheesy paintings and sculptures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's true. It's true.

Yeah. So this would be very familiar. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together. And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young shall lie down together. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

The.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my body, in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. You know, it's interesting in a lot of those cheesy paintings, like you never see kids sticking their hands in snakes holes. I don't know why they don't paint that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But more importantly.

What you usually see is a lion laying down with a lamb.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Rather than a wolf.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Rather than a wolf. This. I don't know if you know this, Father Andrew.

This verse is an example of the Mandela effect.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh.

Is it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where everybody remembers it being. The lion shall Dwell with the lamb.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But when you look it up in all the Bibles, it's the wolf.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I have to imagine. I have to imagine there's somebody out there that's claiming that the Bibles are being like, this is a thing that people say that Bibles are being edited by some mysterious force.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. No, it's the Hadron Collider.

It caused a number of us to transition from one parallel world to another.

And so we become aware of these small differences now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

From the world in which we previously lived before the Large Hadron Collider shifted us. Right. So, like, Berenstain Bears was spelled different. And Sinbad was in a movie called Shazam that came out at the same time as Shaq's Kazaam movie.

And this verse said lion instead of wolf.

And Nelson Mandela died in prison and was never released in that universe. This is well documented. That's why it's called the Mandela Effect. This is well documented.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So I'm not serious.

Or am I?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What? What a world we live in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Compared to the one we used to live in. Anyway, so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But only some know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look it up. It'll trip you out. There's all kinds of things you remember that aren't actually true.

But that aside.

So the image here is again of a reordering of the cosmos. There's still all these animals, but things have been reordered so that there's no longer enmity between animals and animals and humans and animals.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this is an image of that.

That reordering.

And.

This is not just.

There's this language here again, of.

The.

Which is going to become important. We're going to talk about this more as we go forward of the knowledge of God covering the earth as. Or the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And this is parallel to that that we saw in the earlier New Covenant language. No one will teach his brother, saying, know the Lord, because everyone will know, from the least to the greatest. We're going to come back to that. But again, we could see, again, this same language being used here, even though now we're talking about that age in terms of the Messiah and his. His ruling and governance of the earth. The same kind of language is being used. So, again, this is another perspective on the same reality, right, of this reordered messianic age.

And there is this sort of trope, right.

That.

Where ages are reflected in thousands of years, right. As in a thousand years.

And this is a Tradition that you find.

In throughout sort of Second Temple Judaism. And this is again, don't worry, young earth creation folks. This is not the day age view, you have come to know it, but that associates ages with the days of creation in such a way that the history of the world, they believe will be 6,000 years.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, six days of creation. 6,000 years kind of nicely lines up.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

With the 7,000 years being the messianic age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And this is not something that kind of gets given up after Second Temple Judaism. In fact, among a number of Hasidic groups within contemporary Rabbinic Judaism, they have pegged this date when the 6,000 years ends at 2240.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So A.D. 2240.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Joaquin de Fiore was only wrong by.

980 years. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A little less than a thousand years. Right. So they've got it pegged there. But this is. This kind of thinking is why in the year 1000, in the year AD 1000, people all over Europe sold their belongings and possessions and went on these pilgrimages because they were expecting in the year 1000 for.

Christ's glorious appearing to take place. That was the first great disappointment when nothing happened.

And then of course, those of us who are elderly, as covered in our introduction tonight, remember the. The year 2000 and Y2K and how this was, this was definitely going to be the end because round numbers.

And we had spent the whole previous year partying like it was 1999.

With the presupposition that we were doing so right. We were eating and drinking and being merry because tomorrow, January 1, 2000, we were all going to die. And then it didn't happen because of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The way that eunuchs counts time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And people really, people who weren't there don't understand this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They don't remember. It really was the sense of apocalypticism. Even in the.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And what was great is even in kind of like non religious.

Discourse, there was this apocalypticism going on.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. I had, I had a person yell at me and say I was sinning against the Lord by not having like food supplies and generators.

For Y2K when civilization collapsed because I was being irresponsible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Nice.

Yeah, man, if you're not a prepper, you're not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Like people don't realize. Like people really thought, oh man, this is it. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I remember, I mean, when I was in seminary, there was a guy I lived next to for like a year who had literally part of what he was. I started seminary in 2004 and he was eating down his Y2K. Stash in 2004.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, it was a, it was a weird time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It was, it really was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it's because of this thousands thinking. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now if you're, if you're like an orthodox young earth creationist, you could just ignore all that because you think, following the Byzantine chronology, that the Earth is already like 7,500 and something years old. So, whoops. Yeah, that whole thing's out the window.

But you don't have to worry about it.

So. Yeah, but that's been sort of this tradition and it's been in people's thinking, producing sometimes wacky results.

But the core here is the idea that this is going to be the age in which the Messiah reigns over the earth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The question classically.

Between.

That we need to answer here is, is the Messianic age? Because some of what we've said already may have caused people to think and some of the quotes we've read from the Old Testament to think that, well, the Messianic age is sort of. Is the age to come. It is the final age. It is the age that has no end. Right. It's the ultimate age. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But which means final, by the way, everybody. It does not mean the greatest ultimately means final.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Even though this will be the greatest. Yeah. Day we've ever known.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

True.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. There is plenty in the scriptures to indicate that. No, the Messianic age is actually the penultimate age.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Next.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Next to last. Unlike Final Fantasy, which. There's nothing final about it. I mean, what are we on now? Final Fantasy 16 or 23?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, it's not just that. It's not just that they've made sequels to earlier games.

It's like Final Fantasy 13 2, which is a different game than Final Fantasy 14.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So it's even more complicated than, like, is the Messianic age the ultimate or the penultimate age? Is it the anti. Penultimate, the pre. Antipenultimate?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. No, but we're talking about is it ultimate or penultimate, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, that's all. Yes.

Or next to the last.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And so the text, the scriptures tell us, if we read them closely, that actually it's the penultimate. It's the next to last stage.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Next to last. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And a good example of that that I know we've mentioned on the show before because we come back to Daniel 7, an awful lot it seems, is in Daniel 7.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. So Daniel 7, I'm going to skip a little bit. So it'll be verse 12 and then I'm going to skip to verses 26 and 27, verse 12. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the end. And the kingdom shall. And the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High. His kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So there we see, right, there's this moment where the Son of Man is enthroned.

And the dominion is taken away from the beast and given to him, and he's ruling.

But the lives of the beast is prolonged for a season and a time. And then at the end of that season, at a time. Right. That's when the final judgment happens of the beasts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So the Messianic age. And then there's this final judgment.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so another very clear example comes from Psalm 110 or 109 in the Greek of the first two verses. This is, by the way, as we've mentioned before, I know on the show, Psalm 110 or 109 is the most quoted text in the New Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So everyone should know this one. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so this was even before the writing of the New Testament, clearly accepted as being, you know, the. Literally it says, yahweh says to my Lord that the Lord here is talking about the Messiah, such that, remember, Christ can ask the question of the scribes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Whose son is the Messiah? Right. Well, if the Messiah is David's son, why does he call him Lord when. And then he quotes this verse.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they don't say, oh, well, that's not talking about the Messiah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They all agree it's talking about the Messiah. They're kind of confounded by the question.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Because they're like, yeah, the point being, like, why would David call his own son Lord?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Fathers don't call their sons Lord. It goes the other way.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Meaning there's a broad acceptance this is the Messiah. Meaning there's going to be a period during which the Messiah rules in the midst of his enemies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Until they're all put at his feet.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where his enemies are still around. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then there's going to come a Time when they're going to be fully subjected to Christ, to the Messiah, which then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So this gets referenced in Hebrews 2, 8, you know, which starts with the end of a sentence.

Putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So Hebrews is here identifying the age in which Hebrews is being written. Right. As being this age when the Messiah is ruling over the nations, but his enemies are still active. This penultimate age, which, by the way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is an answer to a question that we get a lot, which is, why are there demons still around? Because this is the period we're in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, there are. Some of them are still around.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so this is why.

As much as it is often framed as a problem now, especially in some conversations between.

Jewish people and Christians, that there's not really a problem within the Scriptures themselves about there being two comings of Christ. Two comings of the Messiah.

Yeah, Right. That there's a separation between the coming of the Messiah and his enthronement and the ultimate day of the Lord and the day of judgment. Because this idea that there is this age in between those two events.

Is here in Psalm 110. Right. Which is getting referenced all the time in the New Testament. It's there in Daniel. It's there in other texts as well. We could have gone through more, but show's long enough. Come on.

So that idea is already. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't ever want to say that. Is it really long enough?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Never. No.

At some point. At some point. I'm now calling this out live on the air.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, no.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And Father. Yeah. Father Andrew's getting nervous. At some point, I want to pick a charity and I want to do a Lord of Spirits marathon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Where we.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Just pick a night and we just.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Keep going until people stop giving.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We just broadcast for, like eight or ten hours or so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. See, the problem is that we have people in other countries who are listening and will get up and will keep going. Meanwhile, I will not be going to sleep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

We can do that. Not soon. Not soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. Yes. But someday soon and for the rest of our lives.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right, because I will die on the air.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, what a way to go out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A blaze of glory.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Raising money for good cause. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, that's way better than, like, collapsing in a dance marathon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which. You've done that, right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A dance marathon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, I'VE not done a dance.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But you are like a gold medalist in dance.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I am a gold medal winning ballroom dancer. But you're thinking of Fonzie winning the dance marathon. Remember he did the Russian Cossack dance at the end when he got his second wind. I do remember that. Why do I remember that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And okay, we're going off the rails. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Like the, the Messianic age is the age that's between these two events, but it's not in the future still. Like the Messianic age is not in the future because like, you know, again, if everybody pulls out their Clarence Larkin posters.

Dispensationalism has to invent this other age called the church age.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? This parenthesis, right. This sort of weird interjection because the biblical timeline of great tribulation, Daniel, Messianic age, age to come is so clear.

Right? And so if you're going to push the Messianic age into the future, you got to find some way to put this square peg into the round hole that's left, right of this present age in which we're living in, despite the fact that.

Again, we saw Hebrews. There are plenty more examples. Brethren, these are the last days, right? This is the last age. This is the last time period again and again in the New Testament scriptures clearly identifying us as being in this Messianic age. And part of the character of the Messianic age is that Christ is ruling, but he's ruling in the midst of his enemies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In the midst of his enemies. Yeah. Think it's. It ain't over. It ain't over. Yeah. All right, we're going to take our final break and we'll be right back with the third half of the Lord of Spirits.

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-AFraid.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Ancient Faith Radio is brought to you by our listeners with help from the University of St. Catherine. The University of St. Catherine is an accredited Orthodox Christian institution offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. In addition to its online 15 month MA in Orthodox Christian Theology, it offers over 20 Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Arts and humanities, Business management and Economics, Kinesiology and Natural sciences. Scholarships are available for Orthodox students. We are still accepting students for the fall of 2023. Learn more about our accredited, affordable, nationally recognized academics at USK Edu or phone [phone].

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

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.

Welcome back, everybody. So, you know, related to all of this, I actually just have to share.

A text that my wife just sent me while we were, while we were on the air here because it's very related. I don't know that she's listening to the show.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Was it a gif of Fonzie doing the Cossack dance? Because that would be an amazing coincidence.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That would be great, wouldn't it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So she apparently was Talking to our 6 year old son and told him the story of Adam and Eve and then, you know, paradise and so forth and explained that, you know, in the life of the age to come, we get to be, we get to be in paradise again. Right. And, and she told him that we get to eat all the fruit. And apparently he got like really upset when she said this. And so she asked him why, like why are you so unhappy? He says he didn't want, he doesn't want fruit. And so she asked him what do you want to eat in heaven? And he said corn dogs. So there you are. Paradise from the mind of my 6 year old son is about corn dogs.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Corn dogs are good.

They are a staple. If you go and get the state fair corn dogs in the freezer section of your local Walmart.

They'Re best if you oven bake them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I can feel my arteries stopping right now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

If you put them in the microwave, it's just like this spongy nitrite sickle.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

How about deep fry? Deep fry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Deep fry is good. If you have an air fryer that's really peak.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then if you're one of those people who knows and if you know, you know, you gotta get the lemonade and the yellow mustard going for the hot dog on a stick.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So someday, if he ever listens to this show, he probably won't, but if he ever does, I'm sure he'll giggle.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This was the moment.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You became famous.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Exactly, Exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, all right, part three.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, the third half. And so we sort of ended talking about the difficulty of projecting the messianic age into the future. Right. Which not just dispensationalism does, but any form of premillennialism does. Right. By Sort of by definition.

Moves that messianic age forward and creates this. This middle part. So what we're mainly going to be talking about in the third half is chiliasm.

And chiliasm, as we're gonna explain, is not exactly premillennialism, but chiliasm is a really a category of views in early Christianity. By early Christianity, we're talking about second, third century.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Super.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And even in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Christianity named from Kelios, which means a thousand.

That believed in.

Basically believed that that messianic age was in the future.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And if you've never heard this word said out loud before, the word looks like chiliasm because it's usually spelled with a ch.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. But it's pronounced chiliasm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Chiliasm, because that ch represents the Greek letter he. So it's heliasmos. Heliasm. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Although somebody out there needs to start a millennial chili brand.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There we go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That would.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, man, that would be good.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Based on this.

And where does that view come from? Right.

This view.

It ultimately pretty much gets condemned by the Church. Right. And there are continuities and discontinuities between it and modern premillennialism ultimately gets condemned by the Church. But it's.

You know, I hesitate to call it a heresy because it's not a heresy in the same sense as, like, Arianism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's not a christological heresy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's not a Christological heresy. It's not a trinitarian heresy. Right.

So it's not in that category. It's more in the category of theological error.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's an eschatological error.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so it is.

You know, it is condemned. Right. But it is. Yeah, it's in that category of this is wrong, not in the category of, you know, someone trying to set up a sect outside the Church. Now, that said, as we're going to see, there are a number of heretical groups that are heretical for other reasons that are also Kiliasts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where this is part of their views, which doesn't help it.

