Speaker A
The point here is of course this is a priesthood which is like a secret priesthood. You know this is why it doesn't show up in the Torah, right?
Jonathan Pageau and Deacon Richard Rohlin discuss Noah's ark through the Syriac Cave of Treasures, covering the ark's sacred layout, Adam's body, and Melchizedek's secret priesthood.
Key Takeaways
- The ark is read as a symbolic cosmos and liturgical space, with Adam's body at its center functioning like an altar.
- Syriac apocryphal traditions such as the Cave of Treasures provide the narrative base for interpreting Genesis in this series.
- Secret priesthoods like Melchizedek's are presented as typologically superior to the Levitical order, with Christ as the second Adam renewing creation.
What the video covers
- The video opens with a clip on Melchizedek as a secret priesthood predating the Levitical priesthood, absent from the Torah and guarding Adam's body until the second Adam.
- Pageau and Rohlin promote their Universal History Master Class, a course revisiting five years of content with a reading list and primary sources.
- The main episode resumes the Universal History series with the entry of Noah and his family into the ark on a Friday, structured by three-hour liturgical time intervals.
- Animals and people are arranged in tiers and sides, with Adam's body placed at the center of the ark like an altar, which the hosts compare to traditional church segregation by sex.
- The discussion draws on the Syriac texts Cave of Treasures, Book of the Bee, and Book of Adam, attributed in part to St. Ephraim the Syrian.
- Symbolic interpretations link the ark's altar, relics, and the gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Christian mysteries and the Eucharist.
- The conversation covers the rainbow bow as a transformed image of divine judgment into peace, and the post-flood story of Noah's drunkenness and the curse on Ham's line.
- Melchizedek traditions reappear as Shem and Melchizedek place Adam's body in the center of the earth, where the four quarters of the world gather around it.
- The episode closes with a discussion of how languages, including Greek and Latin, were sometimes written in both directions.
Chapters
- 00:00Melchizedek and the secret priesthood
- 00:19Course announcement and Universal History Master Class
- 04:19Introduction to Noah's ark and the Cave of Treasures
- 08:12Entry into the ark and the symbolism of the three tiers
- 18:00The rainbow, the flood's end, and Noah's drunkenness
- 42:00Ham's curse and the post-flood division of peoples
- 56:00Burial of Adam and the role of Shem and Melchizedek
- 68:00Melchizedek traditions and closing remarks
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
That's the point of the secrecy. This is a secret priesthood which predates the Levitical priesthood.
Speaker A
And it has a sacrifice which trumps those sacrifices. Yeah. Right. Of which those sacrifices are actually kind of the lesser copy. And the point is guarding the body of Adam until the second Adam comes to renew it.
Speaker A
Right. And then at that point the secret is going to be revealed and the MelkiseDC priesthood you know will spread over the whole earth again.
Speaker A
This is Jonathan Pjo. Welcome to the symbolic world. Hello everyone. I'm here with Deacon Sarapim and we are ready for another episode of Universal History. We are doing the universal history of Persia.
Speaker A
Although you probably can't tell yet because we're just having so much fun in in Genesis. But uh before we go, there's something very important that we started this week that we have to talk about data.
Speaker A
Yes. So this last week we started the universal history master class. Uh this is going on on Wednesday afternoons right now. You can sign up. Basically the idea of this course is we're taking everything that we've talked about for
Speaker A
the last 5 years now. Uh it's very frightening. I realized we are thinner and younger and you know all these things and definitely had some of us had a lot less hair back then. Uh but which I guess is better than the alternative.
Speaker A
I don't know. But uh in any case um uh we've been talking about this stuff for 5 years and you know obviously one of the fun parts for people has been getting to watch us grow and develop together as we learn to talk about these
Speaker A
things and I read new stuff and I get excited about it and then I want to share it with you and so on or vice versa. So, what we've been doing, what I'm do, what what I'm doing with this
Speaker A
course is we're really just going back over everything we've covered uh with all the new insights that we've gleaned and the bigger picture that we have now.
Speaker A
And we're putting all that together into a course. And the course has the reading list. I know this is something people ask for a lot. The course has the reading list. We have all the receipts.
Speaker A
We have all the primary sources. And we're we're discussing those things together. And I'm already can tell unfortunately that the master class is really just like Universal History 101.
Speaker A
and that we're going to have to come back and do deeper courses on just individual things because you know what I really want to do is kind of what we do here which is where let's spend the next unlimited number of years together
Speaker A
reading these things in detail and and that's you know unfortunately you know I have 3 hours a week to get through some of this stuff but I think it's already been really helpful to a lot of people uh to revisit these things and the
Speaker A
underpinning foundational ideas and see how they all relate together and see how uh all of this can be used. And if you if you learn our methodology, right? The way that we approach things, the way that we read things, you can actually
Speaker A
take it to any kind of a text, which you know, as we talked about in this last week's course, doesn't just involve like actual text, but it also involves other kinds of cultural artifacts and see how they fit into this larger story of
Speaker A
everything. So, um if people want to sign up for that, you can still sign up for that. You've only missed one one class. There's still five more weeks of the live class to go and then you'll be able to buy the recordings in perpetuity
Speaker A
after that. But I want to really encourage people um sign up. We're having a really great time and I'm really excited about uh this next uh class next Wednesday in particular. So yeah, and it's it really is the bird's
Speaker A
eye view to start with. It kind of pulls everything together. You get a sense, you'll leave even just leave the first class with a with a deep understanding of the philosophy behind our vision of universal history. why it isn't so much
Speaker A
recapturing the past, but it's also a vision to how we can exist in the future, you know, how we can move away from the the modern and the postmodern breakdown of narrative. So, so join us.
Speaker A
It's been fun already and we'll have fun. So, today, what do we what are we talking about here? Well, we're going to pick up with Noah and the ark and uh that's where we're going to pick up today. And what
Speaker A
we're going to do is try to go over uh the story of Noah in the ark and basically the things that happen on the ark, the things that happen once Noah gets off the ark. So where we kind of
Speaker A
last left things was at the end of the second thousand years um that bring you up to the beginning of the flood.
Speaker A
And we have to remind people we're reading from a book. Yes. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's called The Cave of Treasures. Because a lot of people go like, "Wait, where is he getting all this stuff?" We're reading from a book called The Cave of
Speaker A
Treasures, which is which is a Syrian book, but that recounts traditions in the in the in the voice of St. Ephraim, the Syrian, and therefore is a testimony to some very much older traditions as well.
Speaker A
Yeah. And we're also pulling things occasionally from two other Syrian sources. One is called the book of the bee, and the other is called the book of Adam. And so, you can just look these things up. The text are free online. Uh,
Speaker A
and uh, you'll very quickly see, you know, we're really just reading things and discussing them here. Uh, but people seem to like that. So, let's do a little bit of today. So, we're going to start up with uh the beginning of the third
Speaker A
millennium of the world and the entry of Noah and his family into the ark. And you'll remember last time maybe that one of the interesting things that we got about the ark is that Adam's body is taken and it's placed at the the top of
Speaker A
the ark in the very middle like an altar. And then all you have all the male humans and animals on one side, all the female humans and animals on the other side. And we sort of said,"Hey, this sounds a little bit maybe like a
Speaker A
traditional church." Where actually even in Protestant America going back to the 1940s and 1950s, it was not at all uncommon, especially in places like New England, for the churches to be still to segment, uh, segregated in this way. So,
Speaker A
um, here's how it begins. The entrance of Noah into the ark took place on the day of the eve of the Sabbath on a Friday. By the way, if you've been paying attention, you'll notice lots of important things happen on Friday at the
Speaker A
third hour, which is of course also when Christ is, you know, you know, Christ is on the cross on Friday from the, you know, the 6th to 9th hour. Um, so, you know, beginning at the third hour. On
Speaker A
the Friday in the morning, the third hour, the beast and the cattle went into the lowermost story. And then at midday, all the feathered, fowl, and reptiles went into the middle story. And then at sunset, Noah and his sons went into the
Speaker A
ark on the east side of the third story. and his wife and the wives of his sons went into the west side. So every three hours were moving up these tears, right?
Speaker A
You should be thinking about the hours of prayer, the hours of the day moving through time in this way. And his wife and the wives of the son went to the west side and the body of Adam was
Speaker A
deposited in the middle of the ark and uh also the bo the body of Eve and uh wherein also all the mysteries of the church were deposited. So the mysteries of the church, what are the mysteries of the church? Well, it's it's
Speaker A
referring to it's referring to the role of the ark, right? The the ark on a on a Christian altar. And then it's kind of doubling that image to the image of here's the re the the body of Adam.
