Well, it’s Pentecost Season again folks… Wait… Checks Notes Okay, well I guess the team is doing a fire themed episode in November, so listen in to see how Mike justifies his decision. Something about the end of the world.
They’ll talk about some cool stuff, though, like dragons and jinn, and everyone’s favorite Lucifer parallel, Prometheus. Listen now, or you will be judged accordingly!
Resources
- Christian symbolism of the Phoenix (and why we chose it for our new comic book)
- Thawing Hearts—from Villains to Heroes
- Read the latest entry of the Voyage Blog!
Listen to the latest Voyage Podcast
Related Episodes
Transcript
mike (00:00.918)
So yeah, Jacob, I was telling our producer, does it count as an audible if you don’t have something to replace it? Or is it just you throwing out the old plan at the last second?
Jacob (00:12.456)
Does it count as an audible? A what?
mike (00:15.178)
Yeah, like in football, oh my gosh, in football terms, in audible? Never heard that? I should have, I assumed too much, sorry. Yeah, we lost that quality banter and I thought I was gonna get us started again.
Jacob (00:19.596)
Oh man, you’re talking to the wrong guy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Jacob (00:30.566)
I’m just, what I was asking was why are we doing a fire episode in November? I mean like Pentecost, heck even Transfiguration I think you could argue. But November?
mike (00:43.402)
But November, you know what? It sounds sincere, but it’s a perfect setup, Jacob, because I’m gonna tell you, November, just like you got to have Monster Month in October, November is gonna be end of the world month. And so we’re gonna be end of the world because it’s end of the world as we know it, which, it’s one, yeah, well, something like that.
Jacob (00:58.276)
End of the World Month. It’s End of the World Month on Voyage Comics Podcast. Oh, I feel fine.
That’s one of those things where if you say that line, someone else has to respond appropriately. Just like, you know, if you say he is risen, you know, you got to say he’s risen indeed. Just.
mike (01:16.311)
It’s like the Christian greeting. Yeah, I feel fine. So I wanted Fire to be part of our end of the world month because, or I wanted it to be in November, which includes Pentecost, but as you’ll notice in our outline, Jacob, that is not the only biblical story with Fire.
Jacob (01:37.888)
Can I admit something to you? I haven’t looked at the outline and you know what? It’s because, it’s because I think after a month of mainly producing the outlines, all the good episodes outlines were mine. I take it back though. Actually what I’m saying the opposite frankly is I feel like our episodes work better.
mike (01:39.566)
Please.
mike (01:43.402)
That’s, you know, we’re all, we’re all shocked.
mike (01:53.475)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (02:05.532)
when I just have no idea what you’re talking about. And then if, now that I’ve sat there and listened through all the October episodes where I was in charge of making the outlines, I mean, I think they’re good. I think they’re worth listening to. But I think it’s time we got back to basics, Mike. I think we got back, we gotta get back on brand. And I think that, you know, it’s about time that I just show up.
mike (02:19.378)
went back to you have to go back on brand. Yeah. Yep, that’s right. And I’m the I’m the stuffy buttoned up one who has a plan and you’re the guy who just rolls on, you know, puts the I’m surprised you even have the headphones on to be honest. It’s
Jacob (02:31.614)
Yep.
Jacob (02:38.293)
You know what? It’s a new day and it’s time to get back to the basics. So that means I have no idea what’s in your outline. Is it a…
mike (02:45.538)
So.
So November on the Western calendar, we’re getting close to the end of the liturgical year. And so what you notice in the readings is that they look more and more end of the world-ish. So you’ll have like Jesus prophesying the destruction of the temple. The last Sunday of the calendar is Matthew 25 with the separating of the sheep and the goats. So you’ve got a lot of the end of the world sorts of themes that it’s kind of building up to.
in November. And so I thought it only…
Jacob (03:20.656)
I’m kind of surprised on this is one of those things where the Eastern and the Western churches must have really kind of started to take on, you know, different trajectories or something like that because that is not that is not unless I’m mistaken. Honestly, what if I am mistaken? What if? No, that’s not true, though, because our new year did start back in September, like liturgically are liturgical near. Wait, is that?
mike (03:44.51)
Yeah. No, and I remember us either talking about this or me hearing about this. And like, obviously it’s just depending on which reason you’re sort of giving for it. So, does it have to do with the Nativity of Mary? Is that why? Because that’s September 8th. I thought that was why.
Jacob (03:57.988)
I think so. Yeah, I do. I think that’s September. I think that’s the yeah, that’s how I’ve always understood it is that, you know, you just begin the salvation history over again. And it begins with the birth of Mary, right? Like
mike (04:05.268)
Okay.
mike (04:11.85)
So it’s a similar vein, but so the in the Western side, it begins with Advent, which again is the, you’re preparing for and then obviously celebrating the birth of Jesus at the Nativity. So you have the four weeks of Advent, which are like the four, you know, that’s like the start of the new liturgical, like that’s when it restarts. So.
Jacob (04:32.028)
Yeah, no, I got you. I mean, you guys just don’t care about Mary as much as we do, I get it.
mike (04:36.842)
Oh, I thought you, and then I would respond with, we just care more about Jesus than Eastern Orthodox people. Cause I feel like you just lobbed that over the plate so perfectly. No, yeah. Which, yeah, it’s kind of one of those very hack like, oh, we just happen to care about the Bible. Yep, exactly, very good. Which is, you know, which is what the Catholic is supposed to say when they hear it from a Protestant about, you know, caring more about Jesus than Mary. Cause that’s actually the typical, yeah, back and forth.
Jacob (04:43.582)
Honestly, yeah, honestly, frankly, that’s it. Yeah, it didn’t really work out for me, did it? Okay. To care about Mary is to care about Jesus. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jacob (05:06.699)
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, that’s how you’re supposed to respond to that. Yeah, absolutely.
mike (05:08.266)
So, so, you want to know what my opening line was? I was to say this episode is elementary, my dear Jacob, because we’re going to be talking about one of the four. We’re going to be talking about fire. So.
Jacob (05:23.764)
Oh, elements. I was like, Sherlock Holmes, what’s that have to do with fire? Yeah, okay. That I had to think too hard. I had to think too hard for that. You know what? At least, at least I feel a little bit better because initially I thought, you know what, this is it. This is, this is the one where I get fired. And this is just Mike’s, you know, backhanded way of, you know,
mike (05:25.166)
Yeah, it’s, see, yeah, it’s elementary. I know, see, it’s just so many references pulled into one.
mike (05:50.455)
Yeah.
Jacob (05:53.128)
This is the beginning of the end for old Jacob. Time to…
mike (05:55.542)
Well, I mean, gosh, it’s about fire, it’s about the end, and so this would be a perfect kind of ease into it, wouldn’t it?
Jacob (06:03.192)
That’s what I was assuming. But I don’t know, maybe it’s just your liturgical calendar after all.
mike (06:04.881)
Yeah.
mike (06:08.438)
Hey, it still can be, don’t worry. There’s still, I was gonna say, the way that this very natural banter has gone, don’t put it past our intrepid producer, but.
Jacob (06:12.946)
The jury’s still out.