But so where does it come from? Right. So most of the kind of trinitarian heresies and Christological heresies find their origin in some rejection of the Orthodox view. Right. Either because someone finds that the orthodox view to be nonsensical or doesn't understand it or misunderstands it, or has some reason why they want to reject the traditional orthodox view, whereas this view grows up a little differently. It has a little bit different genealogy. Right. Sort of as chiliasm forms. And it's really grounded originally in the kind of thinking that led the Pharisees within Second Temple Judaism to hold to the bodily resurrection.

So we're sort of coming back to the bodily resurrection. So.

As you know, even if you've just read the Book of Acts, right, there's sort of the famous scene in the Book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, where St. Paul is confronted by a mixed group of Pharisees and Sadducees. And so he kind of throws up a distraction by saying, oh, I'm here because of the resurrection, because the Pharisees believe in the resurrection and the Sadducees don't, right? It gets them all sort of fighting amongst themselves about it.

So the fact that this is a specifically a Pharisaic belief within the various sects, right, this is one of the identifying beliefs of the Pharisees. And they come to hold to.

The importance of the bodily resurrection, the importance of affirming the bodily resurrection which is present there as far back as Job, at least in the Hebrew. By the way.

Greek Bible folks, I like Greek Old Testament tradition as much as anybody, but the Hebrew of Job contains a much firmer specific declaration of the bodily resurrection than the Greek does.

But. So this is. This is an element. But. But the Pharisees are going to insist on the importance of this, right? That this is not just some kind of speculative hope or something, but that this is an important. This is doctrinally important.

It's dogma, basically. And that's because of their understanding of justice, right?

And you can see the kind of tension.

That they're wanting to resolve. For example, when you compare Psalm 1 and Psalm 2.

Psalm 1 and 2 have the same numbers. In Hebrew and Greek, it's not Psalm 0 and 1. In Greek, it's 1 and 2. What?

So Psalm 1 is very much in the vein of the righteous man is like a tree planted by a river, and the wicked man is blown away. It's the righteous prosper, the wicked perish. Boom. Yes. We all agree that's the way things should be. That's the order in the world. And then you get to Psalm 2 and it's like, how long will the wicked prosper?

Because we look around in the world and we see that a lot of times that's not the case, that the righteous are oppressed and the righteous suffer, and the wicked seem in this life to prosper. A lot of them die without sort of getting their comeuppance, without there being any kind of justice for their wickedness. Right. And.

From that perspective, right. From a Jewish perspective that's immersed deep in the Hebrew scriptures.

This is a problem that has to be resolved. And it can't just be resolved by saying, well, they go to heaven somewhere or they have a pleasant afterlife and these other people have a bad afterlife. Right. That kind of nebulous spiritual answer is unreal to them. Right. This is a place where this kind of thinking really is directly antithetical to Platonism.

So for Plato, with other place we talked about, the bodily resurrection tonight was in terms of St. Augustine's view of history. But.

You know, for Plato, the spiritual, the immaterial, the invisible, the eternal is the most real, and the physical, the material is the least real.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's like a shadow of an image. Right. And this is the reverse. Right. So just some kind of happy, ephemeral afterlife does not solve the problem, Right. Of a righteous person having received curses rather than blessings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And a wicked person receiving blessings rather than curses.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. That ultimately the bodily resurrection is grounded in the material creation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. That the ordering of creation, the order in the world, has to be restored.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And not only has to be restored objectively, but has to function properly after being restored.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And so this bodily resurrection, this transformation, this transfiguration of the cosmos has to happen in order for that to happen, in order for that to be real. So the bodily resurrection becomes chiefly important because it becomes an affirmation of the justice of God and of the goodness of God.

And that God speaks the truth in the Torah when he promises blessings for obedience and righteousness and curses for disobedience and wickedness. Right? And this understanding of resurrection is at play in the early homilies, the early sermons we have in the book of.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Acts.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Especially St. Peter's when he talks about Christ's resurrection.

Right. That Christ claimed to be the Messiah, he was vindicated. When he was raised from the dead, he was condemned, right? As a liar. He was condemned as a wicked man along with other wicked men, right? Thieves. But by the resurrection, he was vindicated, Right. He was shown to be the Messiah by being raised from the dead. Right.

That's working off of this idea, this Pharisaic, Jewish idea of what the bodily resurrection represents and how it works, right?

And so the Kilias are taking this kind of idea.

Right? They're taking this kind of idea and saying, well, therefore, right? The saints, the martyrs, right? These folks, they have to have this sort of justice, these sort of blessings.

In this world.

In this earth, this material way. Right. And especially as Christianity is butting up against Gnosticism.

And Gnosticism's all too full embrace of Platonism and rejection of the value of the material, even going further than Plato and say the material is actually evil.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Not just a shadow of an image, but actually evil, actually bad. Right. And denial of the physicality of salvation.

They see affirming chiliasm, affirming this future material messianic age in this world as being.

The key to.

Rejecting Gnosticism, the key to establishing the justice of God and the truth of God's promises in the same kind of way that the Pharisees did. It's built off the same logic.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But the problem is, and this is something we've seen a lot. Right. This is something we've seen a lot, is that all too often when a false view, whether it's a heresy or just a wrong view or bad theology rises up.

There is a tendency for some of those opposing it.

To not question the basis of that theology, but to accept the basis and take the other side.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So an example of that that we've talked about before.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Since, since I've been trying to be nice so far to the young earth creationists, I'll be a little less nice now. I should have a little bit of cred with them that I can now squander.

We've talked about how you have sort of the rise of modernism.

And the subjection of the text of scripture and things to modern science as it's ever understood in any particular era.

And therefore the discounting of the veracity of the scriptures, the reading of the scriptures in a very materialistic way. Right. By what is at various times been called Protestant liberalism or you know, the theology that comes out of 19th century Germany. Right. This is agreeably bad. But when the modernist fundamentalist crisis happens in the United States.

The fundamentalists does not me calling them that. This is what they called themselves at the time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The fundamentalists do not say, do not try to go to a pre modern reading of Scripture. Do not reject the basic way of reading the Bible in this sort of materialist, literalist way. Do not reject any of that. They try to use the same methodology and come to the opposite conclusions. And that's where you get young earth creationism. Yeah, yeah, right. So both of those views are fundamentally modernist. Right. As we've said on the show before. Well, you get the same kind of thing here with Kiliasm. So you have kind of gnostic and gnostic tinged versions of Christian eschatology, which strip away the material.

Element of salvation, the transformation of this world, the bodily resurrection. Right. Either deny it or de. Emphasize it. Right. Maybe even ignore it.

And spiritualize it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Or Platonize it all.

And over. Against that, the Kilias, rather than questioning the separation of the spiritual and material kingdoms.

Right. Because focusing on the spiritual is based on separating those two ideas and then either rejecting one or saying one is more important or however that works out. But there's a separation implied. Rather than questioning that separation and trying to bring them back together, which is what the orthodox party did was continue to hold them together. They accept that these are two separate things and just affirm the material and physical apart and deny or de. Emphasize the spiritual part.

