WEBVTT - Incense, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.520 heart radio. Hey, are you welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.640 your mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.120 In the last episode, the last core episode, we discussed 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.360 the nature of incense and how it factors into the 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.240 mix with other fire based technologies, both as an occasional 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.880 practical measure, but also something linked to sacred rights around 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.800 the world, either as a kind of direct offering to 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.920 divine beings or spirits, or is a means of setting 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:42.280 aside a sacred space for ritual we've changed the atmosphere 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.000 of this space with incense and now it is an 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.199 appropriate place to do something that is not mundane, that 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.239 is not part of the vulgar world, that is part 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.000 of the sacred world. We also discussed some specific examples 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.360 of dedicated sensors for incense, but we didn't touch on 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.600 one of the most famous Western examples of incense use, 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.960 and that's where we're gonna kick off today with this episode, 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.560 Part Two of Incense, and that's of priests swinging metal 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:13.399 sensors around on chains, wafting sacred smoke through holy spaces. 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.039 We're gonna be talking about the world of Thuribles. That's right. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.840 If you've ever watched, uh, you know, maybe a service 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.800 on a particular holy day from from one of the 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.120 sort of the high church denominations, so maybe a Catholic 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.400 service or an eastern Orthodox service, you may have seen 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.040 a member of the clergy walking around carrying some kind 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.440 of cage suspended from chains, and out of that cage 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.120 is wafting wisps of smoke. Now, I was reading about 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.000 the history of Thuribles in a book called the history 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.440 of the Church in art by Rosa Georgi. Uh, this 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.080 was a getty art history publication from two thousand eight 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.560 translated by Brian Phillips, and this is the entry in 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.240 this book on the Thurrible and the incense boat. And 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.640 Georgy here describes the Thurible as, quote, a cup shaped 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.840 container with a lid controlled by four chains. It is 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.320 used with a smaller container in the shape of an 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:17.080 open boat. Both are made of precious metals. So, going 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.680 back deep into the history of the pre Christian Roman Empire, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.880 it was customary to sprinkle a room with incense. The 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.280 use of incense was initially controversial in Christian rights, and 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.720 I'll get into more of the reasoning behind that in 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:33.760 another paper I want to talk about in a minute. 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:39.600 But this was especially because of its association with Pagan Rituals. 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.160 But eventually incense was widely adopted for church uses, especially 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.280 in the fourth and fifth centuries, uh and this would 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.440 be for uses such as the veneration of the dead 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.359 and the demarcation of special days of worship. Georgie writes 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.480 that the thurible itself has been in use since roughly 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.960 the seventh century and it usually consists of a cup 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.360 shaped container, and you carry that hanging from four chains 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.720 and you swing it around and the Cup has a 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.360 lid with holes of some kind in it. The holes 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.919 are important so that air can get in and so 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.920 that smoke can get out, kind of like the vents 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.760 on a grill, and in the middle of the cup 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.320 there's usually a small container for the burning incense itself. 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.920 If you look at the earliest examples, thuribles tend to 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.000 be simply round or hexagonal boxes, but over time the 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.000 thurible becomes more ornate. Quote in Gothic Times it took 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.880 on architectural forms to symbolize the Church building itself, and 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.760 from the seventeenth century onward it acquired freer forms. Now, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.000 I think this point about the the innovations of gothic 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.960 times is very interesting. If you look at many historical Thuribles, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.800 you can often see this architectural Motif, how they might 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.320 resemble the Dome or the spire that would be found 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.080 atop the cathedral that you were carrying them around the 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.080 inside of, all almost like this is a little model 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.760 of our church and the smoke pouring out of it 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.080 and floating up into the air. It's kind of like 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:09.640 the prayer and the worship floating up out of this 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.520 building to reach God. Yeah, that's that's that's interesting. It is. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:15.320 I never thought about it like that before, but it is. 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.159 It's kind of in many cases that you're looking at 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.560 kind of like a little model of a church is 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.080 being swung around inside of a church. Yeah, so there. 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.440 So there's the thurible itself, but then there is also 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:30.359 an attendant artifact called the NAVICULA, which, confusingly, is also 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.680 the name of a genus of algae that are said 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.000 to resemble boats. I think both these names come from 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.359 the word for boat, uh, and if you look up 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.160 navicula as algae, they really do look like boats. It's 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.919 it's one of the better examples of naming an organism 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.760 after a human made object because it actually does look 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.000 like the thing, unlike many of those. Yeah, it does. