https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=iiKD_22O7xQ
Hello everybody. So for most people who will be watching this, tomorrow is Epiphany, or in the Orthodox tradition it is Theophany. So I wanted to look a little bit at the symbolism of that feast, because we know a lot about Christmas, but Epiphany or Theophany is a holiday that for most people has fallen to the wayside. But the symbolism of that feast is quite important to think about. This is Jonathan Pechot. Welcome to the Symbolic World. And so at the beginning of Christianity, the two feasts, the feast of the Nativity of Christ and the feast of Epiphany or Theophany, were joined together. And what it was about really was a celebration of what I would call an ontological category. It was a celebration not of an event per se, but of a state of being. That is, it was a celebration of the manifestation of the Logos in the world, the manifestation of God to the world. And so within the feast of Epiphany or Theophany, I think I’m going to use the word Epiphany because most of my viewers are used to that term. So for most of the, so what they were celebrating at the beginning of Christianity was the manifestation of the Logos. And so within the feast of Epiphany, there were several references to events in Christ’s story or in the Holy Story. There was the Nativity of Christ, of course. Then there was also the visit of the Magi. We also had the baptism of Christ and the miracles of Christ in general, but mostly the miracle of the wedding feast of Cana. And so what all those things have in common are places in Christ’s story where he manifests himself to the world, where people see that he’s in the world. And so at some point the two feasts were separated for most Christians. A few Christians still celebrate them together, but for most Christians at some point December 25th became the Nativity feast and then Epiphany was celebrated on January 6th. And then what was celebrated there became separate in different locales. For example, in the East we celebrate mostly the baptism of Christ and in the West they celebrate mostly the visit of the Magi. But what’s important is to notice the relationship between those two things. That is, the Magi coming to find the Christ child is seen in the tradition as these foreign peoples, these three Magi who become in the tradition three kings. And it’s important that there are three kings because they’re authority figures in different places, different parts of the world. In the Western tradition the Magi came from different locales in the East. There was an Ethiopian Magi, one from India and I don’t remember where the other one comes from. But you had these these kings kind of joining together and then coming to to Bethlehem to recognize this child as being the new king or the highest king or the manifestation of the of the king in the world. Whereas in the Eastern tradition it’s actually mostly the baptism icon because when Christ came out of the water there was a voice that came from heaven and said this is my son today I have begotten thee you know and or do as as he says and so the people around would have heard a voice which showed the manifestation of the logos which said this this thing this this specific person is where to look at just as the three kings coming to to see to find the Christ child. And then in the traditions of the church that notion of the manifestation of the logos will appear in different traditions. But first what’s important to say is that we can see it at a cosmological level. Some Christians are uncomfortable in interpreting it that way but it’s it can be helpful to see it because we know in the tradition that the logos is associated with light which makes absolute sense because light is what reveals the world to us and logos in terms of how it unites multiplicities into into identifiable things is is similar to light it’s it’s analogous to light and light can help us understand what logos means and so in terms of the cosmological symbolism we can imagine the Nativity Feast Christmas as the hidden light let’s say as let’s say the beginning of the day at midnight when the Sun is beginning to rise the beginning of the of the the year at at the solstice where the lowest the shortest day has happened and now the days are going to start to get longer but it’s still a secret because it’s still hidden we can’t perceive it yet and so the imagery of Christ being born in a cave the imagery of Christ being placed in a manger of these this hidden dark you know low place and now is slowly going to rise up and now the the the end of the Christmas season in the traditional Western calendar was epiphany when that light shines forth and now we start to notice that the days are getting longer that the Sun is higher up in the sky than is going to continue to to rise up and so in the in the notion of the Magi recognizing Christ or Christ coming out of the water of baptism or also him revealing his himself as the one who forms the world at the with his miracles or at the the Feast of Cana all of that makes sense altogether and now in terms of the traditions you can see how that follows through with the traditions in in the West there’s a lot of traditions for example where I where I grew up in Quebec the the traditions of Epiphany were that they would bake cake a flat cake a galette we call it like a big cookie and then hidden inside the cake would be a seed or a pod or something like a bean and so the cake would be cut up and people would eat the the cake and whoever would find the the seed would then be the king for the day and so you can see how this eating of the cake and finding the seed is the manifestation of the logos and then whoever is able to find the logos in his food that is you know you you the idea would be kind of like taking obviously probably did people didn’t swallow the seed but you can see the image of having the seed inside you of swallowing that seed and having it having it within you and finding you know the most important thing finding the logos in yourself and then becoming the king for the day and then whoever in the community whoever is able to find the most important thing or is able to find the identity or the the center of something then immediately becomes the center you know an image of the center of that thing so the notion of him becoming the king or her becoming the queen for the day is a perfect image of the manifestation of the logos and then in the same way in the the more the more eastern traditions at theophany what we do is we bless the waters okay and so one of the one of the traditions you’ll see this in in Russia and in eastern countries in Greece and in Orthodox countries you know they’ll stand on the side of a water bank and they’ll throw a cross out in the water then people will dive in and then they’ll find the cross and lift it up and whoever you know finds the cross wins and so you it’s the same as finding the seed inside the cake whoever finds the cross I mean obviously they don’t necessarily say that he becomes the king for the day but there’s this idea of in the dark waters it hidden in the darkness lifting up this most important thing you know like I talked about in in the video the metaphysics of Pepe of finding the golden ball in the water and then bringing it up so that you become a prince okay it’s the it’s all the same symbolism finding the seed in the cake becoming a king for the day it’s the same thing as a frog going into the water in the in the Greek or Russian tradition finding the cross and bringing it out you know to celebrate this this arrival of light the the the dawn dawn of a new day so all this symbolism calls comes together another aspect of the symbolism is also that at during theophany season the priests will go around and will bless houses and so in that sense the blessing of the houses and the blessings of the water is also is this sense of the logos spreading out into the entire world and also holding the world together you know being the source of life the source of light for everything that you can imagine so going out into people’s houses and blessing them bringing that spiritual influence or the the that the idea of a blessing is this conferring or this finding of let’s say revealing the the connection of that thing to the life of God to the life of the church to the life of the community it’s connecting things together that’s usually what blessing means and you I mean all the symbolism of baptism then comes in of then Christ also like I said coming out of the water to hear the voice of God from the heavens saying you know this is my son and so the blessing of the waters is that is the how that event of light coming out can then participate and fill the entire world at that time and so I hope this is useful to kind of understand a little bit what the symbolism of theophany and epiphany was so before I end I just want to say I’m trying something new for the first time usually I write down my interpretations because I English isn’t my first language and I tend to stutter and hesitate and so I’m going to try once in a while to improvise the way I did now and maybe in the comments tell me what you think tell me if you find that I’m clear enough that my ideas are focused enough and that I am not stuttering too much and saying um’s and ah’s all the time and so I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you soon