April 21st, 1983, Serial No. 00399

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Monastic Theology Series Set 1 of 3

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I'm going to give a brief summary of the ways Justin uses Gnosis and what he means by it. And my material is taken almost entirely from the dialogue with Trifo in this book called The Fathers of the Church, which is volume six. And Bouyer says Justin is very important because he's the first one to bring together the elements of Greek philosophy and the traditional content of Gnosis. And some say that Greek philosophy was Christianized and others say that the philosophy itself Hellenized Christianity. But this business comes up in Justin first off towards the beginning of this dialogue with Trifo when he relates how he himself was converted to a deeper understanding of the Lord. He himself was a follower, a philosopher for a good many years, and seeking truth, seeking

[01:00]

it through various teachers. And he explains how he comes to God, how he first came to God, and he touches on knowledge in that dialogue and it's very important, it seems to me. And I was going over it with Father Bruno and Gnosis in time for him is really something much deeper than this initial knowledge of God, this first understanding of God that he comes to. And yet it seems to me Gnosis includes at least this knowledge that he's talking about. He says, he's talking with this fellow about how does one come to know God. And first off he says, well, what is philosophy? And he says, philosophy is the knowledge, the knowledge of that which exists and a clear understanding of the truth and happiness is the reward of such knowledge and understanding. And then he's questioned further, he says, well, suppose you didn't, suppose there were

[02:00]

some, how can we know God whom we've never seen? How can we say we know God? And Justin gives his original understanding of how we could come to know God and what he says is this. The example that's first posed to me says, okay, suppose someone said there was, told you there was some fabulous animal in another country that you'd never seen. Could you be said to know that animal if you've never seen it? And then Justin says, no. And then he says, well, how can you say you know God because you've never seen God? And Justin says, well, I don't know God the same way I know sensible things, things I can see with my eye. And then he quotes Plato. Plato truly states that the eye of the mind has this special power which has been given to us in order that we may see with it when it is pure, the very being who is the cause of everything the mind perceives, who is neither color nor form nor size nor anything the eye can see, but who is beyond all essence, who is ineffable and indescribable, who alone

[03:02]

is beautiful and good, and who comes at once into those souls which are well disposed because of their affinity and desire of seeing him. So it seems to me that, though he goes on to say that he came to a deeper understanding of the faith, that there's much more to knowing God than this Greek understanding, this Greek way, that gnosis nevertheless corresponds to this eye of the mind that he's referring to. We see God with this eye of the mind which is pure, when it's pure, because it has that special power, and it's given to us in order to see with it, in order to see God. So once he's a Christian, then he fights with the Jews, or he goes around debating with anyone who wants to debate with him. And Bouyer speaks of him as being quite broad-minded and so forth, but at least in this dialogue he comes across as being pretty hard on anyone who doesn't have the same understanding he

[04:02]

himself does, or at least he can be quite sharp. In the dialogue with Trifoda, I just wanted to briefly point out some of the ways he uses knowledge, or some of the ways he uses gnosis, rather, and what he means by it. Primarily, it seems to be an illumination, but first off, he uses it, it seems to be in the sense of an awareness. In chapter 69, he speaks of the Gentiles who are destitute of the knowledge of God, and then quotes Isaiah, that there was a stream on dry land, and the living waters gushed forth from God upon a land devoid of the knowledge of God. So the Gentiles, who began as those who knew nothing about God, in time come to the true knowledge of God through Christianity. Yeah, Christ himself is the water.

[05:23]

Well, that was another thing I asked Father Bruno about, it seemed to me at one point he's using gnosis in the sense of spirit, but apparently that's not quite right. In chapter 112, again this is the dialogue with Trifoda, he accuses the Jews of interpreting the Scriptures baldly, without analyzing the spirit of the words, and he says, but all these things were written by the blessed prophets, with much reflection and hidden meaning, nor can anyone rightly condemn any of the words of the actions of the prophets in general, if he has the knowledge that was in them. So, it would seem that Christians have that same knowledge that the prophets have, that same illumination in some way, and what that comes to in the end is an illumination, is an ability to see Christ, or to find Christ, or to find the truth in the Old Testament