Speaker A
That's a relic. And then you have the also the gold, the frankincense, and the myrr. These three things from the taken from the cave of treasures. So these the mysteries of the church. Thus women in the church then it says shall be on the
Speaker A
west side and men on the east side. So that the men may not see the faces of the women and the women may not see the faces of the men. Thus also it was in the ark. The women were on the west side
Speaker A
and the men on the east side and the body of our father Adam was placed in between them like a raised stand or throne. So there's a it's kind of weird.
Speaker A
Let me just ask something though because it says it's on the east side on the west side and they said that in the church because if the church's facing east wouldn't it usually be men on the on the the women on the north side and
Speaker A
the men on the south side. Yeah. So this is the thing that I noticed as well and uh I have not been able to find an answer to this question.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of strange. So I don't know if there's something about orientation of some churches in Syria that were oriented a little differently. Um if uh uh it could have al also be um you know men standing
Speaker A
towards the front of the church and then women in the back. Yeah. And it feels like when you read this Yes. And that that seems to be what it's saying. This is what I kind of come up with. Um, and uh, in which case, you
Speaker A
know, we're all sort of standing in rank, but it's men in the front, women in the back. They can't see each other's faces because they're all facing the same direction. So, that seems to kind of that seems to kind of sort of and it
Speaker A
it does kind of uh make sense of the sort of, you know, the the way that the arc is staged out hierarchically. So, then you have humanity at top and then you have female, the feminine, the masculine, the female, male, something
Speaker A
like that. Uh, but it's I mean, it's really interesting. It's not uh because the problem with this theory is that it then says and the body of our father Adam was placed in between them like a raised stand or throne.
Speaker A
So then yeah then it's weird. So then it's so it's not Yeah. It feels more the bishop's throne that we sometime put in the middle of the church with the left and the right with the that's what it seems to me that
Speaker A
it's it's suggesting. But what I also don't know is if maybe this is some kind of a translation difficulty. If there's something about the way that Syrian churches in the seventh century were oriented. There's a few different a few
Speaker A
things here that I simply don't know. Uh and maybe somebody out there does know and they can let me know. But I will keep researching and I will let you guys know what I find. Um all right. So, uh,
Speaker A
but what's important to take away from this is that it says, "And as quietness reignth in the church between men and women, so also peace reignth reigned in the ark between the wild beast and their feathered fowl and the creeping things
Speaker A
or reptiles. And as kings and judges and rich men and poor men and governors and sick men and beggars live in concord, that is to say, in a general bond of peace, so also it was in the ark. For
Speaker A
lions and panthers and savage beasts of prey lived in peace and harmony with the cattle, and the beasts were fe that were fierce and strong lived in peace with those that were timid and weak. And the lion with the ox and the wolf with the
Speaker A
lamb and the lion's welp with the calf and the serpent with the dove and the hawk with the sparrow. So the ark has become paradise. It's become, you know, the age to come in a sense, right? With the lion lying down with the lamb.
Speaker A
Yeah. But also what you see is uh this is supposed to be an allegory or it's supposed to be an image an icon of the way that all the different stations of life that in other words we have
Speaker A
different social classes different vocations different levels of strength and power and influence all these different things the way that all of these things find their fulfillment and they find harmony within the order of the church. So this is exactly the
Speaker A
opposite of the post-modern approach to things which says the only way we can have peace is going to be to erase all difference.
Speaker A
Yeah. Right. Or or maybe celebrate every difference. I'm not sure. It's not always very clear to me.
Speaker A
It's not clear which one it is. Both at the same time. But here what we see is that no, we're not erasing the differences. Things are just living and operating in harmony. Um and same thing as be and just as between
Speaker A
animals also between male and female obviously there there has historically not just modern times there has been difficulty there has been contention between male and female right between the masculine and the feminine right these things that are sometimes at odds
Speaker A
but here gathered together into the church there is quietness there is harmonia right these ancient ideas that have to do with beauty and proportion and kind of everything in its proper place so this is what the ark is and
Speaker A
when no and his sons had gone into the ark and his wife and the wives of the sons on the 17th day of the month of May at sunset the door of the ark was shut fast and Noah and his sons in captivity
Speaker A
in the darkness and as soon as the door of the ark was shut the floodgates of the heavens were opened and the foundations of the earth were rent a sunder and ocean that great sea which surrounded the whole world poured forth
Speaker A
his floods and whilst the floodgates of heaven were open and the foundations of the earth were rent aunderder the storehouses of the wind burst their bolts and storms and whirlwinds leapt forth and ocean roared and hurled its floods upon the earth. Now, what we get
Speaker A
next is a really actually chilling scene and it's the sort of thing that in you know like I don't know animated cartoons about the story of the ark growing up.
Speaker A
This is the sort of thing that was included. It's not there in Genesis but everybody's you sort of sense like obviously this would have to have happened and that is that the children of Seth Yeah. Before we go there, let just one
Speaker A
thing that I noticed the last reading you did, which is that it says that that they were shut into darkness.
Speaker A
Oh, yes. It's very odd. Like, so it's as if when you close the door of the ark, it's it it's dark inside the ark, which is which is interesting because it that's more of an image of death, right? It's a
Speaker A
very strange, you know, one might say almost like a tomb Jonathan. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's what it kind of feels like is that also because of your emphasizing the fact that Adam is there in his tomb and then it's like
Speaker A
this closing, you know, because there is a I mean, I've always had this theory, not just me, other other people, I'm sure, but that in some ways that the ark is is kind of like a seed. So, it's
Speaker A
actually a kind a return of everything into a form that isn't totally alive, right? That it's like the seed of life that it's it's like a contraction.
Speaker A
Well, you can even say like all the animals are are quieted. They're almost like, it doesn't say they're in stasis, but they're like in this the state of harmony and you got predators and prey and everything. So, it's like the normal
Speaker A
state of affairs in nature. All of that stuff is suspended and um you know, a tomb.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. No, cuz it's it's just wild because I've been thinking about this recently uh cuz I was doing research about one of the one of the the fairy tales and I was I I asked I was trying
Speaker A
to figure out if if there are traditions that the animals were asleep in the ark or not. and and uh it just it's just very interesting.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's you know and and the thing it makes me think about obviously you know in the hymns of the Orthodox Church we refer to the tomb constantly as being a bridal chamber.
Speaker A
Right. Right. So it's it's a place where you know it's like something is dying but something is also being remade or something new is being made. There's something new that is being joined and here you have this union and harmony of
Speaker A
the the masculine and the feminine happening in the ark. So it's kind of like that. It's kind of like this bridal chamber and it's a tomb and it's in darkness, right? There various reasons you might want a dark
Speaker A
room right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, tomb is one and a bridal chamber is another.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, for sure. It's just that it's just interesting because I've been looking into this with Sleeping Beauty recently. This idea of the sleeping bride. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. So, hello everyone. We are going to have a symbolic world summit in Oxford September 24th to the 26th. when you know the Cuzy House asked us to come and host an event there, we couldn't say no, but we're so excited about the
Speaker A
people we're able to bring there. So, you can start off and tell us what's going on.
Speaker A
Right. So, the theme for this summit is Paradise Imagined, and we are going to be looking at different depictions of of paradise, of the Garden of Eden, of heaven, of the earthly paradise, you know, throughout ancient and medieval
Speaker A
literature. We have an incredible lineup. Uh Dr. Martin Shaw will be there telling us stories. Uh we'll have Aiden Hart, Father Jacob Seammons, Father Andrew Steven Damik, yourself, myself.
Speaker A
Um it's going to be just an incredible event and um it won't all just be talks.
Speaker A
We're going to spend some time in Fusy House uh uh you know, hearing stories and doing lectures and so on. But then we're going to uh also spend a lot of time around Oxford. So, if you've ever wanted to go and do the Oxford things,
Speaker A
you know, um, uh, go to go to CS Lewis's house and drink in the pubs and get a tour of the town and things like this.