Right. They say, no, it's just the literal and the material. Right. Christ being enthroned at the right hand of God doesn't quote unquote count as his ruling the world. He's got to come back and rule it here physically.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Everything doesn't seem to be hunky dory yet. So therefore it must not have happened.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so it's a misguided right of taking the other option based on faulty presuppositions rather than questioning the presuppositions. And I do have to say, I do have to say.

This is one of the first things I posted on my blog that got people all worked up is when I said the idea of people going to heaven or hell when they die is a sub Christian eschatology. That's the phrase I use. Oh. People went ballistic.

But the common view, your average person on the street who may or may not fully identify as a Christian, if you ask them what happens when you die, you get. You go to heaven or you go to hell. For how long? Oh, for eternity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bodily resurrection, anybody?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, this is what's represented in pop culture that ever deals with this like it's. It's ubiquitous.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So Harold Bloom was basically right. The average Christian in the United States is a Gnostic.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I would love it if we could say. If someone says, well, he's in a better place now, we could say for.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now he's going to be in an even better place in the future, namely here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because here is going to get a lot better.

And read Robin Phillips recent book if you want more help extracting yourself from Gnosticism.

Yeah. And so within chiliasm, sort of this material rule of Christ gets postponed.

And so in certain ways.

This represents a point of continuity with modern premillennialism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because.

Right. Well, they also have in common that they have a literal. They tend to take it as a literal thousand years rather than just as an age. Right. The thousand years is representing an age.

But also that there is this.

Physical earthly element of it and that it is postponed into the future.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That said, there's a major point. There are a few points of discontinuity. The biggest point of discontinuity is that the Kilias, when they talked about an earthly paradise, meant an earthly paradise. Right. Like it's like heaven in the Quran. Right. Like, yeah. You having lots of kids and eating sumptuously every day, extra desserts and drinking tons and tons of wine, which no good premillennialist Baptist would be on board with.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You never get fat. Yeah. Right, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you living for hundreds of years. Right. It's very much earthly paradise. Right. In ancient chiliasm. And modern premillennialism is a little more theologically and spiritually sophisticated than that in terms of how they see it. There's also a different focus.

In that a lot of the focus in modern premillennialism.

Is not on modern premillennialism does not focus on this idea of reward.

For having lived righteously and done good. And that's because it's operating in Protestant circles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So there aren't people who have done all this good and been unrewarded.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right. It works. You know, faith versus works.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And it's. It tends to be. Especially in the dispensationalist side. Right. As opposed to what's sometimes called historic premillennialism or other adjectives.

It's more oriented toward particular promises to national Israel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And the modern nation state of Israel is often.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Considered to be the same entity as the Israel of the Bible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is kind of silly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. We don't need to go into all that. But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But suffice to say, a lot of people living in the modern nation state of Israel do not regard what they're doing as being identical to the Israel of the Bible.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A lot of Jewish people don't think it's identical.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Silly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Yeah. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So that's a discontinuity. Right. Ancient Kiliasm was not really concerned with that. Right. There was none of this stuff about rabbinic Judaism.

Right. Or there being a nation state of Israel in the future or any of that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In ancient chiliasm.

So there are clear separations there.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What really ends up Getting. I mean, chiliasm, probably. I mean, this is conjectural. This is alternate history. Right. So unless the Large Hadron Collider helps me, I won't know for sure.

But.

Kiliasm might have just sort of faded away as an incorrect view. Right. If it hadn't gotten associated, as we mentioned, with certain other ancient heretical groups who became Kilias, primarily in this case, Montanus and his followers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Montanism, sometimes referred to as the Pontic heresy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Look them up, everybody. They are a wacky flag. Fun, interesting. Wacky.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I do have to say. Okay, so one of the. One of the fascinating things of this age of the Internet and the availability of information is that some sectarian groups in the modern world have decided to embrace ancient heresies as their historical ancestors.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, I know. Well, I mean. But. But so even prior. Even prior to the wide wacky world of the interwebs, you get landmark ism, Trail of blood.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, Trail of blood stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which is like everybody who wasn't Catholic in the ancient world is some kind of Baptist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. But this is more. I'm thinking more of how some of the Jehovah's Witnesses now are trying to say, oh, yeah, we're in continuity with the Aryans.

Right, right. And trying to sort of embrace that, to give themselves a sense of. Of history. We're not a group that spawned in the 20th century off the side of evangelical Protestantism in the United States. No. We have this ancient heritage of the Aryans. Right. So lately I have seen this. A bunch people from charismatic and Pentecostal groups going to the Montanas.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, don't go there. Pentecostal friends.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's only sadness.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And presenting the Montanists as being some kind of early charismatic groups, because there are accounts that talk about them having glossolalia, which is what is in the modern day called speaking in tongues, and some other manifestations like that. Okay. But here's what we have to be clear about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The Montanists, which is what Tertullian became, which is why he's not Saint Tertullian.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Believed that the person they're named after, Montanus, was the Paraclete promised by Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who would come after him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And he hung around with these two prophetesses.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. He traveled with two female prophetesses who. Who he roomed with.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

It's a bad scene. You don't want to go there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Pentecostal friends, as a general rule, all cults become sex cults.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'M just saying it's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So. Yeah, yeah. So this is not a guy you want to pin your lineage on. Right. Like you're better off being a 20th century phenomenon than being connected to the Montanus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But Right, so. So the problem with the Montanus was not primarily that they were killy ass, they just also were killy ass. And so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But that being a part of their whole milieu. Right. When the Church Fathers wrote against one of these heretical groups, they kind of went full bore, kind of went after everything. Wrong. Right. They didn't say, well, they're also wrong about this, that and the other. But those aren't as important. They just went to the wall. Here's everything they're wrong about and they're wrong about everything. Right.

And so this is how chiliasm ends up kind of getting broadly condemned. And they're not the only group. They're just maybe the most prominent group that were kill. Yas. A lot of the Apollinarians were also kill. Yes.

So it gets kind of a bad rap in that way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, yeah. Not that we're saying it's good, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And yeah, yeah, it's just like I said, it would have just been an error and not like a major heresy thing if it hadn't ended up getting associated with these heretical groups. And sort of as evidence of that, both St. Jerome and St. Andrew of Caesarea took commentaries on the book of Revelation that had been written by Kilias, edited them to take out the chiliasm, and then put them out under their.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Own names, as one does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, but so, and that's, you know, fifth century, sixth century. Right. Fifth century the west, sixth century, the East. Right. These are Fathers who are saying, hey, if it weren't for the Kiliasm, there's a lot of good stuff here.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I submit to you they would not have done the same with an Aryan text.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or an historian text. Right. Or fill in the blank.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I think it's that sense of, oh, well, there's some problems with this. We can fix them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. We'll just cross out all the errors.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And keep the rest. And I'll add a little bit here, there to fill out where I took out the errors with the correct view. Right.