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.360 Now in the church context, the NAVICULA is a little 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.680 spice tray. It's uh, it's a small boat shaped container 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.880 and You keep the incense in there and then, when 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.360 you're running out inside the Thurible, transfer more from the 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.599 NAVICULA to the throuble with the spoon. And Georgie writes 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.000 that the boat shape of the NAVICULA became common in 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.599 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries because it symbolized the church 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.400 carrying Christians to salvation as if on a boat. And 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:20.320 she also includes some interesting examples of artwork depicting the 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.960 use of Thuribles in, say, Bible Stories. One is a 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:29.400 painting by seventeenth century Italian artist named Filippo Abiati, called 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.640 Solomon Making a sacrifice to the idols and rob I've 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.640 included a copy of this painting for you to look 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.120 at here. A few interesting things to note about it. 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.960 So this is based on a passage in first kings 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.719 in the Hebrew Bible. UH, talking about how you know, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.800 despite the fact that Solomon in some senses was very 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.600 wise and worshiped the god of Israel. It's also kind 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.160 of disparaging. It's like he ran around with some foreign 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.520 idols and it says that, quote, he sacrificed and burnt 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.240 incense at the high places, meaning two idols of of 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.760 other gods, and the painting shows Solomon placing a thurible 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.000 on a table in front of a humanoid idol. It 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.760 looks kind of like a classical Greek statue and I 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.400 thought this was interesting because the painting is correct in 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.960 assuming that the use of incense burning uh took place 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.880 in honoring the gods of many religions going back into 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.880 ancient times and pre dates Christianity. But it's interesting that 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.839 it shows him using a thurrible with a design that 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.480 would have been contemporary and used in Christian churches at 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.560 the time of the painting. Be kind of like if 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.359 you had an illustration of Christ speaking to the masses 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.920 and he's using a megaphone. Yeah, now, leap frogging off 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.080 of this, I actually came across a paper that I 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:51.440 found totally fascinating, a paper about the role of Aromas 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:56.680 in the history of Christian theology, but specifically focusing on 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.080 a figure named Saint Ephrem the Syrian, and this was 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.960 a paper by Susan Ashbrook Harvey. I also want to 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:05.960 give a shout out that I came across it by 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.800 way of reference in a Jay store daily article by 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.480 Livia Ger Shawn. But this, this paper by Susan Ashbrook Harvey, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.440 was published in the Journal of Theological Studies in Nineteen 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.640 and it's called St from on the scent of salvation. 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.720 Susan Ashbrook Harvey, the scholar who wrote this, as a 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.960 professor of history and religion at Brown University. And this 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.200 is all about this guy known as St Ephrem the Syrian, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.160 or St Ephraim. He lived in the fourth century, from 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.160 three Oh six to three seventy three, in the eastern 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.400 part of the Roman Empire, and he was a popular 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.360 Christian theologian, but especially a prominent as a popular writer 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.480 of Hymns, a hymnographer. So you may in fact have 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.840 heard hymns where the lyrics were composed by this guy, 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.200 by St e Ram interesting, and I have to fillock 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.520 up which ones we can attribute to him. Generally, I'm 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:01.680 just used to saying like John Wesley's name and that 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.120 the Western names well I don't know. I don't know 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.120 how much Ephraim you're going to get in English speaking churches. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.520 I think that some of his hymns are still sung 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.640 in some Orthodox churches. But Anyway, Harvey highlights the fact 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.800 that in many of his Hymns St Ephraim uses a 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.800 very interesting phrase, rhea Dehyuta, which could be translated as 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.280 the fragrance of life. Now, as a bit of background, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.320 smell and fragrance had an important place in the rituals of, 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.600 according to Harvey, all the major religions of the ancient Mediterranean, 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.400 not just the various pagan cults, but also in Judaism 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.440 and eventually in Christianity, though it seems like the very 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.160 earliest Christianity, the first few centuries of Christianity tended to 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.960 avoid the use of fragrances and incense, but that changed 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.920 over time and would change by Ephraim's time. Uh. Now, 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.480 across all these different distinct religions, the form of many 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.200 sacrificial gifts to God or to the Gods was is 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.920 a burnt offering. You would burn something to make that 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.160 a gift to the Gods and you would expect the 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.480 Gods to reward you in turn with with good favor, 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.600 with blessings of some kind. Uh. This is the classic 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.680 I scratch your back, you scratch my back, relationship between 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.120 between humans and the Gods. And Uh, these burnt offerings 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.680 could include anything from the burnt flesh of an animal 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.760 sacrifice to the burning of incense on a God's altar. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.280 And it was often, I think this is one of 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.240 the strangest things, it was often explicitly said that the 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.560 smell of the offering in particular was pleasing to the gods. 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.199 And this is not just in Pagan religions. There are 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.160 loads of examples of this in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.800 I even alluded to one example I'm going to site 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.000 in the last part of the series. Uh So, if 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.800 you look to the book of Leviticus, Chapter One, the 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.640 Lord is telling Moses how to perform sacrifices of livestock. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.840 It says, quote, then the priest shall turn the whole 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.720 is referring to a bull. Shall turn the whole into 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.080 smoke on the altar as a burnt offering, an offering 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.880 by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord. And this 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.280 is not the only reference like this. There are tons 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.920 of references throughout the Bible of smells being pleasing to God. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.680 Just a few verses later, at the beginning of chapter two, 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.200 we get a specific reference to incense. We learned that 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.440 if somebody makes a grain offering instead of an animal offering. Quote, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.680 when anyone presents a grain offering to the Lord, the 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.160 offering shall be of choice flower. The worshipers shall pour 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.960 oil on it and put Frankincense on it and bring 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.240 it to Aaron's sons the priests, after taking from it 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.000 a handful of the choice flour and oil, with all 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.960 its frankincense. The priests shall turn this token portion into 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.240 smoke on the altar and offering by fire of pleasing 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.640 odor to the Lord. So over and over again we 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.760 learn that it was believed that the aroma of sacrifice 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:03.720 itself is what gives the Lord Pleasure. And meanwhile, in 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.040 Roman Pagan cults it was common practice to make a 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.400 burnt offering of some kind. Also could be a burnt 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.000 offering of an animal or an offering of sweet smelling incense. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.520 In fact, I think incense was often considered sort of 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.079 the baseline sacrifice you could make to the Roman gods. 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.040 It was like, you know, you didn't have an whole animal, 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.000 you could at least get a little chunk of incense 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.959 and burn that. I love the wording in this uh, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:32.480 this this quote you read about turning the token portion 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.480 into smoke, and it kind of gets to this, UH, 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.920 something we've touched on with with fire technology before, about 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.640 the the transformation of one thing into the other, the 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:46.040 sort of alchemical power of of cooking or flame or 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.800 in this case burnt offering. Right. I think that very 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.319 transformation was something that that a lot of ancient theologians 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.800 found kind of transfixing in a way, like they did 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.560 write about it. I think we may get to a 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.480 bit about that in in just a minute here. But 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.760 another thing is it doesn't stop just with the smell 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:04.800 of burnt offerings, whether that's, you know, the kind of 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.760 barbecue smell of of an animal, or whether that is 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.480 the scent of incense on the altar. Also, in religions 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.400 of the ancient Mediterranean, fragrant holy oils were used to 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:20.000 anoint new initiates or people specially blessed in some circumstance, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.880 or maybe the sick or the dying. So the point 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.840 is smells were a deeply rooted part of religious life 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.520 and the experience of the divine for multiple religions with 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.400 otherwise very different beliefs. Now, coming back to St Ephraim, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.440 specifically of the fourth century and his idea of the 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.760 fragrance of life, harvey notes that. One thing I think 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:43.480 is worth pointing out. We often when we say the 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.320 word fragrance, that has a positive connotation to it. You know, 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.240 the fragrance of life is necessarily a good smell and, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.880 as Efraim used it, it does seem to often have 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.120 positive connotations. But actually the word he's using here, Rehau, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.920 does not mean only pleasant smells. It could mean the 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.080 smell of anything from a chunk of murder to a 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.360 bookcave flowers to a big old tub of spoiled sour cream. 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:08.280 It would cover it all. So it might be better 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.920 to think of it as smell, even though it's usually 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.280 translated into English as fragrance. It's tough when you're talking 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.319 about English because I I feel, and and this has 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.680 been pointed out, I've seen this pointed out by researchers before, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:26.920 that English language, especially it's popular usage today, is not 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.720 great at describing smells and odors like it. Yeah, it's 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.320 one of the reasons whereas so often times you'll hear 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.720 kids talking about food stinking like or smelling like, I 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.520 don't know. They's just that sometimes the vocabulary is lacking there, 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.880 and certainly our usage of the vocabulary to properly describe 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.319 smells as more than just, you know, extremely pleasant or 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.560 or extremely alarming. Yeah, a lot of smell words have 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.640 too much front connotation, loading like they're already even if 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.880 you say the words smell, which is supposed to be neutral, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.599 I think more often that's going to have a negative connotation, 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.680 I guess. Yeah, fragrance makes you think of flowers or something, 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.679 or perfume. Aroma, I think, often makes me think of, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:16.960 I don't know, onions and garlic, like cooking aromatic cooking ingredients. Yeah, 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.240 I'm I'm always annoyed when there's talk of, quote, Stinky Cheeses, like, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.360 come on, wait, we have other words that we can use. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.040 So we can say that these these cheeses are pungent, perhaps, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.760 but but are they stinky? I think you're it's just 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.640 it's just a loaded description. It's pre judging. Yeah, but okay. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.640 So what's the deal? What? What is the fragrance of life? 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.400 According to St Efrem. Well, Harvey writes about it like this. 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.840 Harvey writes, quote, for from knowledge of God is something 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:49.880 not only cognitive in origin but also sensory, hence the 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:55.240 arresting quality of his old factory imagery. Bypassing the mind 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.280 body dichotomy and leaving aside the question of rationality, is 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.720 the basis for establishing truth from finds in sensory experience 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.320 a knowledge about God which cannot be gained any other way. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.840 So Harvey argues that for Efraim the fragrance of life 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.800 is part of an idea that knowledge can be, quote, 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:22.360 non cognitive yet genuinely revelatory of divine being, truth and action. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.120 Now that might be like, I don't know. At first 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:26.720 I was like, what is she talking about? What does 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.960 this mean? But I eventually got through it. She's saying 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.080 that for Fraim, and not just him. There were other 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.560 ancient theologians who thought this way. But for Efraim, like 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.440 you can know God is there because you can sense 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:42.320 him with your senses. And according to Harvey, this belief 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:47.040 has interesting relationships to the religious context of asceticism in 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.680 early Syrian Christianity, which was fram's context. So there's a 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.560 section kind of on what you might call the natural 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.720 theology of e Ram. You know sometimes, uh, you'll hear 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.760 various versions of this where people look, will express their 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.520 religious beliefs in terms of viewing the natural world. It's like, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.880 you know, observe the way the regularity of nature, look 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.480 at the way the tides work, look at the way 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:12.560 plants grow, look at the way the sun comes up 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.600 and comes down. That just proves that my religious beliefs 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.880 are true. Yeah, sometimes this is very clunkily carried out 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.680 as well, like you'll see a billboard by the highway 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.760 and it's like proof of God and it's a picture 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:26.720 of a baby, and I'm like, okay, well, it's cute 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:28.640 and all, but I don't know if that's proof of 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.560 anything other than like two people had a baby. Well, yeah, 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.200 I mean I think it's it's making like it's like 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.200 cutting out a step in the middle. So you look 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.320 at all these things and they are indeed amazing and 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.200 they can fill you with wonder and they can be 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.640 inspiring and make you feel like wow, there's you know, 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.760 there's so much more to life and to existence than 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.880 I often realize when I'm just going about my tedious 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.280 little everyday tasks. And that's all true. And then there's 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.920 a second leap where the person says and therefore the 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.880 fact that there is more means whatever I in particular 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.440 happened to believe is what the more is. And I 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.280 think that's the part that they're kind of skipping over. 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.080 Truth of God confirmed. But but I think one thing 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.760 I find very interesting about about the the the invocation 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.200 of smell, he had the invocation of voters, is that, 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:18.480 you know, as we've discussed on the show before, like 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.680 there's an immediacy to the way we register smell that 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.919 does often feel like it comes outside of reason and 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.480 it comes outside of memory, and I think that's that's 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.399 very fascinating to think about in this context. Like I 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.359 would say, picture of a baby doesn't really tell you anything, 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.000 but the smell of a baby, I don't know. I 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.400 don't know. That might that might be prooved of God confirmed. 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.639 That's more uh, it's at least more convincing to the brain. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.800 Like the emotional impact is more powerful than the billboard. Yeah, Um, 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.840 but so what's the deal with Ephraim's natural theology? I mean, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.400 I think this is the less interesting part of what 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.720 he's trying to say. He's saying like you can sense 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.879 God with nature because like every element of nature is 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.960 in some sense stamped with his seal. An example given 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.480 in the paper that I thought was funny. Harvey talks 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.680 about how Efrem said, you know, birds have to extend 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.240 their wings in order to fly and when they extend 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.640 their wings they make the shape of the cross. There 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.080 you go. There is a lot of Christian theology from 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.280 the early centuries that reads kind of like this. To 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.960 me it's like you're kind of reaching, but