Transcription
But that's what we're doing. Every time we walk into the nave of an Orthodox church, that's what we're doing. Going to the place where only the priests could go, only during their appointed time, after fulfilling all of the purification rituals.
Can Father Stephen comment on the Rene Girard definition of sacrifice? You guys never learn your lesson. Why are you asking yes or no questions when you want an explanation? Yes. [laughter] Yes, I can. Now, moving on.
>> [laughter] >> I assume you mean uh mimesis. Uh I'm unfamiliar with the Rene Girard definition of sacrifice.
>> it's mimesis, right? Where basically you are in the sacrificial ritual, you are enacting or reenacting something. And there there is a truth to that. When you look at especially a lot of pagan sacrificial ritual and its connection to So, uh pagan sacrificial ritual uh is deeply connected to uh tragedy. Tragedy grows out of pagan sacrificial ritual. Specifically the the Dionysian dithyramb. Um And so, um this is part of how Girard comes to this idea, right? So, if you think about what's going on in uh tragedy in Greek tragedy where they're telling you these horrific nightmare stories.
>> [laughter] >> The the the Sorry, you have someone sort of your your classical way of understanding this is that there's a tragic flaw. Your protagonist has some flaw, hubris being a very popular one. Um that then causes this chain of events that ends in horrible tragedy, right? Uh that's where we get the term tragedy used for that. Uh and so, what's the purpose of enacting and reenacting this? Right? This horrible stuff. Well, the idea is for the person who's viewing it uh I'm not going to go into Aristotle's Poetics right now, but this is related to that. But the person watching it uh has this experience uh has the experience of these events. And that has the effect for them of warding off those negative possibilities. Right? The downfall that might come from their own hubris. Right? We watch this in order to ward that off. This is sort of the sort of the darkest and worst things that could happen, the worst possible future. We enact that and we ward it off, right? And so, that then is backtracked into the sacrificial rituals from which those tragedies developed. And Girard says, so what we're doing is we're warding off. And so, for him most of the time and this is part of the problem, Rene Girard being French, he comes out of this Catholic background where he has an idea that sacrifice is about killing. So, it's mostly about warding off death. Ultimately. Right? Uh when he does the Day of Atonement, it's death and exile as the two possibilities. Right? Uh so, it's not that there's not a certain something there when you get into the relationship of tragedy and sacrifice and all that, right? So, he's sort of onto something. But part of the issue when you're talking about the biblical sacrifices in particular is that they weren't done publicly. All right.
What does that mean?
>> [laughter] >> Meaning Meaning Cuz in my mind, weren't would they not have been done in like in the courtyard? But then I guess the meal part would not I guess yeah.
>> not done there. Yeah. So, this is And this is something people don't have in their head from reading the Bible, right? So, if we imagine that Sorry, before but like that's the stuff is so important to understand like literally what did they do? And people because they don't actually put themselves in the shoes of these like I get it, it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a ancient Israelite in Canaan, whatever three four 3,000 years ago, you know, but there is a cultural context. There are things that we can know about. And we should try to know about those things. So, like I I just can't emphasize enough like how important this stuff is. But Sorry, go ahead, Father.
So, so there is there is within pagan sacrificial ritual this element of uh of uh spectacle, public spectacle. Right? And Girard is living at a much later time when Christian liturgy, Christian processions are done outside publicly. Anyone who wants to can come into a Christian church and watch what's going on, right? And so, he doesn't see the distinction there. So, if your local Orthodox parish was run the way the tabernacle and then the temple were run. Right? Here is how worship would be for you. You would make the trip, make the pilgrimage, right? You got to walk.
>> [laughter] >> Uh you would bring your sacrificial animal. You and your family would show up. Right? And uh someone would meet you at the doors to the narthex. Okay? The father of the family would bring the animal to the person. It would be a deacon for the Levites, right? Who would meet you at the door of the narthex. Would take the animal and would disappear. You would wait.
>> [laughter] >> And there'd be other people bringing animals, too. Right? Uh time would pass. The animal would be sacrificed back in there. Right? You would see like smoke coming out of a chimney.
>> [laughter] >> Right? You would see right? You would know know roughly what was going on back there. Um and then at a certain point Levite would come back, hand you some meat, and send you home to eat it with your family. That would be your worship experience. And they didn't just like sing songs with a guitar and No. around a campfire and Kumbaya.
>> of musical instruments being used in temple worship, you wouldn't hear them.
>> [laughter] >> I think people like
>> sound like lilting out the door, right? Like That's why this stuff is so important cuz I I just am realizing and I said this a while ago like how important this is really just like the Old Testament, I just keep on coming back to it. Like everything's kind of there already for in terms of like apologetics. Like it's needs to be fulfilled like overfilled, right? Like filled full. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Uh but like everything is there. I keep on coming back to it. It's so like and like literally what happened? What did these people do? Like walk through it. Like they were never in the holy place. Nobody was in the holy place. Only the priests were They were never inside the tabernacle. Yes. They were never inside the court. They Yeah, they worshipped in the temple complex. Yes.
[laughter]
>> By being there. Yes. Yes. Um So, yeah. And so, later when the temple's rebuilt, when you're getting to Herod's temple they add these other concentric circles. Right. So, they add a court of women. Right? Because So, instead of the man bringing it up to the door of the courtyard right? It's he gets to go into this closer place.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. The women have to stay further back and the Gentiles have to stay even Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
>> further out. Yeah, I forgot about the segregation. Right? So, like if we take this to your local parish, like the women would have to stay in the parking lot and like anybody who wasn't an Orthodox Christian would be like next door. Right? In their parking lot.
>> [laughter] >> Wondering what was going on, right? Yeah. Well, this is why it was so bad under the law. And now I guess we can just worship however we want to. This God that cared so much about worship in the Old Testament is now just toss it all. But it's the irony when someone comes and says like, oh, why can't people go back behind the iconostasis? And it's like imagine if you grabbed all those Jewish people one day and said, hey, come on. And you brought them into the narthex. And they're like, oh, wow, we're actually in the you know,
>> [laughter] >> in the court of the tabernacle. You're like, oh, wait, there's more. Come on, right? [laughter] And you brought them into the tabernacle itself where only the priests could go before before the veil of the Holy of Holies, right? Like do you think any of them would be like, well, can I go see the ark?
>> [laughter] >> They'd be mortified. Right? But that's what we're doing. Every time we walk into the nave of an Orthodox church, that's what we're doing. Going to the place where only the priests could go, only during their appointed time, after fulfilling all of the purification rituals. Yeah.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, that's a new appreciation to being able actually to worship the way we do today.
>> Yeah. You're taking part in the offering of the sacrifice and everything, right? Like
>> Yeah. Yeah. Everybody gets to eat Friday. Yeah, but so that's with Girard, right? He's not taking into account the fact that there was no public spec right? So, there was no mimesis for the worshiper who brought the sacrifice, right? Like the Yeah. That's pretty pretty interesting.