So that's evidence that it was sort of treated differently by the Church Fathers, even though, again, we're not allowed to talk about patristics on this show.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Then.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Heresy, Christological heresies or trinitarian heresies. Right.

So that said, having said, all that it is a commonplace.

Of the world, both on popular and academic levels, to say that Saint Irenaeus, amongst other church fathers. But we're just going to talk about St. Irenaeus for now. That Saint Irenaeus was Achilles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. And that he made this unfortunate error. And then later on, you know, like, we'll excuse him for this because the church only later on realized that this was really an error.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or took the time to condemn it or whatever.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And other weird arguments, but.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Regarding Saint Irenaeus, I tried to figure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Out, like, when people started saying this about him, I couldn't find anything really. And I don't know, you know, listeners, if, you know, like a pre.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Modern person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who says this about St. Irenaeus.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We're not saying there isn't one, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We haven't found that person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We haven't found that one.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So as far as we could tell, this is a modern thing to say that he was Achilles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And so what. What. What Father Stephen did as he was researching for this is he went and found all the passages from Saint Irenaeus that people who are either using it to accuse him or are using it to say to enlist him on their Achilles side.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All the quotes they give to make their case.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because I have long contended that he is not Achilleist.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So when I say that, people give me the hairy eyeball, like, everyone knows he is. Right. Well, I'm like, okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So Father Stephen put these in front of me and basically said, okay. These are the passages that, you know. So I'm just. I just looked at them cold when we were briefing for this. Right. So I'm gonna. We're gonna go through them. We're not gonna spend a lot of time on them because it would. That would be like a whole episode, probably.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. We're not gonna dismantle it word by word or anything.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Just to kind of get this on the record. Right, right. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I said. Before you start, what I said to Father Andrew was like, if this was a court case and they presented these quotes as their evidence. Right. I would not present a case. I would move that the judge dismiss the case because they haven't met their burden of proof.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't think there's anything in any of these quotes that they're using to say he's Achilles that even suggests he's Achilles. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I looked at these and my response was kind of like, wait, what? I mean, some of them you can Kind of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Maybe if you read it sideways.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Like. But. Oh, yeah. So spoilers, everybody. Okay, so here's the first one. These are all from. These are all from Against Heresies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So this is from book five. 32. 1.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

These are all from book five. All in the 30s in the sections. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So 32.1. Inasmuch, therefore, as the opinions of certain people are derived from heretical discourse forces, they are both ignorant of God's dispensations and of the mystery of the resurrection of the just and of the kingdom, which is the commencement of incorruption by means of which kingdom, those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature.

I just. I can't even see it in that. And. And actually, he talks about theosis here. Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And notice, notice, he says, by means of which kingdom, those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature. Meaning this is happening now, Suggesting that the kingdom is going on now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like. Actually, this is argument for the other side.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, next. This is from 35.1. If any, however, shall endeavor to allegorize prophecies of this kind, they will not be found concerned, consistent with themselves in all points, and will be confuted by the teaching of the very expressions in question. So this was another one that just left me stumped. And. And it turns out that because he says something against the idea of allegorizing prophecies, that must mean that he is a biblical literist in the modern Protestant sense.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He is taking everything perfectly literally.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Literalist. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, therefore means he should be Achilles. Okay, right. All right. Again, like, doesn't. Doesn't hold up. Okay. 36.23. The present world would not be annihilated, though the present corruptible state would give way to an incorruptible state where nothing grows old or loses its freshness. Those that produce a hundredfold would go up to heaven, Those that produce 60 fold to paradise, those that produce 30 fold to the city.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that means the city being the New Jerusalem.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

New Jerusalem.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, like, the only way that this could work is if you decide that there is in the future, again, like, this earthly paradise that we were talking about. Right. Like, if you presume that's what. That's true. And then you read this and you say, oh, this might sort of fit into that. But he says the present world is not going to be annihilated, that it's going to that it's just in a corruptible state and there's going to be an incorruptible state.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that's what they're saying makes him Achilleist.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Which, like, that's not distinctive to Kiliasm.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right. People, all Christians should believe in the bodily resurrection and the transfiguration of this world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. This is just normal standard.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is Christianity. Yeah, right. Okay. Then he has sort of that bit about going to heaven, paradise, the new Jerusalem. He's talking about sort of levels of reward in heaven.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So in other words, I mean, this is something that we believe that some saints kind of shine more brightly than.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Others and heaven there, meaning the age to come. Right. Level of the reward in the age to come.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so here's another one again. These are all from book five. This is 36.2. The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, affirm that this is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved, and that they advance through steps of this nature. Also that they ascend through the Spirit to the Son and through the Son to the Father, and that in due time, the Son will yield up his work to the Father.

I'm still stumped at this one. Like, how is. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I just don't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So I think the idea is he's Achilles because, see, in due time, the Son will yield up his work to the Father.

And that due time is I guess the millennium is I guess, the thousand years.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

Sure. All right. Cool story, bro.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like we said, you have to really stretch this to make it even fit Kiliasm, let alone. Oh, see, look, he's achilleast, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, again, these are the quotes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That are used to prove this point that they use. These aren't quotes I picked to refute it. These are the quotes they use to try to say he's Achilles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's one from 32.1. For it is just that in that very creation in which they toiled or were afflicted, being proved in every way by suffering, they should receive the reward of their suffering, and then in the creation in which they were slain, be revived again. And that in the creation in which they endured servitude and that they should reign, which, again, this is just a affirmation of the bodily resurrection.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like, that's what's going on here.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. All right, just a couple more, everybody. A few more. So this is from part 38. For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. Okay, here we go. This is really it. Right? And for this reason the scripture says thus the heaven and the earth were finished and all their adornment and God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that he had made. And God rested upon the seventh day from all his works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also, it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years, and in six days created things were completed. It is evident therefore that they will come to an end at the 6,000 years.

So, I mean, this just preserves this tradition. Years equals an age tradition.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's Second Temple Judaism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, yeah, Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Unless you think. Unless you think like the Pharisees were all premillennialists. Yeah, Good luck arguing that one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. Okay. Another one again from book 5, chapter or part 33. Christ, after he had given thanks while holding the cup and had drunk of it and given it to the disciples, said to them, but I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Thus then he will himself renew the inheritance of the earth and will reorganize the mystery of the glory of his sons. As David says, he who hath renewed the face of the earth, he promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with his disciples, thus indicating both on these points the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of his disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also received the new cup. And he cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his disciples above in a super celestial place. Nor again are they who drink it devoid of flesh. For to drink of that which flows from the vine pertains to flesh and not spirit. So you could read this in Achilles way, I guess, saying that this eschatological Eucharist will only happen.

I don't know. I'm falling apart trying to make it work. Ecclesiastically, it's just an affirmation of the bodily resurrection. Like this is going to happen in the body.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right? It's the bodily resurrection. That's all he's talking about. It's the bodily resurrection. And why this is against heresies. He's arguing against the Gnostics. Who didn't believe in the bodily resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He's not arguing with amillennialists, modern amillennialists. He's arguing with no right Gnostics, and he's affirming over against them the bodily resurrection. This has nothing to do with Kilism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Okay, so this is the final one. This is probably the funnest one in terms of the language that he uses. It's pretty. It's really. It is extra, as the kids say these days.