[06:31]

words. And that's the sense he generally uses it in. It comes up again, he sometimes uses the word understanding instead of gnosis, but he's talking about the same thing. In chapter 118, we through the calling of the new and eternal testament, that is Christ, should be found more understanding than you Jews, for they to whom it was not told of him shall see, and they that heard not shall understand. That's again a quote from Isaiah. So gnosis appears to be a fruit of the new order, a deeper wisdom. And again, we were endowed, this is chapter 121. We were endowed with a special grace of hearing and understanding, of being saved by Christ, and of knowing all truths revealed by the Father. Christians are enlightened by Jesus. Then earlier on, and this is, the context of this is, what he has in mind, no doubt,

[07:35]

is that those chapter of Romans we're reading right now, in Vespers chapter 2, where he says, this is in chapter 28 of the dialogue now, even though a man be a foreigner and yet knows God and his Son, and observes his precepts, he is circumcised with the only good and useful circumcision, and is pleasing to God. So gnosis there, this knowledge of God, appears to be a kind of opening to God, a kind of willingness to, an opening to God and what he is, and an acceptance of that. And then finally, this business of gnosis being a way of being more than just what one knows, but being a correspondence of one's life to the truth. He again tears into the Jews and he says, you honor God only with your lips. We who have been well-instructed in his whole truth, honor God with our actions, our knowledge and our hearts, even to death.

[08:36]

So, oh no, I forgot that, that's an important one, let's see, that's chapter 14, he says, we have believed through the baptism and repentance, the baptism of repentance and knowledge of God. Yes, yes. And knowledge of God. Yeah. Right, it's... That's right, that text you mentioned in the apology really clarifies this one, because

[09:49]

he doesn't elaborate on this point, but it seems to me that the, we believe through the baptism of repentance and the baptism of the knowledge of God, it seems to me to be so. I don't know if that's right. I don't know if that's right. I think we probably need to wait to see what's going on, but it seems to me... That's right. ...for many years since I've worked on this, and I would have thought that the reason why I expect you and Socrates, in fact, is because, in a way, that this late Platonic idea of the sort of scenes of this kind, which find their confluence, so they do find their place there in the transfection. I don't remember that. It doesn't seem to me to be relevant in that particular context.

[10:51]

Yeah. Is it something that's suspected? It's suspected to be relevant in that particular context. It's going to be suspected to be relevant in that particular context. Yes. Because... It doesn't become the central point. Yes, that's right. That's right, yeah. That's what I was going to say. Socrates is going to be relevant. That's right, yeah. But there is one moment that I think is really... It's really interesting. I'm surprised I was able to think of it in the past. I'd be surprised now but... Yeah, there are never two separate things really.

[12:02]

The knowledge is always brought to life, it's always lived, it's never separate. It's not something separate that one simply knows. You can think of the teaching of the love of Christ too, which is beyond all the other things, because I thought that awareness of that love of Christ is one of the things. Yes, I think it's actually, for a pastoralist, extremely important, this conception of humility. Because it's the way, I mean, if one genuinely spends time, spends time with the other man, by the experience of actually being around the other man, is able to put by this extraordinary

[13:03]

love of the other man, this intelligence, some of the awareness, we need knowledge. I think that's it for now. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[14:12]

Thank you. Thank you very much. You want to fill out Justin? Okay. I guess I want to fix it. A couple of them you've got. Sarah, she said. Envoyé, I had read Justin, and it turns out that he's fairly liberal in several pages,

[15:42]

but he singles out some ideas that help us to get it together. The term Gnosis comes up fairly often in Justin, but unfortunately we don't have the Greek. We'd have it in many of them, but I didn't take the trouble to roll the microphone for you. Sometimes we're endowed as to the exact word behind what he's saying. The expression which comes up most often in people called Justin, and this happens even today, as you'll find church documents in connection with ecumenism or non-Christian religion and so on, where this notion of the logos spermatikos comes up. And the logos spermatikos seems to mean the sowing word. That is, the logos, which for him is Christ. But it's the word of God which sows its seeds everywhere.

[16:44]

And sometimes you see the expression the spermatologo, the seeds of the word. Now, the first seed is supposed to be sown right in creation. Of course, this notion comes from the poem of John's Gospel, that in the beginning was the word and all things were created through him. And then along with that is the light, and it's the light that enlightens every man that was coming into the world. So, both the logos and the phos, the light, make a bridge between creation and incarnation, between creation, or call it nature, and the coming of the revelation in Christ, in the word which precedes him. But John is concerned, just as Justin is, with the revelation which is Christ, which is the logos spermatikos. So, you get that bridge between the natural and, what would you call it, the natural and the Christian, let's put it that way, because any other word, you can't just say supernatural. Which makes, for Justin, it makes the path between philosophy, therefore, and Christian

