https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=1eVGzWsAgZY
Christ is the key to Old Testament stories. But as the incarnation of the Logos, I believe He’s the key to all stories. I believe that in Him the major patterns of universal storytelling find their summit. I can’t extensively prove it today, but what I want to do is I’m going to give you one example, one major example, and hopefully it will give all of us that little spark, that impetus to meditate on other stories and other patterns which exist in storytelling. So the example I’ve chosen to use is the common theme in storytelling, which is called the katabasis. And the katabasis is the descent into the underworld. So, you know, scholars have often pointed to the fact that the Christian vision of the harrowing of Hades, of Christ descending into Hades to free its captives, is a theme that’s taken from world myth. And often, as is common with scholars, there’s a tone of smugness when they communicate that to us. You know, that, oh, you know, Christians, you think you’re so special with your story of a descent into Hades? Well, you know, it’s a story that’s been around for thousands of years. And so for them, it points, not only points to the fact of how unoriginal Christianity is, but also to how untrue it is. And so I have to be honest, I mean, that line of argumentation has always baffled me. The descent into Hades is nearly everywhere, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in the Mediterranean, but in Asia as well. Africa, the Americas. And in the West, we’re most familiar, of course, with the stories that come from Greek and Roman myth. And in those stories, we find these visits to the underworld. For example, we know the story of Odysseus on his voyage home, who enters the underworld and summons the prophet Tiresias. Or the story of the hero Aeneas, who goes down through the underworld and then up, if you will, anticipating Dante, and travels to Elysium, the land of the blessed, where he encounters his dead father. And there are also stories of salvation from Hades. I mean, the salvation usually includes someone from the living or some god that descends into Hades in order to find someone else, in order to save someone who’s stuck there, someone who got trapped there for some reason. So in this pattern, we find the story of Theseus and Pyrrhus. Those two fellows, they descended into the underworld because they wanted to steal Hades’ bride, Dracophony. And then they made the mistake of sitting down in the underworld. So don’t sit down in hell. That’s a life story. That’s a life lesson that you need to know. Okay, resurrection means standing up again, so don’t sit down. It’s not useful. So they get stuck there for a little while. And then Heracles, when he’s going in his voyage down into Hades, he’s going to capture the dog Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the Hades. When he goes down there, then he goes and he frees his friend Theseus. But sadly, Pyrrhus stays stuck to his chair. So as I mentioned, in Christianity, as everybody here knows, we have this tradition of the harrowing of Hades, which of course is the basis of this icon, the icon of the Anastasis. So Christ upon his death on the cross descends into death. And the images and the narrative around the story, scholars have noticed that according to them, it just repeats the Kattabasis pattern that we’ve examined. And so obviously, it is just one more example of that universal myth. Or is it? I mean, there’s been a lot of discussion about this. And very provocative scholars like James Frazier at the beginning of the 20th century, he kind of started this. But other scholars have tackled this, like Jung and Joseph Campbell. And they’ve all attempted to show the similarity between Christ’s story and the other ancient myth. And then they’re discussed and debated and they’re argued about. And you find Christian apologists who are fighting against these people, as if to defend the accusation that Christ’s story is analogical to other ancient story. But for me, I’m actually willing to be extremely generous with these scholars. I am, you know, like if you just take the very broad pattern of someone that goes down into the underworld, or even down into the water or into a cave to encounter someone, or to retrieve something, to look for a treasure like Aladdin, or to save someone like Horus, Dido Cyrus, like Heracles saved Theseus. Although you couldn’t say Pyrrhus, though. I’m willing to give it all to them and say, yes, that pattern exists. And it is one of the most basic structures of human consciousness. But then you have to ask, what does Christ’s story do to that pattern? You see, these scholars like Frazier and Jung and even Campbell, they have actually ignored the story that Christians actually tell. They’ve ignored the whole story. It is false that Christians believe Christ traveled to the underworld and then came out. First of all, we believe that Christ died with everything that implies. He was not visiting death. He united himself to death. He took death within himself. In the extra biblical traditions, we have these images of Haze rejoicing, right? Rejoicing, thinking he has won because he has taken everything in, only to be surprised. And then, did Christ just go down into Hades to save someone and then come back? No. Right, that’s not the story we tell. By bringing God into death, we believe as Christians, in the words of the Apostle, that Christ abolished death completely. And we say it over and over at Pascha. We read St. John Chrysostom’s homily every year. Christ is risen and you, O death, are annihilated. The evil ones are cast down. The angels rejoice. Life is liberated. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of its dead. O death, where is your sting? I mean, even Pyrrhus is gone. Now, even before you believe it or not, even before you begin to ponder the insane paradox that such a statement brings about, if we just look at it in terms of a story, if we just look at it, at how that story engages that pattern, that ancient pattern of Katabasis, of that descent into Hades, we find an example of what Christ’s story does to all stories. What he does to all things. That he all at once transcends. He even obliterates the pattern. Yet simultaneously he universalizes it, connects it, grounds it, illuminates it. The pattern of the descent and return from Hades is both transcended and fulfilled at the same time. And that’s transfiguration. And it’s not only that, but suddenly all these old stories are implicitly seen through Christ. And one of the hilarious ironies of the anti-Christian 20th century is that these scholars, like Frasier for example, who used all the ancient myths, you know, the so-called dying god, to trivialize Christianity, he realized that he’s looking at all those myths through the lens of Christ. The event of Christianity was so ground-shaking that so many of those that oppose it, even today, they can’t help but do that, looking through the glasses that Christianity gave them.