Jacob (06:23.009)
Are you uh, maybe what I need to do is get more fired up about this episode so that I get to keep my job.
mike (06:30.322)
That’s the thing. I threw you five bones. I gave you a five Tuesday month, a five week month for Monster Month. And you can’t give me a little bit once it’s, oh, once it’s not all on Jacob, then not all about what Jacob wants to do.
Jacob (06:37.566)
It’s true.
Jacob (06:46.28)
I, you know, it’s the Holy Spirit that’s been slighted, Mike. And you know, you know what Jesus says about offending the Holy Spirit.
mike (06:53.906)
by which one of us. That’s the…
Jacob (06:57.778)
This is a Pentecost episode. This is a Pentecost episode happening in the middle of November.
mike (07:00.254)
It’s not though. You’re trying to make this a Pentecost episode when as you’ll see it’s much more than Pentecost. So what I let’s go into um yeah.
Jacob (07:07.896)
Okay, you know I’m half of this. I can make this as Pentecosti as I want if I just keep bringing it up. No, yeah.
mike (07:16.022)
That’s, what do they call that, an improv? Yeah, what is that? So where do we see, first we gotta back up, or maybe not back up like before the Bible, but necessarily like independent of the Old Testament and the New Testament, we see fire in a lot of mythology. We see it in a lot of ancient stories. And so that’s what I kinda wanna run through first. So what are some, I mean, like I said, the most obvious ones are the first ones that come to your head when you think of fire and mythology.
Jacob (07:45.44)
You know, admittedly what popped into my head just now because I just watched it with my eight-year-old is Moana. So just like two days ago, I watched Moana with my kid. And that’s got a big old lava fire… Tafiti. But, or who… she… okay, I’m spoiling this movie. Yeah, Taka. Yeah. I mean, I’m not spoiling… yeah, I don’t know. Never mind. Yeah. Taka! Anyway, big old fire monster.
mike (07:50.75)
Okay.
mike (07:59.628)
Yeah.
mike (08:03.182)
Take a, take a. Why’d you get them mixed up, Jacob? It’s okay, yeah. So, yeah, so it’s, well, and that’s a good one. And yeah, like you said, the big spoil, the big reveal, is that there is this very close connection between the power of fire and the life that when it was properly ordered, they kind of went together hand in hand, right? And when it was disordered,
Jacob (08:29.693)
Mm-hmm.
mike (08:31.094)
That’s when you start to see death brought to the islands, to the community and all that stuff. So no, it’s a good example. I mean, more of our modern mythology in the Disney movie, right? What about like Prometheus is definitely like the classic one, right?
Jacob (08:40.373)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (08:43.816)
Bring in fire. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah.
mike (08:46.71)
brings the fire to humanity from the gods. And I like that kind of how it sets up a little bit of a story too. What were you gonna say though?
Jacob (08:55.864)
Only that I wish that I had prepared more for this episode. Because it’s like, there’s all kinds of fire stuff out there. Okay, alright, what else you got? Oh, okay.
mike (09:02.998)
I’ll keep feeding you stuff, that’s fine. Well, no, I don’t wanna go into the next one yet. So Prometheus, you know, the big thing about, so he’s stealing the fire from the gods, and do you remember how, I mean, not that it’s super relevant, but it’s just kind of a cool detail, how he gets punished or what his punishment is?
Jacob (09:18.212)
Oh yeah, he gets chained up onto, I forget what mountain it is, but he gets chained up and an eagle always has to come down and eat his liver. Isn’t that it? Yeah, and every day the liver comes back and then the eagle just comes back and eats his liver again.
mike (09:26.846)
And it just, and it regenerates and yeah, and keeps coming back. Which, which I feel like, I mean, I feel like there’s more to that symbolism, but this isn’t a liver episode. We’ll have to save that for, maybe we’ll do that on Pentecost weekend. We’ll do a liver episode just to, just to spite you. I’ll do that. Yeah.
Jacob (09:38.653)
Hahaha
Jacob (09:43.912)
Cause that would make sense. Yeah. We’ll do the fire episode in November. We’ll do the liver episode in, um, you know, late spring, early summer. Cause yeah. Um, Hey, I think just to throw that out there, that’s probably a reference to the fact that ancient people considered like the seat of intellect more in their bowels than in their brain. And so I can’t be for sure. I’m just guessing on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was more like, uh, like the essence of Prometheus was in his liver.
mike (09:51.938)
So, but.
mike (10:03.54)
Okay.
Jacob (10:13.784)
And so maybe that’s why the liver specifically.
mike (10:13.844)
Okay.
Well, and it’s kind of like a death that never ends, because like you said, if it’s taking out the self, but then it keeps coming back only to be suffered, to be lost again. So it’s sort of like, I mean, it’s kind of like the lake of fire where you never die, you keep experiencing it sort of thing, but now just the eagle keeps eating the liver back.
Jacob (10:37.7)
You know, the liver is the one organism that will always regenerate itself, even in real anatomy. And it’s like, do they know that? Is that why his liver keeps coming back?
mike (10:42.722)
That’s what I thought was interesting too.
mike (10:47.21)
I know, that’s what’s crazy is that pre-scientific, that was what they chose to, it’s, yeah, that’s what’s, I mean, that is what’s cool about, well, what I wanted to emphasize is, so what it assumes, right, the fact that Prometheus has to steal the fire and then give it to the people, is that there’s this sort of like competitive antagonistic relationship between humanity and divinity, right, the gods are withholding something.
Jacob (10:52.04)
like really waste pre-scientific too.
Jacob (11:15.434)
Hmm.
mike (11:15.81)
And it takes this, you know, this whatever, Titan or champion, but it takes Prometheus to do this. Now, even the gods at the end of the story say that it wasn’t necessarily the best thing. It’s almost like you have a taking the apple from the tree, taking a fruit from the tree, because they weren’t, we weren’t ready for it is kind of the…
Jacob (11:20.315)
Yeah.
Jacob (11:31.undefined)
Oh, it is. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and
Yeah, honestly, some of the early Lord of Spirits episode stuff talks a lot about this whole Promethean story. And I don’t think it’s at all surprising that basically the kind of Miltonian Satan, better to reign in hell than rule or be a slave in heaven or whatever, gets mixed into this Promethean imagery. Right. So like, in both cases, you have the idea that like the champion of humanity is going to go and
mike (11:55.383)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (12:03.928)
steal this intelligence from the divinities up above, you know, that are kind of begrudging it to humanity and he’s going to be a hero to them by showing them, you know, by enlightening them, right, with fire, like they’re going to be enlightened, right? Yeah, super satanic imagery. Of course, obviously within the Greek myths, it’s… and you know, even Satan is called the light bringer, right? That’s, you know, so Lucifer, yeah, exactly.
mike (12:21.419)
Well…
mike (12:27.054)
Mm-hmm. Lucifer, Lucifer specifically, but yeah.
Jacob (12:32.336)
So I don’t know, I think this is the type of stuff that I find like super fascinating is like, is Prometheus just Satan? It’s just full on is just because the parallels are just so obvious, right?
mike (12:39.318)
Mm.
mike (12:42.89)
Well, and if you want a nice callback to Monster Month, now I know we didn’t do this monster specifically, but Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus, so there’s your Monster Month connection for you. It’s all tied together. But like I said, I wanted to first highlight that in that story, like I said, you have this antagonistic or competitive relationship between humanity and the gods. And but what is it? What’s the object? It’s fire specifically.