[17:46]

revelation, but also the path, the bridge between the Old Testament and revelation. Now, Boyer summarizes it very neatly in three phases here. This is on page 218, in those Xerox pages. This is what takes shape in his theory of the logos spermatikos, for in his mind the union was established between the word-made flesh of St. John, in the prologue, and the stoic logos, that subtle fire animating the whole universe. Now, that's curious for us. Why the logos should be thought of as a fire? Why reason, or order, or intelligibility should be a fire? That connection is there. I think you find it in other cultures too. I wonder, in the yin and yang of the Chinese, is there such a thing? I was just immediately thinking of the Chinese, because it seems to me that nearly all ancient cultures have an idea of the barbaric world, and of course we, the ancient Chinese, are barbarians. It's a disregard for understanding people.

[18:58]

It's often the case that people who are artists are artists. I almost doubt that they do. I never thought of that. Like the power that's in this intelligence in a tradition, something like that, the power that's in the deposit of wisdom inside a civilization, inside a culture. I think so. They wouldn't have said it. The Promethean idea of bringing the fire. I don't think they would have said it. I think this is the way they've experienced it. That's why they have such a horror, a terror of it, or a bizarre side of this world, because it's not properly human. I've never looked at it from that angle, but the fire, that power over energy itself, is

[20:10]

very much connected with civilization. It seems to me, in one way, this is also why, although it seems that it was nice to become a problem, because the idea of the ideal body, which we get in the both of these ancient Chinese, is connected again with the fantasy of this real life. The magical darts, or I don't know what they are called, but I like to think of them as breaking things, spreading things around. It was always beautiful, I've said that. And there's something beautiful about this. That energy takes on quite another meaning today. The nuclear thing, the fact that fire becomes our weapon. Even the weapon of a kind of highly developed civilization of a certain sort, over poorer

[21:16]

people. Death by fire. I'm going on with Boyer here. Okay, the connection between the prologue of John and the Stoic logos. So the word of John and the word of the Stoics. That subtle fire animating the whole universe. There's also the notion, and the notion of spirit, the human spirit, there's this notion of fire, the seeking, whatever it is, that energy that's in the human spirit, the human core. You know, the spark that comes up so often. Yeah. Fire of the Holy Spirit, and the fire even of the human spirit, which is within us, it's in our, created in our being. Or that spark of the soul, the center. And in addition, let's see, I've come to be confused with all the Platonic ideas, and in addition it's already been compared by Philo. Philo's very important in this whole context. His notion of the logos. It's amazing.

[22:16]

We don't expect to find that outside of the Christian theology world. To the creative word of the Bible, all the philosophers, and now this is, he's distilling just now, all the philosophers in discovering something of the logos had simply shown that he himself had placed in them some seed of his own truth in creating them. Okay, there's phase number one. Moreover, they had doubtless benefited in more or less obscure ways from some echo of its preparatory revelation to Moses and the prophets. That's stage two. Now, he had the theory that whatever the Greek philosophers, Plato and so on, knew that was of real value, they had got it somehow, they'd absorbed it from the Jewish prophets, which would be hard to substantiate. But Boyer, on the other hand, does suggest that that really did happen in this middle Platonism, or later Platonism, that there was a strong absorption from the Jewish tradition. And for instance, Neo-Platonism. Don't you think this is why Fowler is so important? He was working in Arizona, which had perhaps the finest Arizona existence in the ancient

[23:21]

world. And there all these things were together. He was working in a world which was real accessible. So there is a point of taking Arizona to the Jewish world. It's fascinating to find that just before the Christian contribution, or its synthesis, and already with the notion of the Logos, even before the Christian Logos. It doesn't make much sense. He says that Moses, and so forth, has been there a long time. Yes. Well, I forget the exact argument. It seems to me he's saying that I don't need to repeat to you the old law, because Moses has read every Sabbath in the synagogue. What I'm going to tell you is the new development, which is Christ.

[24:23]

I'm just trying to remember if that's what he's saying. Something like that. The point being that the Word to Christ, the Word of Moses, the Torah, is there for everybody to find. Now I'm bringing you something else. In the diaspora. Yes. It was already there, if any of the pagans wanted to hear it. Okay, so that's phase two. From the prophets to the philosophers. But these fragments, these spermata, these seeds of the Word, could not come together, still less reach the one totality of the living knowledge of the true Logos, except in its proper personal communication in the Incarnation, in the Son of God made man, Jesus. This is kind of the grand doxology that always happens in these things, where all the preparations for Christ, and then this fitting together into the Logos made flesh.