Speaker A
Like, if you've ever wanted to do the Oxford thing, uh, think about you could do it with Martin Shaw, you know, obviously, of course, me and Jonathan, but like I mean, come on. Buming around Oxford with Dr. Martin Shaw. Can you
Speaker A
imagine anything better than that? Yeah. And it's only 150 tickets, so it's going to be very intimate. That's why we don't have like a VIP. Everybody will will all be together and a lot of people are going to be there. Paul Kingsworth
Speaker A
is coming, you know, uh Heather Pollington will be there also. Even Mary Harrington is going to come and so and there are a lot of other people that going to come that are not the official speakers, but we're all going to be
Speaker A
going to be an amazing time with all these people together. Yeah. So, we know it's a weird time in the world right now to travel and everything else, but if you can possibly make it, I think this will be an
Speaker A
incredible event. And again, it's a small event. Uh there's actually a lot of risk putting on an event this small, but uh I'm just really excited about it.
Speaker A
So I hope you'll join us. We're told that the children of Seth, who had bismerged themselves in the mire of fornication, ran up to the door of the ark and entreated Noah to open to them the door of the ark. And when they
Speaker A
saw the water floods which were swirling about them and engulfing them on all sides, they were in great tribulation.
Speaker A
They tried to climb up the mountains of paradise, but were unable to do so. Now the ark was closed and sealed, and the angel of the Lord stood over one side of it, that he might act as the pilot
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thereof. And when the floods of waters mastered the children of Seth, they began to drown in their great and mighty waves. Then was fulfilled that which David spake concerning them, saying, "I said ye are gods, and all of you sons of
Speaker A
the most high, but since ye have done this and have loved the fornication of the daughters of Cain, like them you shall perish, even as they so sh they did, so shall ye die." So this is obviously an extended gloss on the psalm
Speaker A
verse, right? I said you are gods but you shall die like men which Christ in the gospel and there's different ways of interpreting this verse as the gods of the nations. Well, one of the glosses the gloss that's being given here is
Speaker A
refers to the sons of sons of Seth who are are are the the sons of God which has already been explained you know earlier in this work and now they are dying like men that is like like the
Speaker A
daughters of Cain. So, it's pretty pretty interesting. The image of people trying to climb the mountain paradise is is pretty that's pretty intense. That's a pretty That's I've got some visuals for sure.
Speaker A
Yeah. This is a good God's dog worthy flashback in my opinion. Exactly. Yeah. So, when the ark was lifted up from the earth by the mighty strength of the waters, all the children of men and the wild beasts and the feathered foul
Speaker A
and the cattle and the creeping things and everything living on the face of the earth was drowned. the waters of the flood mounted up top all the tops of the high mountains 15 cubits uh and there's variance on this 15 cubits or 25 cubits
Speaker A
or 50 cubits in other words lots of cubits um according to the measure of the spirit uh so there's this idea it comes from the sacred cubit that was used uh like like the the temple cubit um and
Speaker A
then eventually becomes known as the cubit of the holy ghost which is three ordinary cubits um and if you came to some talk that I've done in the last couple of years about the evils of the metric system. And I don't
Speaker A
know if we did this on on I never I don't know if we ever did this on your channel Jonathan.
Speaker A
No. Um I'm sure I'm sure I can I can I know your talk even if I never heard it. I know.
Speaker A
Well, no, no, but it's very I have math to prove everything I'm saying. like it's very very math heavy talk and I can't remember if I've talked about this on your channel or not but essentially um the the idea of three cubits is that
Speaker A
it's so a c a cubit is is uh there's the ancient Mesopotamian way of measuring time and measuring distance right basically divides it up into you know 360 smaller units this is where we get the degrees of the circle right and that
Speaker A
you know the the the minutes of the day and you know the 12-hour day and all these different things right So the idea then of the measure of the Holy Ghost or the measure of the spirit or the sacred the measure of the temple
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being three cubits like it is for instance when Ezekiel is is you know when the angel comes to measure me measure this the Jerusalem right um the whole point is that it's three worlds so they have this idea of if you
Speaker A
have 360 of something it's a full circle it's a complete day it's a complete month it's a complete year and it's like it's a whole world so This has something to do with this sort of the three different worlds or the tripartite
Speaker A
measurement of the temple. Yeah. Uh and then also of the ark, right? So that's why it's the cubit of the Holy Ghost. Three ordinary cubits.
Speaker A
Uh and the flood wax strong and the waters thereof lifted up the ark until it reached the skirts of the mountain of paradise. By the way, I feel like we should do like a fundraiser or something. And like the the the highest
Speaker A
goal is the metric system rant. I'll record it. We'll publish it and we can just send people back to it. You know, you can just take it, people living in Canada, and send it to your What do you
Speaker A
guys have? Congress, Senate, Senator, Parliament, what do you have? Yeah, whatever you guys have that whatever you guys have in Canada.
Speaker A
By the way, I have a very funny story that I have to tell you, but I can't tell you on recording. I'm going to be a terrible person and and tell you about I accidentally deleted Canada yesterday.
Speaker A
But anyway, I'll tell you the story later. So um um so the flood waxed strong, the waters thereof lifted up the ark until it reached the skirts of the mountain of paradise. And as the flood had been blessed by paradise that is had been
Speaker A
made holy, it bowed its head and kissed the skirts of paradise and turned itself back to destroy the earth.
Speaker A
It's a great image, beautiful image. Yeah. And it's the image also kind of like as of the psalm of God holding back, you know, the ocean. Um it's a great yeah you have to sort of think that every time you know like Noah holds back
Speaker A
the flood or the Jordan parts for the ark or anything like this that's what's happening you know the waters come this far and it clearly says throughout the scriptures over and over again like God has set the bounds that they the seas
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like shall not pass right so the waters come this far and then they sort of meet God and like all right my bad and they pay their respects and they turn around and the ark flew on the wings of the
Speaker A
wind over the waters of the flood from east to west and from north to south and it marked out by its path across upon the waters.
Speaker A
Huh. Interesting. Wow. Isn't that cool? I knew you would. I knew you'd be super into that.
Speaker A
I love that. That's such a great image. And the ark flew about for 150 days. And it came to rest on the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month. That is to say, on the first uh on the 17th day of
Speaker A
October, where I'm going next month, by the way, two month next month. I I'm I would be really envious except that I could also be going if I had not decided to prioritize my my my poor poor wife
Speaker A
at some point, you know, because we have this trip scheduled as a family. You're like, "Ah, it's all right. Let let her just take all the kids, you know, internationally by yourself. You just come to our media with me." And I was
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like, you know, I feel like I feel like it's a good way for both of us to die is what I feel like that is. And so anyway, but have fun for me. Say hello to the ark if
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you see it. And God commanded the waters and they became separated from each other. The celestial waters were taken up and ascended to their own place above. And the heaven the heavens whence they came.
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And the waters which had risen up from the earth returned to the lowermost abyss. Those which belong to ocean returned the innermost parts thereof.
Speaker A
And the waters which had been on the earth and had been assigned to it by the divine nod. This is actually a fun like the divine nod. This is a Zeus thing.
Speaker A
Yeah. like this is an ancient term, you know, like like when like Zeus gives his nod, the earth shakes, you know. So anyway, the point is like divine providence, but it's just kind of an interesting little little uh bit of of
Speaker A
you know, reference to like the Iliad in this Syrian thing uh assigned to it by the divine nod for this needs thereof from the beginning remainth upon it. So all the waters go back to where they belong. It doesn't happen instantly. He
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says, "The waters diminish little by little until the 10th month, which is February. On the first day thereof, the tops of the mountains appeared. And 40 days later, on the 10th of the month of March, Noah opened the east window of
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the ark and sent forth a raven to bring back tidings, and the raven departed and did not return." There's tons of commentary on this. What What's the significance of the raven not returning?
Speaker A
Did it Yeah. There's no because there's this whole interesting visual tradition in the church where you see the raven on a carcass.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. That's really important. I definitely found that it's not in here, I don't think, but I have I've come across that in other places.
Speaker A
Yeah. Uh Noah sent forth a dove and it found no place to rest and it returned to Noah on the ark. And after seven days he sent forth another dove and it returned to him carrying in its beak an olive leaf.