Jacob (12:51.172)
the modern Prometheus.
Jacob (12:58.09)
It’s true.
mike (13:12.75)
And like we even get as sort of a warning at the end of a lot of versions of that myth is that, hey, maybe it’s just the humans weren’t ready for this yet. And we’ve kind of shown that when we get this really good technology, really good tool, we can do some really good things, but it can also be to our own destruction. Right. And I know that kind of gets into
Jacob (13:12.8)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (13:31.624)
You know what? Just to tie it back into Monster Month. We were just talking about that with Dracula. You know, science and progress and all that stuff doesn’t have to be the enemy of faith. And as long as it’s being used in order to fight evil, it’s totally cool. Exactly, exactly.
mike (13:37.552)
Mm.
mike (13:42.149)
Mm.
Ordered towards its proper end, yeah, exactly. So another thing in just Greek mythology in general is they had two types of fire. They had the fire of the hearth and the fire of the forge. And you can even tell just by the two descriptions how they’re different uses, right? And we even in our own, just in our own regular lives, we can see how the fire of the hearth obviously is about cultivation, about civilization, about bringing people together. Whereas forge is…
Jacob (14:01.414)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (14:12.564)
Oh, it’s killing me. Well, I was just listening to a random podcast where he was talking about the Latin word for hearth is it’s like it’s an English like our we have an English word. All right, you keep going. I’m going to Google this because it was fascinating. All right, take it away, Mike.
mike (14:36.446)
Okay, so I was saying how the hearth is the one type of fire, which obviously because it has this different type of purpose, and then the forge is this different type of fire in that it is ordered towards the building up of, you’d say the more, I mean, mechanical or the more almost utilitarian, it has a utilitarian purpose, whereas the hearth has the, I guess you could almost say like charitable purpose. But yeah, go ahead.
Jacob (15:02.356)
So you ready? You ready for my, get this, cause this is awesome. Focus, focus. No, that’s the, he was like, no, seriously, focus, Mike. No, that’s Latin for hearth. So they called their little hearth fire, it was their focus, right? And so in other words, it was like the epicenter of the family. And so like when people would come in and gather around, you know.
mike (15:06.39)
There was no dead air, I promise.
mike (15:13.781)
Uh huh.
mike (15:17.985)
Yeah.
Uh…
mike (15:24.279)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (15:30.952)
Before they had television kids, they had fires. They had the family fire. Yeah. And it would be the type of thing where, you know, when people were just like gathered around, they could kind of zone out into the fire and, you know, just casually talk. And then when they weren’t talking, they would just, you know, check out the fire kind of thing. It was their focus.
mike (15:34.513)
They’d watch the dancing images. Yeah, the dancing images of the flame.
mike (15:45.332)
Mm-hmm.
mike (15:51.434)
I actually think I’ve seen almost like a comic strip or a joke making fun of like, are you going to stare at that thing all day and it’s kids watching the fire? Because that’s the thing is like in the same way that parents will look at their kids and be like, oh, it’s just moving images. It’s just dancing images. And it’s like, yeah, exactly. We’ve always been fascinated by that. And I think the thing about focus is actually interesting too. And this will kind of take us off on a rabbit trail. I don’t want to go too far down. But there is this…
this kind of strain of thought in philosophy where like love is just the attention, right? Love is based off the idea of attention, right? And obviously human attention. And so when you call it the focus, and this is specifically to the hearth where the family is coming together and it doesn’t just mean focus on the fire itself. Like you said, it causes them to focus on each other. Then…
Jacob (16:28.832)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (16:44.172)
Well, yeah, it becomes just something the thing that the… individuals orbit around.
mike (16:48.606)
And so the hearth, like I kind of mentioned, I think you were kind of searching for it, but I said like the forge has that kind of utilitarian, whereas the hearth is more charity. And so you can see, like you said, the focus kind of connection and all that stuff. What about in Norse mythology?
Jacob (16:57.352)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (17:01.936)
Yeah, I knew that it would play right into what you wanted to talk about, Mike. I had no doubt. Well, and just to wait, just to put a little cap on that. I do, I like the, and you know, it makes me think of like Hephaestus, right? You know, the tool maker, you know, at his forge, at his fire kind of thing. And just to get onto my old hobby horse, we’re talking about technique, right? We’re talking about the form of magic that involves crafting things.
mike (17:06.362)
Mm-hmm. Exactly. What about, oh yeah.
mike (17:16.397)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
mike (17:25.942)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (17:29.656)
and using fire in order to craft stuff. Out of sheer curiosity, can you guys hear my cat, catter walling in the background?
mike (17:37.726)
You know, I maybe heard it right before you said something, but if it’s been going on the whole time, I haven’t heard it.
Jacob (17:41.944)
Alright, well audience, if you just hear a cat wailing in the background, that’s just what it is. Ah, recording from home.
mike (17:50.583)
And that’s metaphorical for how people feel when they listen to Jacob. So it’s all metaphor.
Jacob (17:53.012)
Yeah. They just can. They didn’t. They would have never guessed it because they would assume it was just me still. Right. It’s just like just cater while you can come in from that side of the screen. No, but anyway, like, so that type of fire is like the technique. Right. And I actually think that is the pain upon how you want to phrase it. That’s almost like if Prometheus is a good guy, then perhaps he’s bringing charity. Right.
mike (18:02.39)
Yeah, exactly.
mike (18:11.03)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (18:22.612)
But if Prometheus is a bad guy, then perhaps he’s bringing technique. He’s bringing the fire in order to manipulate the world kind of stuff. And
mike (18:23.075)
Mm.
mike (18:30.602)
Well, and again, not that I’m always one to like defend the Greek gods by any means, but I wonder if when they kind of give that warning at the end of the story, it’s like, we can’t distinguish right the same way that they can. It’s not as clear to us as it is to the gods on Olympus. And so that’s kind of part of our problem, which will kind of play into some of the other characters and examples I want to go through. What about do we want to go right to end of the world stuff? Since I said this is kind of end of the world month, we got Ragnarok.
Jacob (18:58.668)
Yeah, that’s true. You know, that’s kind of interesting. I think I brought this up in a previous episode at some point. But in Viking mythology, the origin of the cosmos is the mixture of fire and water. And so and then the steam that comes from the fire in the water is what all the elements are made out of and things like that.
mike (18:59.702)
Right?
mike (19:19.71)
I think I joked that they should make a song about that, but yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Jacob (19:22.408)
Oh, yes, that’s right. Yes. What a callback. But and so, yeah, it kind of begins in fire, kind of ends in fire, right? And that, I was just about to say that that’s kind of a nihilistic kind of fire. That’s kind of, you know, red sun, dying sun type stuff, you know, heat exhaustion of the universe type stuff.
mike (19:33.166)
Mm-hmm. So that sort of… Oh, go ahead, sorry.
mike (19:46.262)
Yeah.
Well, and the idea of the full circle part of it, like you said, in a lot of ways it is or it can be, but it doesn’t always have to be because it has that sense of renewal or purification as well when it comes to fire. And that kind of brings us to another example is the Phoenix, right? This is where you plug the Phantom Phoenix comic series by Voyage, by the way, Jacob. Is there?