[25:23]

Everything crystallizes there. It happens again and again and again. As if all this knowledge, all the Moses that they're talking about, it's like it's the recognition of Christ, which is not only recognition but illumination at the same time. In other words, when you recognize Christ, when you find him in the scriptures, when any of these things, any of these roads meet in Christ, and suddenly he's there. And it's an illumination which is a personal contact, it's a presence, and it's also a kind of illumination of the whole mind in some way, at its center. It's always suggested in these endings. Isn't that what people like to think? That's right, that's right. The difficulty often is getting the right balance, okay, so that the keystone is really Jesus, and he's not just a kind of figure that you put on at the end, you know, after you've done the whole thing outside of Christianity. That's the reason. In other words, to find this marvelous wisdom in Hinduism, and then to say, well, I'll tell you where Christianity comes in. It's the historical figure who matches up to this.

[26:26]

But you don't really need Christ at that moment. That's the biggest problem. Well, this is the sort of way in which I can feel very easily that God's just in the middle of everything. And you could feel, especially by now, that God's just in the middle of everything. If you like, I don't need to like things until my chance is that God's in the middle of everything. That's the risk always. It's a slippery thing. As soon as you start validating the wisdom outside of Christianity, you begin to say, well, why have missionaries? I think it's important for us in a way, it's a very private introduction to the meeting point of these two worlds. And I think this is one of the influences, the point of which many people thought people would meet. It's very difficult to get the balance.

[27:28]

The principle has become more and more accepted. Justin himself seems to be sort of thundering Christward all the time, in the sense that if you were talking with him, he wouldn't let you stay short of that final coming over into Christ, I don't think. But reading him, I could misinterpret. Let's look at the texts which are in these Xerox pages from the Second Apology. I'm sorry I didn't get them staked together for you. There's something that operates in here that these things have in the last five minutes. It's chapter 8, chapter 10 and chapter 13 that are in question. They're on those three pages you have. At the end of the Second Apology, which is written, I think, to the Roman Senate or something like that, at least it is, according to the... It's very brief, the Second Apology. The first one is long, about sixty-seven chapters, according to the preface. Okay, chapter 8. He's talking about philosophism.

[28:29]

Those of the Stoic school, on account of the seed of reason, or the Logos, planted in every race of men, were, we know, hated and put to death. His principle here is that those who know the Logos are always persecuted. That there's something demonic, there's a demonic principle in the world that always opposes and hates and puts to death those who know the Logos. It's a demonic opposition to the Logos. Now, I don't have the exact expression that they've got there. You know, this translation is a hundred years old. It was a careful translation at the time. But they didn't... When they say the seed of reason, I think it's something like the rational seed that it says. So, I'm not sure. It says the seed of the Logos are the rational seed. Boyer might have that somewhere, but I don't know. Have you got the Greek there? Another translation? Let's hear what he says. Boyer might quote it, too.

[29:30]

Because of the seed of reason, there's no man coming. Yeah, that's all. So, it doesn't have that strong sense of necessarily the seed of the Logos, who is the Word of God. But that's... It's in it, it's latent, but he hasn't brought it out strongly. Heraclitus and so on. This is in chapter 8, it's on page 191. You got that one? Okay, chapter 8. Roman 8. It is nothing wonderful, then, if the devils are proved to cause those to be much worse hated, who live not according to a part only of the Word, of the Logos, diffused among men, but by the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Word, which is Christ. So, there's a dialectic here. There's a drama going on here. A struggle between good and evil. And to the extent that you know the Logos and live according to it, and look at, as it were, in the face, contemplate it, you're hated. There's something that's out to get you. And I think he's writing this to the Senate, also in defense, of course, of the Christians

[30:39]

and of himself, who are threatened with death by their own state. But in the end, he was mortal. Evidently, with some of his disciples. Okay, there's the first mention. The second one is in chapter 10. It starts on the same page. Our doctrines then appear to be greater than all human teaching, because Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the whole rational being, both body and reason and soul. Now, these things are not easy. You'll find that the people who have studied these things rather deeply find them problematical, a precise interpretation. There's another book which is useful on these Fathers is Christ and Christian Tradition by Gromer, which is on Christology. But it's continually in this area of the Logos, of course, because that's the core of Christology for these Fathers. What he seems to mean when he says it's the whole rational being, he means the whole