So this is book 5, part 33. The elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to those times and say, the days will come in which vines shall grow, each having 10,000 branches, and in each branch 10,000 twigs, and in each true twig 10,000 shoots. And in each one of the shoots 10,000 clusters. And on every one of the clusters 10,000 grapes. And every grape, when pressed, will give five and 20 metrities of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, I am a better cluster. Take me. Bless the Lord through me.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Me.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In like manner, the Lord declared that a grain of wheat would produce 10,000 ears and that every ear should have 10,000 grains, and every grain would yield 10 pounds of clear, pure, fine flour, and that all other fruit bearing trees and seeds and grass would produce in similar proportions. Somebody's out there is doing the math right now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And clearly, clearly.

If this is quoting Christ, Christ meant it literally.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. That's why you have to do the math.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Figure out how much wine is this, how much flour is it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But more.

Pointedly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So the way in which this is seen by some people, Kileaz, is the whole element of Achilleas believing in this earthly paradise.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So see, look, he's talking about how there's going to be this plenty of wine and plenty of flour and grain and food. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

By the way, in case anyone's wondering, a metreides is an ancient Greek unit of liquid measurement equivalent to 39.3 liters.

So that is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay, so factor that into your math when you tell me how much wine you can get.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's 25 times that for every grape.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. There's 10,000 of those. And then. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That is a lot of wine.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There is. Someone will do that math and send.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It to us, I'm sure. Yeah, of course.

Write in, we want to hear from you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But more importantly.

This is a reference to another text.

This is a reference to 1 Enoch 1019.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, my stars.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And anybody who's read St. Irenaeus knows St. Irenaeus had read the Book of Enoch.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. A lot.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. He has the whole watcher story and how the apostolic preaching. He's familiar with this text. What he's changed here is that the speaker is the Lord, like God in First Enoch.

And here the speaker is the Lord.

Jesus.

So St. Irenaeus is saying that Jesus was the speaker in First Enoch.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is what he's doing here. And in First Enoch, this is talking about the Messianic age.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. He expands a little bit on it too. There's a lot more math in his version. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. More sort of esoteric math. Right. So that's it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's the case.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Those are the quotes based on which it is quote, unquote, common knowledge that Saint Irenaeus was Achilles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No. Dogs are hunting.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. That means to me, there is no evidence that Saint Irenaeus was Achilles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Unless you think anyone who believes that the bodily resurrection is de facto Achilles, which I present is not the case, that makes you a Christian.

Yeah.

So stop saying that.

If you hear someone saying that, say, citations needed. And if they bring up any of these passages, you could point out to them, they don't prove what they think they prove. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It just.

Yeah. Doesn't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So now, as we come to the end of the third half.

Let'S talk about Revelation, chapter 20 in the millennium.

The actual topic of this episode.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

Welcome. Yeah. Okay, so this is the passage that talks about this. Revelation 20, verses 1 through 8.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He who endures to the end shall hear about the topic.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones. And seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God. And those who had not worshipped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands, they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such. The second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So the reason we're doing this last is not just Lord of spirits, tradition, right, right.

It's that with everything we've gone over in the preceding three hours, right.

To me, at least, hopefully, right. If we haven't put you to sleep, if you've endured.

When we read that now with that background, it's pretty clear what it's talking about.

Right? If we had started out by reading it, then we would have gotten into all the ambiguity of, well, this group reads it this way and that group reads it that way. And how do we mitigate between the two? And they use these other proof decks. But having laid out all the background, when you read it, and you read it in light of Daniel 7, and you read it in light of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel and Isaiah, right? And these other things we've read in Psalm 110 and everything else, it's pretty obvious.

Right, what St. John is talking about here, right? So there is this binding of the devil, right? This binding of Satan where he's thrown into the pit and sealed from for this age, this era, right? And of course, this is language that. This is language that Christ used about binding the strongman and.

Pillaging his wares. This is in the icon of the resurrection and the harrowing of Hades, right, that you'll find in pretty much every orthodox church, right? The devil being bound, the devil being restricted. But this is just another way of talking about what happens in Daniel when the dominion is stripped away from the beasts and given to the Son of man who is enthroned.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And remember that whole Daniel passage about the enthronement of the Son of Man begins with thrones were set. Well, look at verse four of chapter 20. Then I saw thrones.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, this just echoes. What is it? Daniel 7.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, right.

And right, so the body of the devil, and then you have this talk of the first resurrection, the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, the martyrs, right, the saints, those who had not worshiped the beast, right? Those who had, they came to life. And they reigned with Christ for this thousand years, the rest of the dead afterwards. This is the first resurrection. Right. So.

A premillennial or Achilles kind of view wants to make the first resurrection a first bodily resurrection, and then there's another bodily resurrection. Right, Right. But.

Is that really the first resurrection? Remember what Christ says, right, to the Sadducees who come and ask him about. Famously about seven brides or one bride for seven brothers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Seven brothers, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

One bride for seven brothers. He says to them, as to the resurrection.

God says, I am the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. I am not the God of the dead, but of the living.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are resurrected.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Resurrected. And he doesn't mean bodily.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Because Abraham is still in his tomb. His body is still in his tomb.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Christ had not been bodily resurrected yet when he said that. Right. But he's still resurrected. So this is the first resurrection.

Right. The soul being made alive in its connection to God. See our soul episode, right? This is the first resurrection. And they rule and reign with Christ for this messianic era during which Christ is ruling what, in the midst of his enemies.

According to Daniel, According to Psalm 110 and all the places it's cited in the New Testament.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they reign and they serve as priests. Their priestly service, as we've talked about before on the show. Right. This is a service of intercession. If Christ isn't ruling in the midst of his enemies, then what's going on with intercessions?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Why is that?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Why would you have to make intercessions for those on earth?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And then it's after this. Right. It's after this that not only the rest of the dead are raised, but that there is this final rebellion, Right. Where those who are bound are finally judged, a la Daniel 7. Right. But another reason why we know what the first resurrection is talking about is the fact that in verse six, St. John feels the need to point out that those who share in the first resurrection are blessed and holy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Because someone might think that they're not, because they're dead.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Correcting a contrary view. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And why would that be? Well, I mean, we see this in First Thessalonians, frankly. St. Paul talks about this. This idea that these people have been martyred, these people have suffered for Christ. These people are dead. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But surely failure to earthly eyes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, they're failure. And they must be of some lesser caliber than those who will still be alive at the time that Christ.

Has his Glorious appearing.

These must be accursed because they died sometimes they died very young. They were killed violently.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right, yeah.

So not only does St. John say it here, but like, you know, if you go to vespers in the Orthodox Church for feasts, usually of martyrs and various other saints, you'll sometimes hear this passage from the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter three. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish, they seem to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and they're going from us to be their destruction. But they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. So it's making the same point that St. John is making there in Revelation 20.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And the procumenon before the epistle reading in our orthodox funeral service. And I know that just went over the heads of some people who've never been to an orthodox service, but is blessed is he whom thou hast chosen and taken, O Lord.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This person who has died, who is here, who we're having the funeral for, who we're mourning, this person is blessed.