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Now the dove figureth for us the two covenants. In the first covenant the spirit which spake by the prophets did not find a a place of rest among the rebellious peoples that is the Jews. And in the second covenant it tested uh it rested
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on the peoples through the waters of baptism. So that's the interpretation here. I I just find this very interesting because usually the uh the when they do interpretation like this, it's the raven on the one hand and the
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doves on the other, the unclean bird and the clean birds. But here it's the two doves being the two dispensations or the two covenants and one doesn't find rest and the other ultimately finds rest on on the in the church. So
Speaker A
yeah, that I mean it's really fascinating for sure. I'm surprised they don't mention anything about the crow like about the raven. This is I think it's in terms of symbolism. It's a really interesting symbolism that before the new beginning there's a there's
Speaker A
something that has to be given sent out into the old world. That's really this idea is that there's some aspect of darkness that is given to the world that came before. Right? And that's why it stays with the old. That's why this
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image of eating the carcasses, the dead carcasses of the of the old world, um it's a really important aspect of symbolism, I talk about it actually um in in my interpretation of the symbolism of of Sleeping Beauty, which is the the
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former wife or like the mother of the husband. You know, when these fairy tales where someone marries a husband, gets taken into the the house of the mother and now the mother wants to eat the wife, right? It's like this
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remainder of the old world that has to be completely kind of cast out so it doesn't stay. It's almost like you don't want the raven to have stayed in the ark. You want it to be out there like
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just eating the remainder of the of the end of the of the last world, you know?
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Yeah. But it's a great the dove stuff is is perfect because obviously because especially because the dove comes down and lands on Christ in baptism. It's perfect, right? Yeah. I mean, definitely. and the the spirit brooding over the you know I
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mean that's that's that's also what what sort of clearly I think Matthew even talks about this in his book but this is what clearly sort of connects these three moments right is each of them is the creation of a world
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right there's the creation of the the world the first time there's a flood which is you know the and after the flood which is very much just a recreation of everything and then with Christ the Holy Spirit coming down in
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the form of the dove and resting on abiding on Christ and then Christ is remaking Adam and he's really especially especially in the early chapters of you know the first couple of chapters of St.
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John's gospel in which the the you know the events parallel the events of the creation week right Christ is recreating Adam he's recreating the world so all of that stuff yeah all that stuff works works nicely so in the 600th and first
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year of the life of Noah in the first day of the month of April the waters had dried up over the face of the earth and in the second month wherein Noah went into the ark on the 27th day on the
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first holy first day of the week that is Sunday their going forth took place he and his wife went forth and his sons and their wives went with them. Now, when they went into the ark, they went in
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separate companies. Noah and his sons in one company, his wife and their wives in another company.
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The men did not know the women until they went forth from the ark. This is a huge problem uh for the other traditions where there's like a Well, actually, no, it's not. I mean, the the idea before Son of Noah uh being born, it doesn't
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necessarily mean he was conceived on the ark right? They can be conceived before. Yeah. some way like obviously nothing could be conceived on the ark because like the world is in this.
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Yeah. You know more sense that he would have been conceived and born on the ark, right? Yes. But anyway, in any case, the men did not know the women until they went forth from the ark and all the wild beasts and all the
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cattle and all the feathered foul and all the creeping things went forth from the ark on the first day of the week. By the way, the interesting thing to notice here is that this is kind of the reverse
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order of the creation week. So in the creation week it's it's on the sixth day that animals are made and at the very end of that man and then after man woman.
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Yeah. And so here we get off it's a very in uh programming terms it's a first in last out system right so uh so Noah representing Adam right comes out first and he's followed by the women and then
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followed by the animals kind of in reverse order that each class of animal was created. All right. So when they had gone forth, Noah began to work on the ground, and they built a city, and they named thereof, called the name
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thereofon, which means the eight after the eight souls who had gone forth from the ark. I love you squinting because it means you've never heard this tradition before.
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No, I've never heard this tradition before. This is great. Um, yeah. So Noah builds a city and that's where he builds an altar and it says, "And offered up upon an offering of beasts that were clean and feathered foul." And God was
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appeased by the offering of Noah, and established with him an everlasting covenant, and swore an oath, saying, I will never again make a flood. And he took away the arrow of wrath from the bow which is in the clouds, and he
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stripped it from it the string of anger, and spread it out that has unbent it in the clouds.
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Nice. Yeah. Super great. For formerly, for formerly when the bow was bent in the firmament against the generation of the children of Cain, the murderer, they used to see the arrow of wrath placed in position on the string of anger. But
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after the flood, they did not see the arrow on the string. That's amazing. What a great image.
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First of all, it's so wild because to me, it's so intuitive that the sacrifice that Noah offered was from the mountain, right? So like to me, it's like he got off the boat and then made sacrifice there at the top of the mountain. But
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this image that in some ways he made it in the city. Well, Jonathan, your intuition is not wrong. Yeah, because uh there's a note uh according to the book of Adam uh the altar on which Noah sacrificed was the altar on
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which Adam, Cain and Abel had laid their offerings. Okay, it had been damaged by the flood but Noah rebuilt it.
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And then they talk about the identification of the city. The city of Feminon is very is identified with a bunch of kind of places in that part of the world including Nissibus um in the book of the bee.
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But um there's different different identifications including some places where historically for instance um uh people have believed that uh that the tomb of Noah was there. Um we need to talk about the the the a little bit about the bow.
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Oh, so talking about the bow. Yeah. I mean, I just I just love that image because obviously there are different ways of interpreting this symbolism of the the rainbow. Sometimes you can interpret it as this idea that God puts a a bridge in the heavens,
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right? And so that bridge as it goes up and down, let's say like a ladder, that that's the image of the covenant between there's another way of understanding it, which is that that it's a circum circumcal arc, right? So if sometimes
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you see a rainbow that's a circle in the top of the the the dome of heaven and that it's in some ways an image of like a a kind of fullness around like this image of the rainbow around Christ for
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example. You see that in some uh traditional imagery. But the idea of also the bow as being the judgment of God that now has been turned into an image of peace is a great such a great image of like the the ar the archers
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bow. Yeah. what um when I was so we just actually released a documentary episode today over on the Orthodox Pilgrim about my trip to Iona with Father Andrew last year and but one of the crazy things and this is in the footage that we took
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there. One of the crazy things about Iona is just like we would just constantly see rainbows non-stop and it was like the most I don't know how else to say it. The most cartoon rainbow.
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Like if you asked a child to draw a picture of a rainbow, this is what it would look like. It's like there's gray sky on the outside of the rainbow and then there's just a perfect arc and where the rainbow hits the water on
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either side it's just like there's a a pool of gold at the bottom of the rainbow and then on inside the ark of the rainbow it's it's totally clear blue sky.
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So outside is gray, inside is totally clear. You can see this like again on the the the footage that we took it in the documentary, but it was insane. I mean, we see rainbows because it rains a lot in Texas and so I see rainbows all
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the time, but I've never seen them like this. I see rainbows on the ocean.
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Never seen them like this. Not Yeah. on the ocean, on the water, but also I mean, you start you start to really, you know, and I I don't know enough about rainbows to know maybe they just look different at different latitudes,
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something. I don't know. Yeah. But when you saw rainbows in Scotland and there were just like this incredible thing, you're like, "Okay, there might be something to the rainbow thing like you know." Yeah, for sure.
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You know, this is not just people noticing light refracting. This is this is pretty this is pretty insane.
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Pretty epic. Pretty epic. Yeah. Yeah. So, um anyway, so there's these different ideas about where the the city of Noah is supposed to be, but what they all say is that it was situated high up in the mountains.
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Okay. So there is a connection between the mountain. Yeah. So your intuition is is correct.
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Uh even you know if this is not you know something we could easily map to. Right.
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So now we get to the Noah story that I know you're waiting for. That's all the implications of that are horrible.
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Let's just be honest. All right. We know this is what you're waiting for. All right. So this is actually a relatively tame version, but we'll uh we'll go through it. And then also it's really interesting to look at the uh
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interpretation that's given of it here. Mhm. So when they had gone forth from the ark, they swed seed and planted a vineyard and they pressed out new wine.
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And Noah drew nigh and drank some of it. And immediately he had drunk of it. He became drunk. After falling having fallen asleep, sh his shame was seen.
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And his son Ham saw the nakedness of his father and did not cover it. But he laughed at him and made a mock of him.
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and he ran and called his brethren that they might also make a mock of their father. And when Shem and Japheth heard of it, they were dismayed exceedingly, and they rose up and took a cloak and walked backwards with their faces turned
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away so that they might not see the nakedness of their father. And they cast the cloak over him and covered him. And when Noah woke up from the sleep of his wine, his wife told him about everything that had happened. And he also within
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himself knew what had happened to him. And Noah was exceedingly angry with the son Ham. and he said, "Cursed be Canaan.
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He shall be a servant of servants to his brethren." Okay, so this is more or less exactly the way it is in Genesis. And is there maybe some subtext here? Um, this phrase like uncovering the nakedness of your mother means something very
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particular in the rest of the Old Testament. Yeah. So, I don't think you can rule it out here, especially when it says, you know, his wife told him everything that happened, you know, once he woke up.
