https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=4_UmgBEsgX8
All right, so Christopher August asks, what is the relationship between a living tree in paradise, bringing about death curses and dead tree, with a dead god man bringing salvation and blessings, particularly in relation to approaching the holy or sacred without preparation or proper orientation? Yeah, the cross, the cross is definitely the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s not just that. I think it is also the tree of life, but there is an aspect of the cross which is definitely the knowledge of good and evil. And so that’s what happened, that’s what’s in the garden, is that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you could say, yeah, it has two faces. It’s a good way to see it, is that if you approach it properly, if you approach it with reverence and gratitude and with the right insight, then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to the tree of life. This is something that St. Ephraim, for example, says, is that if Adam and Eve had received the fruit from God as was planned, instead of taking it for themselves, then they would have known evil as a healthy person knows sickness, right, as someone who is in the good and can see evil. But because they took it with arrogance and they took it upon themselves, then they know good as someone who is evil. They know health as someone who is in sickness, that is, they can understand the opposite from the position of the sick, whereas before it was the other way around. And in the cross you have a similar symbolism, which is that Christ on the cross has two thieves, one a good thief and a bad thief. The one thief mocks him and reviles him, and the other thief recognizes him, recognizes his innocence and approaches the cross with the right reverence. And in doing so, then, you know, enters paradise, whereas the other one doesn’t. And so, you know, it’s like there’s a hymn in the Orthodox Church which says, thy cross, O Christ, is a balance, right, for one of them went up into heaven and the other went down into hell. And so, Christ is the capstone and the stumbling stone. Christ has a dual, like a dual effect on people, you know. He exposes what’s real. And so, some people seem, are lifted up and some people are brought down by his presence. you