I admire 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:31.400 the effort. Thank thank but anyway. So Efraim believes that 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:37.000 baptism kind of changes the body, allowing it to acquire 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:41.679 new senses that can literally directly sense God and the 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.560 divine through sites and sounds and tastes and smells. Uh So, 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.280 to read from Harvey here quote in Efraim's hymns, eating 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.119 and smelling are closely related experiences. So too are the 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.520 concepts bread of life and fragrance of life. Bread of 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.480 life is a is a phrase directly from the Gospels 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.280 in the New Testament, where Jesus says I am the 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.800 bread of life, and this is taken in mass to 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.720 refer to, like the sharing of communion, the eating of 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.919 bread at communion. But anyway, Harvey goes on. When eaten 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.080 as the bread of life, Christ pervades the whole of 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:21.520 the believer's being. When inhaled, as the fragrance of life, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.919 Christ again penetrates throughout the believer. EFREM titles Christ, quote 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.879 the Glorious Lily, quote the treasure of perfumes around whom 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.439 the faithful gather, quote that they might inhale and be 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.359 sated and that the power of Christ's deeds might permeate 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.080 their senses. And then harvey goes on with her own writing. Here, 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.760 through the act of breathing the life force itself, Christ's 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.600 presence saturates the believer. Interestingly, it is fragrance rather than 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.000 breath that efrem highlights again and again. His old factory 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.480 imagery is about encounter, not animation. The breath of life 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.880 that Adam received at creation animated his lifeless body. The 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.440 fragrance of Christ inhaled by the believer indicates by its 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:15.080 smell the action of human slash divine encounter through sensory experience. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.919 So this probably seems very weird to most people today, 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.800 even to most Christians today, I would guess, the idea 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.800 that you could literally sense the resurrection of Christ directly 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.680 by smelling him. But as weird as that might seem 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:33.320 to us today, Harvey again emphasizes that Special Aromas were 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.040 a very important part of the rituals of basically every 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.199 religion in the ancient Mediterranean and in ancient literature, divinity 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:46.040 is often described as having a sweet smell. Harvey writs, quote, 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:51.879 the Association was not capricious, immaterial, invisible yet tangibly experienced. 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:57.160 Scent provided a fitting metaphor for divinity that exceeded physicality 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.240 or comprehension. Scent conveyed s rather than substance. It could 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.440 not be contained or circumscribed. Circumscribed it had the powered 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:11.159 across boundaries. The experience of it could not be voluntarily controlled, 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:15.639 since was affective yet ineffable. Wow, that's that's neat that. 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.400 This reminds me of the bit we're discussing the last 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:23.040 episode about the presence of the the imperial Chinese court 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.040 and in the presence of the emperor, who again has 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.240 divine connotations. And you can compare that to various traditions 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.439 of divine kings and cultures around the world, but the 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.160 idea that this, this would be a presence that had 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:40.240 its own unique olfactory reality and that by by smelling that, 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.400 you're smelling the divine as well. Yeah, exactly. And and 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.440 she goes on to include many examples of the way 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:51.760 from Uh reimagined like existing pre existing Bible stories, as 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.159 essentially being about smell, like when St Ephraim describes the 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:57.600 story of the first pentecost in the book of acts. 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.720 This is a story where, after the death of Jesus, 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.320 the apostles are said to be they're said to suddenly 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.560 be filled with the Holy Spirit and they begin to 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.720 speak in tongues to the multitudes. Ef Him writing about 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.199 this in him writes again in translation quote. When the 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.840 blessed apostles were gathered together, the place shook and the 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:21.480 scent of Paradise, having recognized its home, poured forth its perfumes. 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.600 So the infilling of the Holy Spirit is like the 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:29.199 pouring of a perfume. You can literally smell it. So 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.040 Harvey summarizes at the end of this section. Quote. For Efraim, 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:37.560 Olfactory Experience Mirror sacramental reality. To Smell God is to 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:42.040 know God as a transcendent yet transforming experience, a presence 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:47.080 actively known through bodily experience. Okay, so so that's section 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.240 one of this paper, the one that I think actually 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.280 I found the most interesting. This is about how Efraim 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.320 believes smell can literally directly reveal the presence of God. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.240 God has a smell, you can smell him and that's 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.119 how you know he's there. But it also sort of 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.919 goes the other way. Harvey after this as a section 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.920 on how Efraim believed humans can use smells to commune 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:11.240 with God. And yet again, this is not uh, this 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.919 is not unique to Ephraim. I mean this is widespread. 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:17.360 We talked about all the examples of humans using various 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.200 smells to give something to God, to give a sacrifice 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.720 or a gift to God or to communicate with God. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:25.920