[31:47]

human person, that's all. Body, the reasoning mind and the soul, the anima and spiritus and corpus. For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word. Notice the word contemplate there. I don't know what the original is, but I think that's important. In other words, it's not just a rational manipulation of the Word. It's not just extracting some idea from the Word. It's a kind of a living intercourse with the Word, a living relationship with the Word. Yes, they could have chosen the Word. Well, it might have been the only word that they could find to translate Justin's Word though. I don't know because it's not in the original. But it seems to me that Justin is careful that because of the appeal of Socrates, he

[32:55]

doesn't say it's the way I got. He's known for Socrates, he's known for the classical book of Genesis. He's not known, he's put there because he has to be true. And that's why Justin puts him in this key position, I think. He's a very strong argument towards it. That's because we don't know in what sense we would use it for our own benefit. With them, words and ideas carried a lot of life with them. That's why they fought so much over theology in those days, especially among the Greeks. That is, a word was not just a word. It may have been for the sophists or some schools, but generally it carried life with it. And it carried some kind of contemplation with it too. But since they contemplated some part of the word, since they did not know the whole of the word, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, they're paradoxical. In other words, they were before Christ. When they attempted to consider and prove things by reason were brought before the tribunal

[33:56]

as impious persons and busybodies. And then he brings up Socrates. I don't think they were all persecuted, but he uses that point. So he's putting himself right in the line with Socrates. And remember that Justin is the philosopher. He continued to be a professional philosopher even after his conversion. He exhorted them to become acquainted with the God who was to them unknown by means of the investigation of reason, saying, It is neither easy to find the Father and Maker of all, nor having found Him is it safe to declare Him to all. But these things our Christ did through His own power. Let me get the connection. Yeah, not through the investigation of reason. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ who was partially known even by Socrates. For He was and He is the word which is, who is in every man. John doesn't say that, does he? John doesn't say the word, everything was created through Him and He's the word who

[34:57]

is in every man. But he does say that He is the light coming into the world which enlightens every man. So that, yes, there seems to be a fusion there of word and light even without bringing it, making it explicit. And who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets and His own person. Not only philosophers and scholars believe, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both glory and fear and death. Since He is a power of the ineffable Father and not the mere instrument of human reason. Yet He certainly doesn't despise, Justin certainly doesn't despise human reason. And then the business of death. Death is very much in the scene here and martyrdom. And the fact that if something is really true, then you're going to be willing to put your life on the line for it. And this is not true in general of monastics. He's not talking about monastics.

[35:59]

It comes up in everyone else. Chapter 13. How the word has been in all men. Let's find the read of this. And I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian. Not because... This can be kind of bold to put before the Senate, I mean, if you're in the process of hunting out Christians. So he doesn't at all compromise his faith, his identity in Christ. Not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the other stoics and poets and historians. For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic word. There's the critical phrase. Okay, it gets quoted all the time. Logos spermaticos in the Greek. The spermatic word. What does it mean? Seeing what was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed

[37:04]

the heavenly wisdom and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians. Isn't that terrible? And it's true at the same time. How do you say that with humility? How do you relate to and express that truth? For next to God we worship and love the word who is from the unbegotten and unaffable God since he also became man for our sakes. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted word. There we have it. That was in them. Now, it'd be good to have the original of that phrase. The sowing of the implanted word that was in them. Notice the two images. The image of sowing and the image of implantation. But what's the connection? Because something is implanted through a sowing, is it not? I don't know if there's a confusion here that the original would unravel, though. Whether he believed that the word was implanted through them.

[38:07]

The whole word was implanted through them in some way through their creation. And then that it sowed concept or something. Notion to the mind. This meant that we could read all writers by means of the engrafted seed of the word which was implanted in them. That's much more intelligible, I think. Engrafted seed of the word. Or implanted seed of the word. Something like that. What did you say was sperm? Seed. Sperm means seed. So spermatic word means the word that sows seed, I believe. And then the seeds of the word are the ideas, the truths that are found in people who don't yet know Christ. So the sowing of the implanted word is not maybe the best translation. For the seed and imitation imparted according to capacity is one thing and quite another is the thing itself. So he's not saying that the word is implanted in them through their creation. The Logos, is it? Because they don't know the whole Logos. He's not saying the whole Logos is in them.