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Um, so yeah, I don't you want to say anything about that? It's hard to tell. I think I mean I think that the two the interpretation obviously that Father Steven D. Young comes to with incest in terms of the the the the um
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the curse on Kanan rather than than Right. And so I think that that's a really interesting one. But you can also play it straight in terms of the way it's I've seen it in iconography. It's usually represented quite straight. You
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see them with the drunk man on on laid down and then you see the people walking backwards kind of holding a cloak. so they can put it on their father. You know that in general it is in some ways
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a kind of shame that is being exposed. Doesn't matter how you think about it that it's the fact that Noah lost control of himself and of his house and that brought about and exposing his weakness and his shame and and and
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therefore you know the the one son that is uh taking advantage of that to user his father. So either you play it straight with the story and or you see the subtext, it still is the same story.
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But it's true that it's such a weird thing that if you don't have the subtext, the curse of Kanan just doesn't it's just hard to defend it, you know.
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Well, his son like why is he? It's actually very easy to understand the curse of Kanan. Uh because I know something you don't Jonathan.
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Okay, please. And that is that Kanan is really into woodwind instruments. So, here we go.
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All right, here we go. I was going to say like, what the hell's going on here?
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Why, since the whole of the folly was Hams, was Canaan cursed? Oh, well, my goodness. We're going to hear it.
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You're going to hear it. Except that when the youth grew up and attained the full measure of his understanding, Satan entered into him and became a teacher of sin, and he renewed the work of the house of Cain, the murderer. He
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constructed and made reed instruments and harps, and the fiends and the devils went unto them, and dwelt therein. And immediately wind was blown through them, the reeds and the devils sang inside of them, and sent forth loud sounds. And
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when men struck the harps, the devils became operative inside of them. And when Noah heard that Canaan had done this, he was grieved sorely because the work of error through which the fall of the children of Seth had taken place was
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renewed. I am for by means of singing and lewd play and the mad lasciviousness of the children of Cain, Satan had cast down the mighty men, the sons of God, into fornication. And through the music of reed pipes and harps, sin had multiplied
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among the former generations until at last God became wroth and made the flood. And Canaan was cursed because he had dared to do this. and his seed became a servant of servants. That is to say, servants to the Ethiopians and the
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Kushites and the Mians and the Indians and the Ethiopians because and because Ham had dared to make a mock of his father, he was called vile or lascivious all the days of his life. Now, there's one more thing to kind of connect all
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this stuff together because again, the author here sees a parallel in the Psalms. says, "Now Noah in his lying down in sleep, having drunk wine, symbolizeth the cross of Christ, as the blessed man Davidth singth in his psalm concerning him, saying, "Wake up,
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Lord, like a sleeping man and like a man whom wine hath overcome." Yeah. Yeah. And when our Lord rose from the dead, he cursed the Jews and scattered them among the nations. Now the seed of Canaan, as I've already said, are
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Egyptians, and behold, they are scattered over the whole earth, and they have been made servants of servants. And of what kind is the slavery of slavery?
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Behold, the Egyptians go round about all over the earth carrying loads on their backs or their necks. Now, men who are not fed under the yoke of slavery when dispatched by their masters on journeys, do not march on their feet and carry
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loads, but they ride upon beasts in an honorable manner like their masters. The seed of Ham are the Egyptians who carry loads and they march on the roads with their backs and necks breaking under the loads and they wander around to the
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doors of the children of their brethren. The seed of Ham was reduced through the folly of Canaan to suffer this penalty that is to become servants even to servants.
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Okay, so let's break this down. There's Yeah, there's a lot there's a lot going on going on in there. First of all, first of all, the connection, the beautiful connection that they make, which is that in some ways the the
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mocking of his father's nakedness is a giving in to a kind ofivity, like a kind of a kind of perversion, right? no matter how whether you play it straight or not, like there's something perverse about the fact that he's mocking his
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father's nakedness and that Canaan then in some ways the next step which is to weaponize that you could say that passion into a return to the the the practice of the the daughters of of uh Cain. And I think the insight, you know,
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this is an insight that I've had for a very long time, which is actually in the story of St. Christopher. We have it in God's dog as well, which is that the connection, weird connection between Cain, Canaan, uh the idea that in some
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ways they repeat the curse of Canaan and that also explains why there's a relationship between this the children of Canaan and the giants and the children of Cain and the giants in the the Old Testament. In God's dog, we I
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mean, actually, this is like almost a reveal that I'm doing here. We have this idea that Canaan takes on on purpose takes on Cain's curse not just because of of the the not in some way just because of the disadvantage but also be
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to be protected because because he's the son of Ham. Ham is in trouble now. So you take the curse of Cain upon you, the mark of Cain upon you to be protected also as being cursed like those two
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together, you know. Anyways, but it's weird that he goes for the Egyptian thing because I guess because he imagined the Egyptians that the slaves would built the pyramids. I'm thinking, how does he get the idea that the Egyptians are carrying clothes on their
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backs? Well, you got to think about when this is being written. Um, and at this point, Egypt is sort of part of the uh part of the Roman Empire, but there's very much like two classes in Egypt. There's the
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like the TMIC dynasty class, you know, Cleopatra and all that, and they're very much ruling, but the the OG Egyptians, the original, you know, ethnic Egyptians, they've been reduced to slaves.
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They've been reduced to slaves at this point. Okay. So that's probably that that makes total sense and even in the time let's say of the later if if this isn't if this was written later even then the Egyptians at this point have been taken
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by the Muslims. So so this is written before the Arab conquest. So this would be before that but still but but not long before that right.
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Yeah. So, okay. The other thing I want to point out here is this this weird thing with I mean, listen, growing up, very tea totler, right? I remember the the simultaneously the there's no actual wine in the Bible. Do you remember this?
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They didn't have fermentation technology back then. Simultaneously in the same sermon as look how bad it is to get drunk. Look at what Noah does. Makes a fool of himself.
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That is not the direction that this commentator goes. M the direction this commentator goes is to say actually and now you see how Noah symbolizes Christ and he he takes this very strange verse in the Psalms right wake up oh Lord like a sleeping man and
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like a man whom mine hath overcome and he says you know he says that psalm is about Christ's resurrection when Christ rises and he judges who does he judge he judges the gods of the earth and he judges the Jewish people right uh so
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here Noah is waking up and what is Noah doing well Noah is judging who is he judging well the same gods like who have taken up possession of Canaan, right? And to some extent Ham, right?
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He's judging them and he's condemning them to slavery basically. Yeah. It's weird because it's actually it's it's it's closer to the text than a Christian glo because in the text there's no blame put on Noah at all.
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Noah has no blame for getting drunk. And I I will just tell you Genesis like does not assign nearly as much blame to many people as you wish as I might be inclined to do personally.
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Great. And so, and so let's let's think this through in terms of how you could kind of understand obviously the relationship between death and drunkenness or the loss of control, right? In the sense that Christ, his passion is his willing giving his will
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to the people that were killing him, you know, kind of subjecting his will to the to people that were killing him. So obviously this is for us like as kind of former Baptists man this is really painful to think of drunk like let's say
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conscious drunkenness right uh as a way to signify a fall into death you know is there a story in the Bible where somebody gets drunk to signify something like that that does it on purpose I can't think of
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I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Sort of the closest thing to this is that there is a certain feast in the Torah where you're actually commanded to get drunk.
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Yeah. This is Yeah. And um well, it's not Purum. That's not in the Torah. That's later.
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That's right. That's later. That's that's that's Book of Esther stuff. No, this is one of the I think it's the Feast of Booth. It's one of the ones you're required to go to. Gh, I need to look this up now, but is this is
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one of the ones where you're required to go to uh Jerusalem, but if you're or go to the tabernacle, obviously no Jerusalem at this point, but you're required to go to the tab and if you can't get to the tabernacle, then what
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you're supposed to do is take the money you would have taken and instead use it buy a bunch of food and drink and have a big party and eat and drink before the Lord, right? And there's this say to get drunk.
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Yeah. But but it says it says you're buying it says you're buying strong drink though.
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Yeah. like and I I think that the idea in the ancient world that you were going to buy strong drink and I don't know keep it as a collector's item is not not part of the equation, right? So there is this set but but even
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then it's it it is it it is a it's a feast that's associated with death and renewal, right? And so anyway, there are there are some connections there. This is something to maybe think would just would just crush it right now if he was
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Why is he not on this call? Jonathan, I don't know. We have to send him this video and ask him to give us Yeah, I would I would love a guest uh a guest appearance on Universal History.