Jacob (20:05.609)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (20:09.936)
Yeah, there’s a fantastic comic out there that actually uses that phoenix motif. Yeah, super cool. Takes place in Chicago back in the day. Yeah, I’m telling you, best comic, best comic you’re going to find. You should get like 17 copies for yourself and your nieces and nephews. You know. Christmas is coming up, folks, right around the corner.
mike (20:17.32)
Did you hear that, producer? Yeah.
mike (20:23.734)
So.
Just give them out, yeah. So anyway, the Phoenix, I know it’s the end of the world, but you still gotta, yeah, exactly. So the Phoenix, I mean, well, we got end of the year too, right? We got that whole kind of death that happens in the winter time and all that. But.
Jacob (20:36.478)
Christmas is the end of the world for many of us, isn’t it?
Jacob (20:45.476)
Oh, I thought you were just… I was making a joke that’s the end of my bank account, but… Mm-hmm. Anyway. Ha ha ha!
mike (20:49.118)
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s all credit. So it’s not real. So, so again, the Phoenix has long been a Christian symbol, but even before Christianity, it was a symbol of, of rebirth, or recycling, but also purification. But obviously, in the Christian context, it became the symbol of resurrection. And so just if you know, and again, I know I’m don’t mean to jump around too much, but
Jacob (20:56.082)
Yeah.
Jacob (21:13.789)
Yeah, absolutely.
mike (21:19.406)
The Phoenix character, what does it live for? A hundred years, 500 years, 500 years, I think is the story, the bird, and then it burns up. And then from the ashes emerges the new Phoenix, the new cycle of the Phoenix or the new bird.
Jacob (21:26.752)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (21:34.852)
Well, in a lot of, I’m sure this is probably true in Catholic churches, but the peacock is a motif that you’ll see in a lot of just like filigree artwork. You know, the stuff that, you know, fills in the gaps between icons and things like that or. Yeah, so the peacock is a useful symbol that gets used a lot with just for like, you know, simple decorative purposes.
mike (21:46.39)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (22:02.264)
And if I’m not mistaken, it’s because the peacock and the phoenix got kind of like intermingled in the ancient mind. And so I don’t remember, I might be making this up, you know, with me, you never know, but I, I’m pretty sure that’s true. I’m not sure when it started happening, but yeah, the idea is, is that like the peacocks were actually this kind of like. Phoenix waiting to happen or something like that. So, and that’s why you see peacocks a lot of the time in like church stuff.
mike (22:02.369)
Mm.
mike (22:09.255)
Okay. Yeah.
mike (22:27.038)
Okay.
mike (22:30.774)
Well, and I wonder if too, just, you know, like you said, when there’s this sort of conflation that may have happened in a lot of the ancient minds where it’s like, you have the bright colorful feathers and almost like some of them do reflect light, they become sort of dazzling. And so…
Jacob (22:40.413)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (22:44.216)
Well, and if you look at the little eyeball on the tail feathers, like the fins of them, you know, at the very top, it kind of forms like a circular pattern kind of thing. But it almost looks like a little flame. It almost looks like the kind of like different visual elements that you’ve seen the flames, like the hottest part being the blue and then the wider areas being the kind of yellow, orange and things like that. I don’t know. I’m just spitballing here, but that might be it.
mike (23:10.975)
So, and there are of course other creatures associated with fire. We talked about the phoenix, which is like the positive example. We have the dragon, right? Which I mean, yeah, go ahead.
Jacob (23:20.42)
Mm hmm. The dragon. In Eastern cultures, dragons are divinities, right? Deities that were responsible for bringing good fortune and also all kinds of stuff, right? But they, I think this is personally interesting. I think that the best way for Western minds to understand what dragons are for
mike (23:30.102)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (23:49.584)
Eastern minds is angels. That’s when you think of how dragons are used in, you know, areas like China and Tibet and things like that. The proper corollary is angelic beings, which we’ve talked about this I think in the past, if not, we’re going to right now. The serpent in the garden, Satan is a snake, right? He’s a dragon. You know, the book of Revelation, he’s called a dragon, right?
mike (23:53.111)
Okay.
mike (24:15.636)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jacob (24:19.108)
And so, you know, there’s this idea that in the West, dragons are like a symbol of terror or badness or evil or something like that. And it’s like, why is why are they considered evil in the West, but good in the East? And I think it’s because they’re the same creature. It’s just that the West has an understanding of the angels, the dragons have fallen. Right. Whereas in the East, they didn’t get the memo. And so, you know, and even then, I still think that
mike (24:40.438)
Hmm.
mike (24:44.078)
Hmm.
Jacob (24:49.596)
things like seraphim, the word seraphim means burning ones, right? But they also have a serpentine kind of like element to their etymology. And that’s because snakes would bite you and then you’d get fevers, right? Like the poison would give you a fever kind of thing. But if, yeah, but if you if you conflate all that with just like dragon symbology, right?
mike (24:50.65)
or burning ones. Yeah.
mike (25:07.306)
Yeah. Fire in your blood, basically.
mike (25:17.261)
Mm.
Jacob (25:18.776)
you know, I do think that the idea is that the Seraphim, the highest, the highest angels, the most divine angels, the holiest angels, are serpentine, right? And so like you, and I mean, I get it. I know that they have six wings and eyes and so they’re not always depicted as serpents, right? But there is something to that. And I do think that plays into… Well, and I think that’s
mike (25:39.81)
Biblically accurate dragons. That’s what you, that’s the meme, that’s the meme.
Jacob (25:47.556)
imagery just never left the East, right?
mike (25:49.558)
And to kind of bring it back to like, if they’re nothing more than just metaphors for spiritual realities, if you’re just using the word dragon for that, then it does at least allow for, right? There are good spiritual realities as well as evil ones or fallen ones. So…
Jacob (26:02.916)
Oh yeah, the angels, some, some most stayed, some fell, right. And so like the idea that dragons would be beneficent in the East, I think is very much correlative to the idea that angels are here to help us in the West.
mike (26:20.114)
And since this is, whether you like it or not, Jacob, this is still a fire episode. If dragons have this sort of like spiritual metaphorical quality, and obviously when people think of dragons, at least, you know, the characters in movies, TV shows, but also in older stories, it’s about the things that breathe fire. And so it can be this, not only does it attach this sort of like spiritual significance to fire, when you have this fire creature or fire lizard that
Jacob (26:25.457)
No.
mike (26:50.154)
has this spiritual kind of connotation. But what specifically? Because if the phoenix is all about the kind of purification and rebirth that happens through fire, dragons can be the malice and the destruction, but the power of destruction and fire. And there’s one more example, since you know I love my tropes. If that’s okay, yeah, if that’s all right. We don’t have, all right.
Jacob (27:08.156)
Wait, are you moving on from dragons?
Jacob (27:12.956)
No, let me give one more thought on it. Okay, oh, we’re like far into this conversation. Yeah, okay, well, no, this is good though. This is good. You’re gonna like this. One of the things that dragons come to symbolize in the West is the confrontation, like the hero’s journey type stuff, where you have to go out into the wilderness, you have to fight the dragon, and then you bring back the gold to the civilization, right, to your village and stuff like that. So…
mike (27:18.478)
I was gonna say, yeah, we-
mike (27:31.438)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (27:40.132)
specifically in the West, dragons come to be things that hoard wealth, right? Well, how Promethean is that? You know what I mean? So now you have the idea that if you can go and fight the dragon or confront the dragon, you get his riches. And those riches benefit your village, right? So that’s just Prometheus all over again. And so it’s all just kind of mingled together.
mike (27:45.686)
Mm.