[39:08]

He seems to be saying that a seed of the Logos is in them. Quite another thing is the thing itself, the Logos itself, of which there is the participation and imitation according to the grace which is from him. That's a very dense expression there, but we'd have to have the original to get to the bottom of it. I suppose you can really say that he's saying something like that, which implies that the seed was not a tree. But later, theologians will go on to say, especially as medical doctors, that you can't really, if there's no potentiality to the Logos, you can't equate it, which is what spermatic things are. Sperm is not yet a man. It may become one. So you can say, which is sort of what he's saying,

[40:12]

but it's not being loosely argued out. It's implicit in what he's saying. Depends a lot on whether you consider the seed to be the truths that they knew, some kind of intuitions of the Logos, or whether you consider it to be actually the faculty of reason that's in them, as the spark of reason, something like that. I think it's the reason itself that's in them that's the seed of the Word. I've seen that interpreted here. Then the difficulty is, of course, the difficulty that people bring up is, when you find the parable of the sower and the seed in the Gospels, it's the Word that's the seed, and there's already a capacity there. So the two would sort of collide with one another. If the potentiality, the kind of full potentiality is already there,

[41:14]

then it seems that in nature already somehow is contained the whole thing. The essential, the powerful ingredient isn't coming from outside, as the Word comes from outside, the Word of Revelation, but it's already there. So there can be a tension between us, too. But he's already got the Word inside him, in a very full sense, the Word of the Gospel. After being transformed by the Word of the Gospel, he can do that. That's how he's illumined. What do you think? I don't know. I'm not sure that Roger will help us at all. It gets so complicated. No, I don't think he'll help.

[42:18]

I don't think he'll help. Ingestion and distinction must be drawn between the spermatogos logos and the spermata to logo, the seeds of the Word. These spermata are a participation in the logos by the human spirit. They derive from the activity of the logos, which therefore sows knowledge in the human reason in this way. This, however, is only the lower degree of knowledge which must be brought to fulfillment by the incarnate logos himself. Where there are only the seeds of the logos, the logos is present only in part. Now, the logos is the source of all partial knowledge of the truth in all men, as the logos is. He must also, in the end, be the subject and norm of this knowledge. So, when Justin assumes of the ancient philosophers like Heraclitus or Sarcates that they lived in accordance with the logos, he understands by this logos not reason, but the divine logos, in capital. But these philosophers knew this logos only obscurely and partially. In this respect, their philosophy was incomplete and false.

[43:20]

Thus, one and the same divine logos is known by philosophers and Christians, but the former only in a deficient way, while the latter have full and complete knowledge. But that, of course, skips the individual, the difference between individual Christians. The name goes on. It's kind of complex, but I think we get the general idea. Now, Fourier brings in another notion. One thing I should read from Grosvenor. He's quoting Harnack. Christ, for Justin, is the logos and the nomos. The logos and the nomos. So, he's the word and he's also not law so much as order, I think. Evidently, for the Greeks, that nomos, which means law literally, in talking about scriptures, it means order. He's the order of the nomos. He's the order in history. He's an order in the revelation of God. And this order, somehow, is established through the mediation of revelation

[44:23]

by Christ, by the logos. It fits everything into a kind of construction in history. I think Fourier says that, too. But the thing that Fourier pays more attention to is this notion of rational sacrifice, which is, in the Greek, it's logikethusia. Pardon my pronunciation. Logikethusia, that relates to logos. So, it's the sacrifice of the logos, or the sacrifice which is according to the logos. So, like all of these early writers, he moves from the Jewish sacrifices of bulls and calves and all that stuff, up to a spiritual sacrifice, which he calls this logiko, the logos sacrifice. Logiko doesn't do justice to it. Now, this is, first of all, the sacrifice of the heart, of prayer and thanksgiving. It's the sacrifice of justice. And then it turns out to be the Eucharist, also. There's one marvelous text, and I'll find it. It's in the Dialogue, chapters 116 and 117.

[45:24]

And a whole bunch of things can be put in it. Dialogue, I suspect. Page 220, 229. Hmm, that's probably... You ought to want to look at it. Yeah, you can look at it. It's one of the problems. It's one of the problems. It was Rationale's sacrifices. The same thing. The same thing. Yeah. And for us, that Rationalis, or rational, or reasonable, takes on a very eroded sense, I think. The sharpness, because of the connection of logos, the connection to the logos, and therefore the New Testament, and the Christ content of it, gets dissipated because of the translation. What's that? Well, as I said, this is... Have we got it?

[46:33]

If we miss a letter, we can find it. That's in the Roman canon, right? I forgot the part about Melchizedek and Abraham. Just before priest number three comes over and pulls out the book. No, the English one. Sometimes they say, much too much. Yeah. Yeah.

[47:09]

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