Because of the destiny they have in Christ, which is the same thing. Blessed and holy are those who participate in the first resurrection.

That St. John is saying here.

And so saying that.

Christ's kingdom is now, that Christ is right now ruling and reigning in the midst of his enemies is not saying, oh, Christ just has some kind of spiritual kingdom or some kind of allegorical kingdom or some kind of right, woo, woo, theoretical kingdom, or he's on the throne in my heart.

Or whatever else. Right. That's not what it is saying. Right. That's not what it is saying.

Because there are actual effects in the material world of the fact that we're living in the Messianic age. And they're not just any.

Effects. They're the ones talked about in the Old Testament prophetic passages we read.

So a big one to me at least, being not a Jewish person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is what we saw repeated in several of those quotes about the knowledge of God covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. Right. No man having to teach his neighbor, know the Lord, know Yahweh, because all will know him from the greatest to the least. Right. Let's talk about the reality when those words were said. Who was there who knew the name Yahweh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And worshiped him?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not many. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This tiny group.

The time Jeremiah talked about it, they're on their Way into exile in Babylon. They've just been conquered and had their temple burned down.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So it's looking even worse at that point.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. This tiny group in a backwater, the only people have heard of, and the rest of the world, the rest of humanity is worshiping demons.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is engaged in idolatry, concomitant sexual immorality. Right. As I've said before, my ancestors were painting themselves blue, dancing around fires, sacrificing members of neighboring tribes to demons and probably eating them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's what my ancestors were doing at that time. That Jeremiah said that. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Herodotus said that mine were werewolves. No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There you go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm not even kidding.

Well, even worse, he said that people who went up there said that they were. He didn't believe it. He said. But they all say it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. This is the reality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And now you look at today.

You can go almost anywhere in the world and say the word God, capital G.

Right. If it's an atheist, they're going to think of some kind of caricature of the God of the Bible.

Of the Christian Bible. That's the God they don't believe in. I mean, they'll also say they don't believe in Zeus, but they're not really thinking about Zeus when they say they don't believe in God. Right.

You know, billions of people. Right. And we, you know, I, as an orthodox Christian, think a lot of them are worshiping God the wrong way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or misunderstand who he is or are completely wrong about who he is.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But Muslims out there are at least trying to worship the God of Abraham. They're doing it wrong. They don't understand who he is because they don't understand who Christ is. Right. But that's what they're trying to do. They're not trying to worship idols anymore.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And if you believe St. John of Damascus, they're basically a Christian heresy. Right.

And heretics kind of better than pagans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There has been a transformation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There has been a radical transformation. We haven't experienced it in our own life, maybe, but in world history there has been. And it's not just on that religious level of how people think about God and the ceasing of idolatry. Right. Idolatry is now in tiny corners of the world as opposed to everywhere.

That this has been a transformation of the very way we view ourselves and each other in society.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, it's notable that even some of the most vocally anti Christian people in our society.

Are often being Anti Christian on the basis of Christian ethics.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, essentially that Christians don't live up to their own ethical code is what it comes down to be.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. They challenge Christianity by their firm belief in the concept of human rights.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right. That everybody is fundamentally equal before God is not a pre Christian idea.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Right. And the things that, I mean, go read Tom Holland's Dominion. Right. Like there's been this huge radical transformation of the way women are viewed, of the way we view other human beings, of the way we view sexuality, of the way we view.

Morality, the way we view the value of human life has been utterly transformed by the spread of Christianity. Even amongst those who are not only non Christian, but anti Christian.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And even in the whole countries in the world that are not Christian and never were Christian, Christian ethics has affected them. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And this isn't just something that we can now, 2,000 years later, look back and say, right. St. Paul was already saying this. St. Paul said Christ is the savior of all men, especially those who believe.

Especially those who are faithful. Right. Christ having the authority, all authority in heaven and on earth rather than demonic powers that benefits everyone.

That benefits the virulent atheists.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As much as it benefits the person who holds to a non Christian religion, benefits Christians a bit more obviously, as St. Paul says. Right. More than a bit, but. Right. But this, this transformation of the world, the world now in the messianic age since Christ's ascension and the thronement is ordered fundamentally differently than it was before.

And if you study the ancient world in ancient history, like Tom Holland, who's not a Christian did, it smacks you in the face.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It smacks you in the face. So by saying that Christ is right now ruling from the right hand of the Father in heaven again, this is not. It's an ephemeral or spiritualized or allegorical kind of kingdom. It's very literal.

And it's over the invisible and visible creations. And it has concrete effects in the material world as well as the spiritual world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

So I thought for a while about what I would say at the end because there's so many different directions that one could take. With a lot of what we said last time, I kind of spent a little time saying, you know, dispensationalism is not good for you.

One of the things that I like to talk about a lot because I think it's really needed these days is this question of hope.

And.

A lot of times Christians look around us and we see that there's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world. And we might feel hopeless, right? We might quote some of those lines from the Psalms, you know, how long, Lord, how long? Right?

And some, if they feel particularly hopeless, might be tempted by the arguments that essentially say.

This is all just pretend. This is all just pretend. You guys, you've been calling out to your God for thousands of years and he still has not showed up. I mean, this is a basic kind of apologetic against Christianity.

And it's tempting, right? It's tempting to accept that idea.

But the only way that that's really acceptable is with a very, very fundamental myopia about the history of humanity.

And what do I mean by that? Well, especially here in 21st century America.

Our sense of history is.

I'm not going to say it's zero, but it's approaching zero. You know, I've had the opportunity, thank God, to get to go to some places where you can't hardly kick a rock and not find an archaeological site of some kind. You know.

And a lot of other places in the world have a, a much deeper sense of their own history.

But the modern world in general is kind of arranged to make that harder. But I think even more in America than probably most other places in the world. So myopia is the default. Historical myopia is the default way that we function. And even within the scope of our own lives. The way that I feel today is.

How I think about my life, right?

But if we take a step back and we see that we are living in this millennium of the messianic age of Christ. Messianic age of Christ, That's a little redundant, but you know what I mean, this is the period where Christ is ruling. And we see, like Father Stephen was just saying, we look at the historical reality of how things were 2000 plus years ago versus how they are now. There's this radical change in the world. I'm not saying that things are great again. It says in Scripture that he's in the midst of his enemies. So the enemies are still here. They're not as not all here. Lots are gone, lots are defeated, Lots have been kicked out and sent into the abyss. So we can expect that there's still going to be bad stuff. But nonetheless, the world is a very, very different place than it used to be.

And when we zoom back into our own lives.

And assess, where would I be without Christ? How would I even understand life without Christ?

Then we begin to see that his ruling in the midst of his enemies is not a reality. That's just kind of on a grand scale in the scope of human history or grand in the scope of geography across the whole planet. But it is within my life as well.