Mm. Yeah.
mike (27:58.243)
Well, yeah.
It’s harnessing the new technology, right? Dragons were the, oh, this is gonna, you’re gonna love this. Dragons were the, what, the Henry Ford, the Elon Musk of the mythical world, right? Or like you said, Prometheus. Prometheus is the, I would say, they were, if, you know what, ready to check the bingo card? If you’re ready to check the bingo card, they were the Saruman. I mean, that’s…
Jacob (28:04.032)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (28:14.37)
So they were super anti-semitic?
Jacob (28:21.54)
henry ford not you on my side of the money one must so
mike (28:30.154)
That is ultimately who, like that’s the.
Jacob (28:31.676)
Well, wait a second, you went Saruman? Why not Smog? If you’re going to go Lord of the Rings stuff, you got to go Smog, because he’s literally a dragon.
mike (28:39.754)
Yeah, that’s too little to on the snout, if you know what I mean. So there’s so I wanted to I. Yeah. So there’s one less, I mean, I’d say a little bit lesser known, you mentioned heroes journey, which is a perfect segue. Because again, this isn’t a dragon podcast either. It’s a fire pod or a fire episode, and not fire the financial independence retire early either. This is real fire. But in Arabic,
Jacob (28:44.025)
Uh huh. Yeah. Wouldn’t want to burn your audience with so obvious analogy.
Jacob (29:03.872)
Uh huh. Okay. Hey, that’s real for those people, Mike.
mike (29:08.67)
in Arabic mythology, do you know the jinns? Are you familiar with the jinns? Now, what trope or what role are they in Arabic mythology? Do you know? But they’re tricksters. They’re the trickster. And so we were talking about, like I said, hero’s journey and tropes. You have the jinns who, is it where we get the word genie? I mean, they sound obviously very similar. So now…
Jacob (29:12.256)
Oh yeah, oh yeah, fascinating.
Jacob (29:18.324)
They’re fire, yeah, they’re fire demons. They’re like.
Oh yeah, okay, alright.
Jacob (29:32.357)
Yeah, it is. No, it totally is.
mike (29:36.21)
like we’ve talked about with tricksters, go back and listen to our trickster episode. Two part, two part trickster episode. They’re amoral in the sense that they can bring good effects out or they can lead the hero to complete his or her journey, but they can also obviously do a lot of malevolent things too, right? And.
Jacob (29:42.496)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (29:57.572)
Oh yeah, no, the jinn, they’re like the fairy of the Islamic world or the Middle Eastern culture or whatever. Like I like the fact that you brought up that they’re amoral. In fact, it’s fascinating if you get into it, the way that they are contextualized within that culture is they are as free willed as humans are. And so some of them are Muslim. Literally, they worship Allah and
mike (30:01.239)
Mm-hmm.
mike (30:04.366)
Mm.
Jacob (30:26.624)
practice the Muslim faith, the Islamic faith. Some of them are not, you know, and they have, they are a separate society that is parallel to human society. And so as such, they have all the colors of good and evil, you know, that whole spectrum.
mike (30:29.422)
Mm.
mike (30:45.255)
And why they’re kind of like I said, we said they’re Arabic mythological tricksters, but what’s their connection to fire? I think they have coals for eyes is part of the kind of imagery forum.
Jacob (30:54.856)
Well, I actually, I mean, I think they were made out of fire. So humanity was made out of the clay, right? Out of the earth. And the djinn were made out of fire. Like they’re, that’s their chemical makeup.
mike (30:57.886)
And they’re, yeah, okay.
Mm-hmm.
mike (31:05.462)
Okay. So, so that’s their connection to fire, what they show us about it. If the phoenix is about purification, rebirth, the dragon is about malice and destruction. The djinn, that’s the unpredictability of fire. And so you’ve got because like I said, tricksters can go for they can fight for the good or fight for the evil. They’re just kind of out to cause chaos or shake things up. And that’s the unpredictability of fire. The, the, you know, the almost like the aliveness of it, you could say.
Jacob (31:17.477)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jacob (31:33.712)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, temperamental, right? Like, they… And that’s why they’re such a wild card, especially within that culture. But that’s also why they’re the most fairy-like, you know? I think that they’re pretty much just fairy for that world. But yeah, and so they’re… They can go any which way, right? You know? So…
mike (31:40.901)
Mm.
Mm-hmm, definitely.
mike (31:53.614)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, I have to pause. My computer is lower than I realized the battery, so I’m going to grab my charger, and then we’ll just get started again. Unless you want to, we could start, and then I could get you going on something, and then I’ll just run and grab it while you’re talking. Or would it? OK. All right, sounds good.
Jacob (32:03.795)
Okay.
Jacob (32:10.812)
You should just go do it. We’re already editing, right? So.
mike (32:41.15)
All right, we’re plugged in. So I’ll just clap again and then I’m going to move on to the, there’s two other cool mythological ones, but I don’t know, maybe we don’t have enough time because we haven’t gotten into any biblical examples or anything. So I’m just going to clap and then I’ll go. And now that we’ve gone through kind of some of the mythological, then I’m going to, there’s actually some Christian lives of the saints that have to do with fire. So.
So there’s obviously tons of just fire being this elemental reality of human experience, human history. There’s more we could have gone into. Maybe we’ll have to do a fire part two next year, don’t worry. Or we could do it around Pentecost, Jacob. But yeah. But.
Jacob (33:16.7)
Pentecost maybe. I have a good idea for when we should do a fire episode, Mike.
mike (33:21.398)
But I’ve got some, there’s fire in not just our ancient mythological heroes, but our Christian quote unquote mythological heroes in the saints too. So I don’t know, do you have any, know of any off the top of your head? I’ve got some too that we can talk through, but what do you know about the saints and fire?
Jacob (33:31.424)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (33:36.904)
Well, I mean, are we going in Saints specifically? Or because I otherwise, the Yule Testament obviously is chock full of fire motifs and things like that. All right. So you do want to do Saints specifically, right?
mike (33:41.29)
You could say a specific saying.
mike (33:47.759)
We’ll get to the Old Testament too for sure, but I know that you know of one because we’ve talked about him in the past.
Jacob (33:54.232)
Yeah, well, you know, this is, here’s the problem is I always get the Desert Father stories mixed up. So I was never remembered which one belongs to. But oh, that’s cool. Yeah, we can talk about him too. No, but I thought you were kind of nudging towards. Is it St. Macarius or is it St. Anthony, who is like, if you would, you could be like fire.
mike (34:00.852)
Okay.
I thought you were going to say St. Patrick, but yeah, go ahead.
mike (34:19.722)
It’s Abbot Lot, I thought it was, or Abbot Isaac, or something. Yeah, no, it’s, I don’t, it, it’s, we’re just going to cut that one out, too. I do have, no, I have the, this is just, we’ll just have to recut back this in, because I have that line, the why not be utterly changed into fire, that’s towards the end of the outline. So I was going to do that at the end. Because I wanted to go through the,
Jacob (34:24.176)
Oh man, we’re going to get trashed. This is, because I would not have guessed that one.