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Uh that'd be great because I I really like this is I I've always felt even as a kid that this is the weirdest story in like one of the weirdest stories in the Bible.
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Like it's just it raises so many questions and it's at such an early position in the story. Um, and you know, obviously lots of people, there's tons of different Petristic interpretations on this passage. Um, so it's really interesting to see the way that they go
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with this here and they see a kind of, you know, this is very much like an arise, O Lord, and judge the earth moment as Noah wakes up and he passes judgment um, including over these, you know, basically over the Nephilim, right? This
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the same spirits who possessed the sons of Seth and the sons of Cain before the flood are now entering into Canaan and he is renewing the work of Cain in the world.
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That's right. Yeah. So, um I I'll just also add this from the book of the bee. It says concerning the curse of Ham, the reason why Noah cursed Canaan, who was not as yet born, nor had sinned was because Ham
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had, so he's not yet born, nor had he sinned yet, was because Ham had been saved with him in the ark from the waters of the flood and had with his father received the divine blessing and also because the
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arts of sin, I mean, music and dancing and all other hateful things um were about to be revived by his posterity for the art of music proceeding from the seed of Canaan.
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Yeah, it really is just like again that documentary they made with Kevin Bacon about the one town where there's no dancing and Kevin Bacon plays the villain who gets all the kids to dance again. Do you know what I'm talking
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about? Yeah, I've heard about Yeah. Yeah. Um the same work adds after the flood a son was born to Noah and he called his name Yonaton and he provided him with gifts and sent him to the fire of the sun to the east.
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Oh yeah. Okay. So, this is the this is the this is the Chinese this is the Chinese son of Noah here.
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Chinese or perhaps Persian maybe. Not Persian. You think? Okay. Okay. Just I just want to say guys, we are getting there. We are getting to Persia.
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Um I'm going to start a new series where we just do the universal history of different countries, but we always start in Genesis.
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Like I feel like that's the the right way to do it. Did he give him the gifts though or does it say that he gave him the He gave him the gifts. provided him with gifts and sent him to the fire of the
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sun to the east. Oh, but it doesn't say with the with the myrr the incense.
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It doesn't say which gifts he sent him with in the book of the bee.
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The book of Adam also says that Noah marries says marries another wife. I have questions, but in any case, he marries another wife who bears him seven children and he continues to dwell on the mountain until the end of his
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days. All right. So, maybe we can come back to let's think about the drunkenness some more maybe.
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And um cuz cuz also you know there's there's a story in the cabern and a guest that seems like may I don't know not not exactly related but like maybe not unrelated. So I don't know this is something this is something we should we
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should think about some more and maybe come back to next video. Uh but in any case um Noah lived 350 years after he came forth from the ark. And when he was sick unto death, Shem, Ham, and Japheth
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and Arfacad and Salah gathered together unto him. And Noah called Shem his firstborn, and said unto him privy, Take heed, my son Shem, what I say unto you this day, when I am dead, go into the ark wherein thou hast been saved, and
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bring out the body of our father Adam, and let no man have knowledge of what thou doest, and take with thee from this place provision for the way, which will be bread and wine.
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and take with you Melkchisedc the son of Malik because him hath God chosen from you among from among all your descendants that he may minister before him in respect to the body of our father Adam.
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Okay. So yes, Hashem isn't Melkisedc. Is that we talked about that in the last but he is the father of the grandfather of Melkisedc.
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Yes, but asterisk that because I'm about to tell you another really wild Melkisedc tradition.
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All right. Okay. Yeah. So we'll get to it in a second here. Let's get through the sort of the feast of the translation of the relics of Adam, which is what we're reading about right now. And then I will tell you another
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weird MelkiseDC story and you can tell me what you make of it because I I'm not sure what to make of it.
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And it says uh um and take the body and place it in the center of the earth and make MelkiseDC to sit down there and the angel of God shall go before you and shall show you the wayin you shall go
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and also the place wherein the body of Adam shall be deposited which is indeed the center of the earth. There the four quarters of the earth embraced each other. For when God made the earth, his power went before it, and the earth from
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his four quarters ran after it like the winds and the swift breezes. And there in the center of the earth, his power stood still and was motionless.
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It's beautiful. And think about St. Maximus saying, "When Christ is on the cross, he finished creating the world." Yeah.
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Right. There shall redemption be made for Adam and for all his posterity. Now this story or mystery was handed down to us from Adam and all generations. And Adam commanded Seth and Seth commanded Enosh. And Enoch commanded Canaan, the
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first Canaan. And Canaan commanded Mahal. And Mahal commanded Yared. And Yarod commanded Enoch, and Enoch commanded Methusel. And Methuselah commanded Lamech. And behold, I command thee this day. And take heed that the story is never mentioned again in all
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your generations. H get thee up, take the body of Adam, and deposit it secretly in a place which God shall show thee until the day of redemption. And when Noah had given all these commands unto his son Shem, he
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died, being 950 years old, in the month of May, on the second day thereof, at the second hour of the first day of the week, on a Sunday. And Shem his son, embalmed him, and buried him in the city
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which he had built, and they made a mourning for him 40 days. Now um there is some stuff here in places like uh that comment on this like the Kev guest and the um um the Kevast in the book of the bee uh
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which talk about um at the death of Noah that during his dying speech he indicates to each of his sons which parts of the earth his posterity are supposed to occupy. Mhm.
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And so essentially Shem is given Asia, um Japheth is given Europe and Ham is given Africa, right? And those are the three classical continents. Um in fact, if you go and you look at the universal history master class, there's this
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incredible uh image for the class that was made by Hugh Rose, who does a lot of our art and illustration for the symbolic world. And on there, you will you will literally see the three the three classical continents.
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Yeah. We call it team map. Yeah. Yeah. call the T- map. Yeah. So, um later um it also mentions that Canaan, a descendant of Ham, had seven sons and he seized seven of the great cities of Shem and he set these sons
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over them. So, these are the Canaanites. Um so, this is part of what's considered part of Asia. So, this actually doesn't belong to the descendants of Ham, but it's been unlawfully taken by the the sons of Canaan. And uh later it says God
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gave back these cities to the children of Shem and blotted out Canaan's posterity. And that that is done through that is done through the um you know through the conquest of Canaan.
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And by the way uh you know within this tradition for instance in the Keernigast uh the Ethiopians do not see themselves as descendants of Ham. They see themselves as being descendants of Shem.
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Okay. Yeah. I mean it makes sense with their tradition. Yeah. Their own tradition that ultimately they they are basically Israelites that they descendants of the Israelites.
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Right. So after the death of Noah, Shem did as his father had commanded him. And he went into the ark by night and brought out the body of Adam there from and sealed the ark with with his father's seal so that no man perceived
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what he had done. So the ark is sealed shut with Noah's seal. And he called Ham and Japheth and said unto them, "My brethren, my father commanded to me to go up and travel over the whole earth, even to the sea, and I am to see what
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rivers are like are like, what the rivers are like, and then return unto you. And behold, my wife and the children of my house are with you. Let your eyes be upon them." And his brethren said unto him, "Take with the
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accompany of men from the camp, for the land is a desert waste, and a short of inhabitants, and there are wild beasts therein." And Shem said unto them, "The angel of the Lord shall go up with me, and he shall save me from every evil
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thing." And his brethren said unto him, "Go in peace, and may the Lord God of our fathers be with thee." And Shem said unto Malik, the brother of Salah, the son of Canaan, and the grandson of Arfaxad, the father of Melkisedc. Um and
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and to Yosec his mother, "Give ye me Melkisedc that he may go up with me and be a consolation for me on the road." And Malik and Yosedc his mother said unto Shem, "Take him and go in peace."
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And Shem gave commands unto his brethren, and said unto them, "My brethren, my father made me swear that I neither I nor any of your descendants should go into the ark." And he sealed the ark with a seal and said unto them,
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"Let no man go near it." So notice that Shem speaks to Malik who's the son of Canaan, the grandson of Arfaxad.
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So this is a different Canaan. It's a little different. I was going to say like what is happening here? I'm confused.
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But just wait. But just wait. Um because there is surprise surprise some ambiguity ambiguity about the parentage of MelkiseDC who is without father or mother without generation right you know as it says in Genesis so we'll come back to this
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okay so took the body of Adam and MelkiseDC and went forth from night by night from among his people and behold the angel of the Lord was going before them and appeared unto them and their journey was very speedy because the angel of the
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Lord strengthened them until they arrived at that place and when they arrived At Golgtha, which is the center of the earth, the angel of the Lord showed Shem the place for the body of Adam. And when Shem had deposited the
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body of our father Adam upon that place, the four quarters of the earth separated themselves from each other, and the earth opened up in the form of a cross.