Right? That if he's ruling in the midst of his enemies, then I should expect also, if I'm going to be with Christ, to be in the midst of his enemies. So I should expect my life to include demonic attack. I mean, the Lord said, in this world you'll have trouble. But he also said, be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.

So that fundamental victory has been won. And so what's happening now is the enemy is in retreat. They're sacking, they're burning as they go, but they're being, they've been routed and they're being chased down by the saints on behalf of Christ. Christ is doing this in them, right? And so our task is to participate in that, not to just.

Feel and feel bad and to complain often, right? Or maybe even to give ourselves to despair that we are experiencing trouble.

That our hope is fundamentally not just thinking, well, you know, things are bad, but maybe it'll get better someday, whatever. But our hope is actually in our participation in the work of Christ to cleanse this world from demonic influence, to bring about.

His order and beauty and justice and love and kindness and all of these things, you know, his ministry, that we are to be partake participants in his ministry and that the more that we are faithful, then the more that our hope grows.

That's the way that it works, right? So when we talk about the millennium, when we talk about the Messianic age, it's not just so we can make big charts to put on the wall and say, ah, this is how it's all laid out. I mean, I love maps and charts and stuff, but that's not what it's about. It's fundamentally about having the perspective that we need in order to be faithful, to do his work in the places where we are and to.

Participate in his putting all of his enemies under his feet and going into all the world, preaching the gospel, baptizing, teaching everyone to do all that he has commanded.

Father.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So.

Part of the reason, honestly, the main reason I wanted to go through all that St. Irenaeus stuff was not just so I could do the neat trick of like everything you think you know about St. Irenaeus is wrong. Ta da. He's not a killer.

I mean, that was a little bit. But that's not the main reason. The main reason is that I think by working through that, hopefully it's kind of made Plain that Chiliasm and its sort of distant cousin, modern pre millennialism is not really a satisfactory answer to Gnosticism.

Because as we sort of talked about, it's kind of based on the same principles. It's based on this principle of setting the material world and the good things in it and the enjoyment of it over against the spiritual world and spiritual things and saying one is more real or more important than the other.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It also has an additional problem.

Over against.

The Gnostic issue. And that problem is that the good things of this world and the enjoyment of thereof are pushed off into the future. Not now, but someday. And this is part of what lies behind the comparison I made between.

The millennium and Achilles in an ancient Kilias scheme and sort of Muslim heaven. So one of the features of heaven in Islam is that suddenly you're allowed to indulge in all kinds of things that are sinful when you're alive on earth.

Can'T drink alcohol when you're alive on earth, but all of a sudden all the wine you want right in paradise, etc, etc.

[Callers (e.g., Aaron, Phil, Brett)]

And.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There are shades of that right in Chilesm. And.

That again points to a shared sort of Gnostic view of asceticism, that asceticism is denying yourself the world because not because of trading something good for something better, but because it's not really good.

But maybe it will become good in some later phase, in some later world, in some later age, or at least you'll be given permission within that context to do what otherwise you would not be permitted to do.

I think one of the importance is if we really embrace the truth of the fact that we are living in the Messianic age.

We are living in that age in which the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon all flesh. We are members of the new covenant we've been grafted in, as St. Paul talks about as Christian, is that that means that all of that imagery and all of those promises of richness and abundance and peace and enjoyment.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Those are ours for the claiming.

The Church, the Orthodox Church, is not just about fasting, it's also about feasting.

It's not just about.

Denial.

But it's also about acceptance of one another.

It's not just about going off by yourself into the wilderness to pray.

But it's also about the monastic who does go off by himself into the wilderness to pray and draw close to God.

And come to know Christ deeply, throwing open the doors of his monastic cell to receive visitors and to pass on the wisdom and the Sanctification that he's received, the holiness he's received to those who come to visit him and who need it.

And I think it's very easy.

Because I've seen it on the faces of a lot of folks, especially newly orthodox folks, to think that Orthodoxy is about being very serious and very even dour.

And about fasting even more than is required, and about holding yourself apart from other people and about not laughing.

And about not enjoying yourself. And joy, of course, is a fruit of the Spirit.

God has given us the good things and the blessings of this world for us to enjoy and to receive with prayer and thanksgiving and to share with each other. He's given us each other. Not just right. Sometimes we talk about this. We talk about how well we live in community. And so that means we rub up against each other and we bounce off each other and we knock off each other's sharp edges, this is true, but also to enjoy each other.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To form.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Friendships and bonds and familial relationships with each other.

That are deep and important and are lasting and that will last for eternity, not just for this life.

St. Paul, when he's talking about the resurrection in First Corinthians, says that if we have the hope of Christ only in this life.

Meaning if there is no resurrection and we only have the hope of Christ in this life, we of all men should be very much pitied.

But what's interesting is sometimes I think that we, while we firmly believe in the resurrection and life of the world to come, and we're looking forward to that, and our hopes are put in that sometimes I think we don't really have the hope of Christ in this life anymore. We've kind of given up on it.

We've just accepted this life in this world is going to be a veil of tears.

And I need to endure to the end, right? And then there is joy, and then there is happiness and everything in Christ afterwards. I'm not saying there isn't all of those things afterwards, but all of those things are available to us here and now. St. Paul was in prison in Philippi, shackled to the ground in a pile of mud and feces.

And he was singing hymns.

And praising God. He was not bitterly enduring. He was not, you know, biting his lip and emoting. He was not being stoic.

He was rejoicing. How often does St. Paul read Philippians? You can read it in one sitting very easily. I know someone who memorized the whole thing.

How many times does St. Paul call on us to rejoice, to rejoice in the Lord to rejoice in each other, to rejoice in the salvation we received.

I think we need to take seriously that this is the Messianic age. We need to take feasting with each other.

Right? With each other. Not gluttony, not over drinking, right? But with each other, feasting with each other, enjoying each other as seriously as we take fasting.

At least as seriously as we take our fasts. And as we take Lent, we need to take Pascha and the whole Pascha season as seriously as we take Lent in the Lenten season.

And I think when we do that, we'll see just how bad an error it is to project all of that joy and that fellowship and that communion with each other out into the future as if it's not available to us.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we'll truly start to understand what it means to rejoice in the Lord and to participate and experience.

Our membership in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and His reign over us and over our world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Amen. Amen. Well, that is our show for tonight. Thank you for listening everyone. If you didn't get through to us live, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us at LordOfSpiritsand AncientFaith.com send me that hate mail that Father Stephen's always talking about. You can also message us at our Facebook page, or you can leave us a [e-mail] LordOfSpirits Join us for our.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Live broadcast on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. I smell blood and an era of prominent mad men.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're on Facebook, follow our page, join our discussion group. Leave reviews and ratings everywhere, but more importantly, share this show with a friend whom you know is going to love it. And oh, by the way, our conference has sold out. There's a waiting list though.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We're sellouts. And finally, be sure to go to ancient faith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFRS podcasters stay on the air for the thing I greatly feared has come upon me and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet. I have no rest, for trouble comes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank you, good night, God bless you and I feel fine.

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father 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 and 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.