Jacob (34:42.326)
Oh, okay. Well, why are you bringing up saints right now?
mike (34:47.63)
our mythological heroes, the Christian myth, like Florian, St. Patrick, St. Lawrence.
Jacob (34:50.704)
Uh huh. Okay, well let’s go through St. Patrick.
mike (34:58.05)
Can you cut from when I ended the, can you cut from, do you know of any or are there any that you can think of? And then you’ll just come right in on St. Patrick. How’s that sound?
Jacob (35:08.24)
No, let’s just follow your outline. Oh, I know.
mike (35:10.974)
No, I’m saying like in the, I’m saying in the conversation, like before you started thinking of the Desert Fathers. And just pretend as if you were gonna say St. Patrick right away.
Jacob (35:18.88)
Uh, no, my head totally goes towards right. Um, I can do that. I can talk about St. Patrick, his fire on the Hill.
mike (35:27.51)
So I’m saying pretend I just said, are there any that you can think of or whatever, and then you’ll just go right into St. Patrick. All right, go ahead.
Jacob (35:31.608)
Yeah, no, I got you. Right.
Well, you know, I like the British Isles. I’m a very, very British Isle descendant. Well, I think I’ve told you before, I’m like 70% British Isle in like my little ancestry DNA profile. So ever since then, ever since science told me that I am super British, it’s like, wow, I’m going to like own that I’m going to adopt those. But anyway,
mike (35:40.098)
Okay.
an Anglo file.
mike (35:50.754)
Okay.
mike (35:59.173)
I always knew there was a reason for this, yeah. Now I can just be insufferable about it, right?
Jacob (36:08.509)
So, St. Patrick, you know, there’s a famous story where like the pagans on the island would have like these bonfires, right? And fire sacrifice was a key part of their religious tradition. So one of the things he does is sets up a giant bonfire. How does the story go? It’s like bigger than theirs or he… Yeah. And… Yeah.
mike (36:30.806)
It was Easter Vigil, yeah. And it was on the, no, it was the sacred hill where you weren’t supposed to.
Jacob (36:36.828)
Is that what it was? He takes over their hill. But I know it was on top of a hill. I know there’s still pilgrimages to this day where like you’ll see people climbing up this hill. But anyway. Can you believe it? I just yeah. But. Well, and so, yeah, so he makes the giant bonfire for Easter, right? So that’s kind of a cool story.
mike (36:38.122)
Yeah.
mike (36:43.894)
Mm-hmm.
Oh, a high space where a fire happens? I wonder where that’s gonna, yeah. There’s any sort of biblical precedent for that. That’d be, you know.
mike (37:04.426)
I tell my students that it’s his big FU to the Druid priests is kind of the basically, which is kind of like saint, it’s kind of like when, oh, who was it that chopped down the sacred tree? Boniface, yeah, thank you. Yeah, so it’s kind of, it’s, you know, just trolling the pagans is what ancient Christianity was all about.
Jacob (37:08.576)
Mm-hmm. Well, and-
Jacob (37:16.552)
Oh, Boniface? Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is his Boniface moment.
Jacob (37:25.32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s true. Well, and then you know, so like think about that though like st. Patrick. He doesn’t go and like Do the opposite right? He doesn’t go and say oh well I’m gonna make a giant waterfall off the top of this mountain, you know, like he he’s like no I’m gonna take your game and I’m gonna make it Christian, right and I’m gonna show you what’s up kind of thing He culturally appropriated. Yes, exactly
mike (37:27.146)
It still can be.
mike (37:35.456)
Hmm.
mike (37:47.01)
Mm. Cultural appropriation. We invented that. Yeah.
Jacob (37:53.308)
He took their culture and he made it appropriate. So yeah, I like that. Just made that up.
mike (37:56.47)
Mm-hmm. Nice. So no, but now the idea was the building the fire was already a thing for Easter, right? And we still do that on the Easter vigil, where you have the, you know, in the West, we have the lighting of the Easter candle on Easter vigil, which is sundown the night before Easter or Easter morning. So this idea, one of the cool things about this, Patrick’s story, is that it shows how ancient that practice was.
The fact that he didn’t come up with the idea of lighting the fire, it was, hey, this is Easter. We’re lighting this fire. Now the fact that, like you said, doing it on the high hill where he was not supposed to do it, as a way of saying, our God can be your God sort of thing. But what were we gonna say? With a fire? Yeah, I know, exactly.
Jacob (38:42.288)
Mm hmm. I wonder if there’s a biblical precedent for that. But yeah, well, all right. So from Eastern Orthodox perspective here, you’ve surely heard of the Holy Fire that descends in Jerusalem on Pascha. Right. So, you know, I’ll leave that for everyone to just check out on their own. But it’s worth a Google.
mike (39:03.902)
Worth a Google? Worth a Google. Yeah.
Jacob (39:06.636)
And I’ll say this much, it’s pretty interesting. There’s lots of videos every year and like you have the people. And so what happens is the bishop goes into the church of the holy sepulcher. I believe it is. Um, or it couldn’t be this. It is a sepulcher. Yeah. Uh, anyway, um, I think that’s true. Well, he goes in there, he comes out, the fire is said to descend from heaven. And when he goes and he spreads the fire out, right. And so everyone has like their big.
like bundles of candles and things like that, wicks and stuff. And so it all starts getting spread and you can wash your face in it. You can put your hands in it and it doesn’t burn.
There’s videos, you know? Yeah. Oh, I’m not I’m basically talking to the audience, you know, like go check it out. I don’t think that you’re being hyper skeptical about it. But yeah, so that’s actually a really, really significant thing, though. And that fire is really intended to spread all throughout the Orthodox world. And so, you know, it gets carried. This is similar to didn’t they do this in like Greece, the like Olympic
mike (39:50.074)
I, yeah, that’s so.
Yeah, no, for sure.
mike (40:07.662)
Mm.
mike (40:16.898)
The Olympics, yeah. Well, I thought, yeah, I thought they’d do that still, not just when it was in Greece, but yeah, I mean, I remember, because it was in what, 2004, it was in Athens or something, so, yeah.
Jacob (40:17.86)
Yeah, the Olympic flame and it travels all over.
And I think they do, right? Yeah, yeah.
Jacob (40:28.576)
Mm-hmm. Well, and so actually like so the Orthodox do this every year to basically where they actually carry that flame You know all over the world and stuff like that. So
mike (40:34.154)
Mm.
mike (40:39.126)
Well, in Jesus, you know, it kind of reminds me of that line Jesus says where it’s like, I’ve come to set the, what is it, the world on fire, but it would that it had already been inflamed sort of thing. And so, you know what I’m talking about?
Jacob (40:50.848)
Does Jesus say that? I’ve come to set man against his brother, sons against their father, and stuff like that. Bring a sword but not peace. I don’t know if I remember a line where he says, set the flame on. Ooh.
mike (41:02.302)
Luke 1249. I’ve come to set the world on fire. Yeah. So, I’ve got two Saint stories that I wanted to include also. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with these. We haven’t talked about them before. I don’t think they’re exclusively Western necessarily, but anyway, we’ll just kind of see. The first one is Saint Lawrence the Deacon. You maybe have heard of this one. Have you heard this? His story with fire.