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And Shem and Melkisedc departed the body of Adam there in the cavity. And as soon as they had laid it there, in the four quarters of the earth drew quickly together, and enclosed the body of our father Adam, and the door of the created
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world was shut fast. And that place was called the skull because the head of all the children of men was deposited there.
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And it was called Golgtha because it was round like the head and reifa a trotten down thing because the head of the accursed serpent that is to say Satan was crushed there and Gabbatha because all the nations were there were to be
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gathered together to it. So in the book of the bee says that uh MelkiseDC that neither the father nor the mother of Melkisedc were written down in the genealogies. Um not that he had no natural parents but they
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were simply not written down. And the greater numbers it says of the doctors say that he was of the sect of Canaan whom Noah cursed.
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In the book of the chronography however the author affirms and says that he was of the seed of Shem the son of Noah.
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Shem begget. Our fact said, our facts had said begat Canaan, a different Canaan. Canaan begat Shal and and Malah and Shalah was written down in the genealogies, but Malah was not because his affairs were not sufficiently important to be written down in the
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genealogies. The book of Adam says that Canaan was the father of Melkisedc and that the angel of the face or Michael appeared to him and told him that he was going to be send his son away from him. This same
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angel also appeared to MelkiseDC and told him to go with Shem to minister before the body of Adam in the center of the earth and also to Shem. After his interview with the angel, Shem made a splendid coffin to hold the body of Adam
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and prepared bread and wine for the journey. When he and MelkiseDC went to the ark to take out the body, they found that the door had been locked by Noah and they had no key to open it. As soon
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as MelkiseDC touched the lock, the door opened of itself, and the voice of Adam was heard to address him as the priest of the most high God. MelkiseDC went down into the ark and Michael helped him to carry out Adam's body and Shem
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brought out the gold, frankincense, and myrr. Shem laid the body in the coffin which he had made and then shut the door of the ark. MelkiseDC was 15 years of age when he sat out with Shem. And the
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voice of Adam told Shem when they arrived at the center of the earth. And as soon as the coffin touched the rock the rot split rock split us under to receive it. On the following morning, MelkiseDC builded an altar of 12 stones
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and offered upon it the bread and wine which Shem had brought from paradise. So thoughts comments?
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Yeah, I mean there's so much going on this weird idea that in some ways um MelkiseDC is the the servant of is the descendant of Canaan. You know, this is an interesting I mean, I'm riffing now because I never heard that before. The
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interesting idea that could be taken from that is there's a sense in which the the the Eucharist is both the sacrifice of of Cain and the sacrifice of Abel. I talked about that before, which is that the sac in at least in the
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in the Genesis, the sacrifice of the fruits of the earth are the Cain sacrifice. later obviously with Moses there will be aspects of sacrifice that are related to agricultural uh product but at least in Genesis this is the only
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place where we see this and so this idea of the bread and the wine being offered even now in this story there seems to be a desire in some ways to at least create ambiguity between the two lines or
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create a place where they're coming back together already even though there is a curse that there is a sense in which there's a way in which these two lines are actually going to come back together. And that's what the center of
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the world is, right? The center of the world is not affected by the curse. It's like a new a new garden or a new center.
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Um, and so that's really the only thing I can kind of gather from this is that either they're explicitly saying is a descendant of Canaan or they're doing on purpose to have a new Canaan to create a type of narrative ambiguity which would
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suggest the joining of the lines once again, you know. Yeah. It's um I just find this all stuff I really wonderfully strange. When we finish our Persian series, I would actually like to come back and do another video just
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about MelkiseDC and look at look at some of the other Melkisedc traditions. Yeah, for sure.
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Um it's really interesting, of course, that this is a weird detail to like for me to zoom in on. I don't know what it says about me.
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Um but I'm just thinking about well where did they get the wine? Well, obviously they got the wine from where Noah got the wine, right? You know, that's where they're leaving. It's Noah's vineyard.
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Yeah. You know, this is the year, you know, 2000 uh uh uh since the creation of the world vintage, you know, uh really strong potent stuff, you know. Um and uh you know, it's it's not not your daddy's
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wine. And it is your daddy's wine, you know, like it's just like it's just like, you know, and that's the stuff. And then of course later on um later later on, the sacrifice of MelkiseDC with Abraham will once again
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be bread and wine. So that's the thing that it focuses on here. It says, "Shem said unto MelkiseDC, thou shalt be the priest of the most high God because thou alone has chosen to minister before him in this place, and thou shalt dwell here
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continually, and shall not depart from this place all the days of thy life. Thou shalt not take a wife. Thou shalt not shave thy head. Thou shalt not pour out blood in this place, which is a normally that's how you do sacrifices.
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Thou shalt not offer up wild beast, nor feathered fowl, but thou shalt offer up bread and wine always. And thou shalt not build a building in this place. And behold, the angel of the Lord shall come down to thee and visit thee continually.
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And Shem embraced Melkisedc, and blessed him, and returned to his people. And Malik, the father of Melkisedc, and Yoseak, his mother, said unto Shem, "Where's the young man?" And he said he died on the journey and I buried him
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there and they mourned him greatly. What? That's so wild. The he brings him there, leaves him there, goes back and lies about He says he's dead.
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Did it say that he does that he didn't take a wife? Does Did I hear that?
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Yeah, it said Yeah. He's not to take a wife. Not to shave his head. Not to take a wife. Um, and in fact, what's sort of described minus the wine, it's something very much sort of like a Nazerite vow.
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Yeah, for sure. He's not cutting his hair. He's living a celibate life. Um, it says um that Melkazedc wore a tunic of skin and a leather girdle. So, we should be thinking of like John the Baptist or Elijah here, right?
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And an angel dwelt with him and protected him and gave him food like Elijah.
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Yeah. And when he was old, the kings of the earth heard his fame, and 11 of them gathered together and came to see him, and they entreated him to go with them, but he would not be persuaded. And when
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he did not conform to their wishes, they built a city for him there, and he called it Jerusalem. And the king said to one another, "This is the king of all the earth and the father of nations." Oh, yeah.
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Yeah. What a great image. And so Melchisedc becomes a a kind of Elijah John the Baptist figure, an aesthetic that actually the idea is that it's not just that he it's that he doesn't have generation like he has no children. He
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will never have children. He's like this this this seed and so like a total oneoff and the reason why he's so young is so that he can be alive still when Abraham comes through the story.
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Yeah. I mean, the thing is that there's no strong Well, okay. So, if you follow I did the math on this once and I could be wrong about this, but I don't think I am. Um, if you follow just the the
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lifespans and the overlap in the book of Genesis, Shem is still alive when Isaac is born.
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Right. That's what that's why some people think that's why the tradition that that Nekisc is Shem, right? Yeah. And so, that's not the tradition here.
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Yeah. But it's a really interesting this is a really interesting tradition because it's like a oneoff ambiguous son that we like it's like he's the son of Canaan. He's the son of Shem. He's put there. He doesn't have children. He
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just stays there like a like a monk or like a kind of right in the middle of the world as this like pillar that kind of unites heaven and earth, you know. Um and then the and then the great city is
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built around him. And so you it's really important to think about also in terms of the Christian readings of the Old Testament. What are we setting up here?
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We're setting up the MelkiseDC priesthood. Yeah, of course. This is a way of glossing Genesis. It's a way of answering the question, what does it mean for there to be a priest after the type or the order of MelkiseDC
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who offers bread and wine as his primary sacrifice? And so the the point here is of course this is a priesthood which is like a secret priesthood. You know, this is why it doesn't show up in the Torah,
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right? You know this one of that's the point of the secrecy. This is a secret priesthood um which predates the Levitical priesthood and it has a sacrifice which trumps those sacrifices.
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Yeah. Right. Of which those sacrifices are actually kind of the lesser copy. Um and the point is guarding the body of Adam until the second Adam comes to renew it.
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Right. And then at that point the secret is going to be revealed and the Melkisedc priesthood you know will spread over the whole earth again.
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Yeah. And it's interesting because the all the priest the Christian priesthood is always a one-off.