Jacob (41:23.944)
Uh, I don’t know if I know the name off the top of my head, no.
mike (41:27.046)
So St. Lawrence the Deacon, his fun story with, because nobody can accuse us ancient Christians of nothing if we’re not ironic. So St. Lawrence the Deacon, he was a Deacon in the Church of Rome. He was instructed to bring the riches of the church to the emperor because they hadn’t been paying their taxes or whatever. But he said, bring the riches of the church. And so he brought him the poor, the lame, the feeble, the sick. And he said, these are the riches of the church. Well,
Jacob (41:35.293)
Uh-huh.
Jacob (41:51.341)
Okay, this does sound familiar.
mike (41:55.822)
governor, the emperor, whoever, it didn’t take too kindly to it. So they arrested Saint Lawrence and they were torturing him. And the way that they were torturing him is they were roasting him over a spit or not over a spit. They didn’t, you know, drive him through, but over a grill. And he said, turn me over, I’m done on this side. And that’s how he was. Now the, well, he is actually, this is the ironic side. He’s the patron saint of grillers and barbecuers. So, but
Jacob (42:07.208)
Okay, yeah, I know this story for sure. Yeah. He’s like the patron saint of Smart Alex, right? Like he has to be.
Jacob (42:22.389)
Yeah, I think you told me this before
mike (42:25.002)
So the other, but the other story, which I had actually, the second part of the story I had never heard before. So there’s another, we have a patron saint of firefighters and it’s St. Florian. Now, like I said, I think this one is more Western than Eastern, are you familiar with St. Florian? No. So this one is doubly ironic, that’s why I like this one. So he was a Roman soldier, but he was specifically assigned to the fire brigade, which goes along with his, you know, patron saint of firefighters.
Jacob (42:41.157)
I might have heard this story, but the name I don’t know off the top of my head.
Jacob (42:47.301)
Okay.
mike (42:56.922)
But he was condemned like other soldiers for being a Christian. Now he said when he was caught and he was condemned to be executed, he says, why don’t you burn me at the stake, you know, like all the others? And so you’d think, oh yeah, he was burned at the stake, you know, Catholics are ironic. That’s why he’s firefighter. He actually, he was not burned at the stake. He was drowned. So we have the Patron Saint of firefighters was drowned.
Jacob (43:08.904)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (43:14.676)
Ha ha
Jacob (43:21.685)
Womp Womp.
mike (43:25.738)
Yeah, as the execution.
Jacob (43:26.34)
That would have been a good example for our like, Telos episode where we talked about like, twist endings. Yeah, twist.
mike (43:30.442)
It’s the perfect end, right? Because his soul was so on fire that they tried to drown it in water. But now, yeah, no, like I said, that was a fun, because I knew the first part. But it’s a kind of a fitting end, like you said, Telos. I heard that one.
Jacob (43:37.449)
They extinguish in it, right? Okay, cool.
Jacob (43:49.916)
You still can’t hear my cat mewling, right? I remind you, I am gonna have to edit this afterwards. So if this episode is just nothing but cat mules in the background.
mike (44:00.321)
It’s atmosphere. I don’t know.
Jacob (44:04.852)
there for the visit for the audience that can see you can see my kitten this is a good time to plug that we’re on YouTube now folks so go check us out on YouTube
mike (44:05.344)
Now we’re.
mike (44:09.078)
just wants attention. Yeah. I guess, I guess. Against, I think against some of our better judgments, but no, I’m just kidding.
Jacob (44:18.916)
Alright, he’s this cats one. I’m just gonna let him out. Alright, so sorry. Why don’t you talk a little bit to keep our audio audience listening?
mike (44:25.838)
All right, well, I’m actually gonna go into the Bible a little bit if that’s okay. So there’s tons of examples, not just of what fire does, but fire has this relationship with who God is. And probably the most obvious example that comes up is in Exodus chapter three, God’s presence is shown in the burning bush. And so that’s, I think if I were to, you know, people who are somewhat familiar with the Bible, that would be like the first example.
What I was saying, Jacob, is that fire, well, so fire comes up not just as something to be used, but as a relationship with who God is. And so Exodus 3 is the first, kind of the biggest one, but there’s actually two really, really important ones where the author will say explicitly, God is a consuming fire. And we see that once in the Old Testament, and then it’s reaffirmed, because it’s quoting, but again, in the New Testament, we see in Deuteronomy chapter four,
Jacob (44:57.298)
the burning bush.
mike (45:24.202)
where again, God is described as consuming fire and then Hebrews 12, chapter 12 verse 29, same thing. Now that’s gonna be really significant because now it’s almost like you’ve got this foundation for when fire shows up in Israelite or a Christian later on should have that line, God is a consuming fire sort of in their head. Does that make sense?
Jacob (45:48.212)
Hmm, sure.
mike (45:50.186)
So it’s, I mean, it does come to represent judgment in some pretty significant ways. Do you remember the two, at least the two examples that I have, probably the first one, that one that everybody thinks of when fire represents judgment is what?
Jacob (46:03.808)
Well, there’s, yeah, Sam and Gamora for one, right? I mean, like, obviously, fire coming down from the sky and wiping out those two towns. Is the second one you’re talking about when Elijah is confronting the prophets of Baal?
mike (46:06.954)
Yeah, exactly.
mike (46:16.023)
Mm-hmm.
mike (46:23.21)
Well, so I get I understand that one too. That wasn’t the other one I had in mind. That one’s going to have to do with like worship and sacrifice and all that sort of thing. It was going to be the Aaron sons, Nadab and Abihu, right, because they set up the, what would you say, the unauthorized fire or the cursed fire or, you know, whatever translation, but there again, it sort of like comes out and consumes them, which should be significant because
Jacob (46:35.772)
Oh.
Jacob (46:40.96)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (46:49.46)
Sure, absolutely.
mike (46:51.766)
This was done in the context of improper worship. And what did the fire do in the context of worship is it consumed the sacrifice and it was supposed to bring it up to God, right? That’s why the Israelites had to burn up the leftovers of their Passover sacrifice is because then it would rise up to God in the smoke. Well, now we have this other sort of, like I said, this judgment because of the unauthorized fire. But you wanted to talk about,
Jacob (47:11.008)
Sure, absolutely.
Jacob (47:17.384)
Well, also like Egypt, right? I mean, you know, so one of the plagues on Egypt is fire from the sky. So, yeah, fire and judgment. There’s a reason why, you know, they go hand in hand, right? Yeah, it’s, absolutely, sure. But yeah, I was gonna bring up the Elijah story. Is that what you were about to go to? Mm-hmm. Well, so, yeah, I just remember from Sunday school where,
mike (47:23.434)
Mm.
mike (47:32.276)
That’s why it’s the caricature, sort of.
mike (47:39.182)
For sure. No, yeah, please, go ahead.
Jacob (47:46.472)
the prophet Elijah calls out the priest of ball and he’s like, Hey, if you’re out so cool, challenge me to a sacrifice off, right? So it’s kind of like a dance battle. Only instead of dancing, it was sacrificing. And they go up to the top of a mountain. And that’s our next episode. Our next episode is going to be about dance. Yeah. It was like
mike (47:55.918)
Mm-hmm.
mike (48:01.686)
We came this close to a dance off too.
mike (48:07.362)
They voted. They voted between the two and they it was close, but it they ended up going with the
Jacob (48:12.048)
It was like that scene in West Side Story where the two gangs are like deciding how they’re going to brawl. And it’s like sticks, knives, you know, and they’re like, you know, getting they’re escalating. That’s what happened between Elijah and the priest of ball is like it’s like sacrifice, you know, like or. But anyway, so.
mike (48:17.79)
It’s too tough with priest robes though. Yeah.
mike (48:27.946)
And then I don’t have sticks or nothing. I just got my heart. That’s all I can use. That’s just my heart, man.