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Right. Right. That is there is no it's not a generation. It's not like the priest in the Old Testament that it's like the son of the priest would become the neck priest. The the the Christian Christian priesthood is is both in the east and
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west. whether or not priests have children. Although in Russia it's like it's kind of expected to you to become a priest. It's not that's not an actual canonical thing. You don't you know just because you're the son of the priest
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doesn't mean you become a priest, right? And certainly like you're not you're not born a priest. Like somebody has to put hands on your head and do that to you, right?
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And so that's kind of the idea. So we see MelkiseDC set aside as sort of like the first person ordained. Yeah.
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Right. And so before this there was a just a lineal priesthood that was a priesthood of Adam that he passes on to each you know from eldest son to eldest son eldest son.
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But that terminates at Shem and so Shem God tells Shem to take Melkisec who's not his son and is either descended from him or not but either way is not not his own his son. Yeah. He's either his
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grandfather grandson or Yeah. to take him aside. And so in this sense this is another sense in which the MelkiseDC priesthood is without generation. right to take him aside and to set him aside for this. And so he's
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got particular vestments that he wears. He's got a clerical tauncher basically, right? He's not cutting his hair. This is a form of showing in the ancient world somebody is set apart for service to God in this way. So we're setting
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things up. And if that man, if any of this sounds farfetched to any of you, go read the book of Hebrews. You know, you can you can agree with this or not, but it is very much something like this.
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Well, it's at least there to help you understand the the strange uh text in Gen in Genesis, you know, because it's already strange in also like where does MelkiseDC get mentioned again in the Psalms.
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Yeah. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand and this says, "And I have made you a high priest ever after the order of MelkiseDC." The heck is that doing in the Psalms? Right. Well, that's
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the most answered question in the New Testament. That's why it's the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament because St. Peter, St. Paul, Christ himself, they're constantly going back to this.
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They're constantly going back to this passage. Yeah. But it's a great way to work it out, which is that, you know, the fact that because you think right away, you're like, why does it have to be Shem's grandson? Why can it just be one
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of his sons? You know, and so all of this, why do they have the Canaanite the Canaan mansion? All this is in some ways to break the idea of lineage, you know, the the lineage that we've been seeing
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since the beginning of the story, like you said, which is that from Adam to his son to his son to Seth to his son. Uh, now it's something different. Yeah. And then they tells everyone that he's dead.
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It's wild. That's such a wild detail. It's very It's really interesting. So, very quickly, we get at the end of the 3,000 years, we get a summary of the events of the Tower of Babel. And we are going to talk about them more next time,
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but I'm just going to read the summary and then we can kind of nicely finish.
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And I promise you guys, next time we do get to Persia. So, really really really we definitely do.
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So we're we're told um in the days of Pelleg all the tribes. So So we get genealogies, you know, you know, Shem dies and then his son dies, then his son dies and they just mention all the stuff
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and there's no more. We're putting their body in the cave of treasures and mourning them. That age has now passed.
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Noah is the last guy we we mourned in that way. And now it's just sort of like lifespans are slowly shortening. Time is running on. And in the days of Pelleg, all the tribes of the families of the
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children of Noah gathered together and went up from the east, and they found a plain in the lion land of Shinar, and they all sat down there. And from Adam until this time, they were all of one speech and language. Now,
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what language do you think is the language which everybody spoke before what's about to happen on the plane of Shinar?
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Yeah. when what I would think or what I think is in the text. What are you expecting?
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Is it Is it Georgian? Is it Georgian to conserve? It's not Georgian in the text.
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First of all, we all know that the Adamic language is actually Albanian. Ask any Albanian. They'll tell you Adam spoke Albanian. The King James Bible is originally written in Albanian.
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I made the mistake of asking a Georgian is the mistake I made. And they said Georgian.
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That's right. For sure. 100%. I mean, if you Hebrew is the is the language that I would that it's the easiest to go to.
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So, if you ask people in the ancient world, you usually get one of two answers. Uh, and it sort of depends on where you are. If you're in like Western Europe, they'll say Hebrew.
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Yeah. And if you're anywhere in the east, they'll say obviously obviously my language. Yeah.
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And so this text being a Syrian text says they all spake this language, that is to say Syrian or which is Aramaan or that is Aramaic. And this language is the king of all languages.
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Yeah. Now ancient writers have errored in that they said that Hebrew was the first language.
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Oh, then they go there. And in this matter they have mingled an ignorant mistake with their writing. For all the languages of the world are derived from Syrian. By the way, Syrian bros out there, love you guys. No shade
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at all. This is awesome. um and all the languages in the books are mingled with it. In the writing of the Syrians, the left hand stretches out to the right hand and all the children of the left hand that is the heathen
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draw nigh to the right hand of God. Now with the Greeks and the Romans and the Hebrews, the right hand stretches out to the left. Um this is some kind of a he's trying to make some point about
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writing right to left. Yeah, left to right. Left to right. But Hebrew is also written from right to left. So I don't exactly know. I just don't know what he's getting at now.
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Now historically um, lots of languages, including Latin, could could be written both directions, including Greek at at various points.
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So, who knows? I don't know. I don't actually don't know enough about Hebrew at this particular point in history to know what he has in mind. But this is the idea he's making.
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And it says, "In the days of Pale, the tower which is in Babel was built, and there the tongues of men were confounded.
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uh the division of tongues and from that place they were scattered over the face of all the earth and that place was called Babel or Babel because the tongues were confounded there. All right. And so there's a um you know
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there's a pun here which you'll know if you listen to Lord of Spirits that uh uh Babel uh is is an inscription of the Assyrian word Babylu which means the gate of God. So these are, you know, Semitic translations of old Sumerian
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words, but basically it's the it's supposed to be the the gate of God, but then it comes to sound like these Hebrew and and Syrian words which mean like to mix or to confuse, right? So there's there's a pun going on there. And after
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the division of tongues, Pel died in great sorrow when with tears in his eyes and grief in his heart because in his days was the earth divided. And his son Rayu and Sarug and Nahor buried him in Pelan in the city which had been built
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after his own name. And there were 72 tongues in the earth. And 72 tribes or heads of tribes or families. And each tribe and tongue made unto themselves a chief like a king. Now all of this stuff is Genesis 10, Genesis 11. The division
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of tongues and the dividing of the nations, the table of nations all running together, right? And we're told the seed of Japheth became 37 nations and kingdoms. And we get a list of them.
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and um uh uh the sons of Ham and all their children and the sons of Shem. And we get a list basically list of all these nations, the 70 nations.
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And it says, "And the children of Shem held from Persia in the east as far as the sea." Look guys, Persia has been mentioned. Promises were made, promises kept. Okay? Uh Shem held from Persia in the east as far as the sea of Tadranas
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in the west. Unto them belong the middle of the earth. and they held sovereignty and dominion therein and the children of Shem occupy all the southern and a little of the western quarter. And Rayu lived and this this has to do with the
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idea that there's this prophecy that that the kingship will come out of line of Shem. So in the Keernig they take this to like a an extreme where they basically trace like secretly trace the the the lineage of every king in the
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world including the Roman emperors back to back to She wow. Um, and so Rayu lived 32 years and begat Sir. And in the days of Rayu in his 130th year, Nimrod, the mighty man, the first king on the
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earth, reigned. And he reigned 69 years. And the beginning of his kingdom was at Babel. This Nimrod saw the figure of a crown in heavens. And he called Ceson the weaver who wore a crown like unto it, and set it on his head. And because
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of this, men used to say that the crown came down to him out of heaven. And Nimrod says the book of Adam became so wicked that he thought he was God.
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And that is the end of the third, thousand of years since the making of the world. So, we're going to have a lot more to say next time about Nimrod and the invention of fire worship and Abraham and MelkiseDC and the birth of
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Isaac and the founding of Jerusalem and all these things. And uh this is going to take us all the way down to the time of Moses.
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And this is going to set up the let's say Zoroastrianism of it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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So that is uh what we can look forward to in the next episode. All right. Man, that was that was something.
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It was a ride, wasn't it? It was a ride and uh I I have a lot of things to think about. Definitely stuff to meditate on.
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And so everybody, if you enjoy this sort of thing, stay tuned for the next episode. Check out the course. It will not be the last uh universal history course we do. I think it's very clear to me now that uh we're we're really just
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laying foundations and then we're going to do a lot more of this kind of like detailed close reading together uh in the future. So sign up for the course if it sounds interesting to you and uh otherwise we'll see you next time. See
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you soon. The bedroom.
Topics:NoahArkMelchizedekCave of TreasuresUniversal HistorySyriac traditionGenesisJonathan PageauSymbolismAdam's body