Jacob (48:39.652)
you know, they go and they pray for ball to go and cast fire from heaven to consume their sacrifices. And nothing happens. And in a classic trolling the pagan way, you know, the prophet Elijah goes and he douses all of his sacrifices and water right just saturates them. And then he still calls down fire from heaven and they consume and it’s so hot it consumes both the sacrifice and the evil.
mike (48:51.703)
Mm-hmm.
mike (48:59.924)
Yeah.
Jacob (49:09.076)
priest of ball. So, you know, he was he was spitting hot fire. Yeah, prophet Elijah. Oh, where are you going? I was about to say, are you about to go with the chariot?
mike (49:15.786)
Yeah, oh nice. Well, I mean, that’s very prophetic, right? Exactly. Well, and speaking of, so, oh, go ahead. I was gonna…
Oh, no, I was actually going to rewind a little bit because before Elijah, you’ve got David and Solomon, David the threshing floor, but then Solomon when they dedicate the temple, which again, it’s just, we can go over those quickly. It’s just to re-solidify the connection between sacrifice and fire, but specifically fire from heaven because fire from heaven in response to a sacrifice, Jacob, believe it or not, that’s going to come up later in the story, later in the Bible. But anyway,
Jacob (49:55.42)
Well, and what should be interesting is like, there’s not a dichotomy between fire from heaven, like consuming sacrifice and fire as judgment from heaven, right? Because like when the sacrifice is consumed, that is judgment. That is a judgment, you know. I have a theory. If you look at an Orthodox icon of the Last Judgment, what you’ll see is it’s really cool. Honestly.
mike (49:55.894)
Go ahead.
mike (50:05.752)
Mm-hmm.
mike (50:12.526)
Mm.
Jacob (50:25.288)
there’s a ton of stuff we talk about but one of the biggest elements of it is that there’s a river of fire that comes down from basically where Christ is seated on high, and it ends in the mouth of the beast right from Revelation or whatever, but it’s this river of judgment kind of thing. I, I’ve noticed that Orthodox churches are set up iconographically to be very similar to the Orthodox icon of the last judgment.
And without getting too derailed into this, I think what that means, because in an Orthodox service, just like in a Catholic service, everyone walks up the center aisle to participate in communion during the service. If it’s true that the Icon of the Last Judgment is kind of like a symbolic map of an Orthodox liturgy, of an Orthodox church service, well, we also, we form the River of Fire as a community when we go to the sacrifice, when we go up to the Eucharist. Right?
mike (51:04.714)
Mm.
mike (51:15.338)
Mm.
mike (51:20.492)
Mm.
Jacob (51:25.004)
And it is a time of judgment, you know, and it’s a time of circumspection. Yeah.
mike (51:27.37)
And you’re walking out of the mouth of the dragon and into, and Jesus came to set the world on fire. And so you guys are all the fire.
Jacob (51:37.832)
The one thing is, is I’ve never found this anywhere. And so novelty is not a good thing in orthodoxy. And so I don’t want to be just making this up per se, but I’m telling you, man, one of these days we’ll do a little mini episode on the icon of last judgment. I’m gonna like peddle this theory out there and see if I get any pushback on it, because it’s crazy, crazily accurate.
mike (51:44.961)
Mm-hmm.
mike (51:59.043)
Well, and here’s the thing, is the fire, I kind of set this whole thing up by saying, the Bible establishes that whenever we see fire in the Bible, we should be thinking of God saying, I am a consuming fire, or Moses saying, but the Holy Spirit through Moses saying, I am a consuming fire. So if it’s already identified with the nature and the presence of God, well,
Jacob (52:16.349)
Mm-hmm.
mike (52:25.31)
where does that presence of God sit? Where does it rest? Ready for this, Jacob? On the church at Pentecost. There it is. Yeah. Where does it sit? It sits on the church. And
Jacob (52:32.632)
Whoa!
Jacob (52:36.74)
I knew this had something to do with Pentecost somewhere.
mike (52:39.482)
Yeah, I know. So it was getting there. It was all getting in time, patience, right? It’s a slow, Jacob, if this episode is nothing but a slow burn, that’s what it is. So the idea, though, is that all the stuff that we can apply accurately to God or the presence of God when it comes to fire, right, go back to Solomon’s temple. God was consuming the sacrifice, but God was present in the temple.
Jacob (52:45.863)
I should have trusted you Mike.
Jacob (52:51.804)
Uh, oh, yeah, that’s right.
mike (53:08.79)
right, to the Israelite people. Well, where did God’s presence rest? After the sacrifice of Jesus, and then what happened by the way, remember Passover, you burn up the rest of it so that its smoke rises up to God? What happened with the sacrifice of Jesus 40 days after the resurrection is it rises up to God. And if God was pleased with the sacrifice, God would send.
Jacob (53:21.472)
Mm-hmm.
mike (53:32.31)
fire from heaven, just like Elijah. You already, in the story of Elijah, God was pleased with Elijah’s sacrifice, so he sent fire from heaven. Well, God was pleased with the sacrifice of Jesus. He sent fire from heaven in the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and then we become that presence in the world. We become that river of fire, just like you were saying in the icon.
Jacob (53:39.198)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (53:53.329)
Sure, absolutely.
mike (53:54.998)
But what it also shows us, because remember, we’re going through the mythological examples, how like this represents the rebirth or the purification, this represents the destruction, this represents the unpredictability, which by the way, the Holy Spirit being talked about is unpredictable. That’s right from the Gospels too, is Pentecost is the transformational, right, or transfiguring part, the function of this Holy Fire.
Jacob (54:11.3)
Yeah, absolutely.
Jacob (54:20.572)
Mm hmm. I think the idea that like, kind of rivers of fire, it’s not a perfect analogy, I suppose. But then again, I never intended it to be but the idea that like when we leave church and we bring, we bring the church with us, we bring Christ with us out into the world and things like that.
Jacob (54:45.976)
when Jesus says, I’ve come to bring judgment and things like that. It’s kind of like, it has a negative connotation in people’s minds, because people don’t want to be judged. But it’s not inherently bad, obviously, right? Because if you’re judged, forgiven, if you’re judged, mercifully, what we’re bringing that judgment to, right? And so like, it’s
mike (55:09.003)
Yeah.
Jacob (55:13.468)
You just can’t avoid the fact that Christ is ultimately a judge, right? And it’s not a kind of like tyrannical judge. He’s not a tyrannical judge though. He’s someone who’s.
mike (55:26.03)
That’s why he tells the parable of the just judge, right? He does, you know, I don’t have the citation off the top of my head either, but we, you know, he does tell that parable of the just judge.
Jacob (55:36.852)
So you can, you know, and then famously, you know, when we talk about like hellfire, and like the concept of hell, right? The famous adage is that the same fire that hardens the clay melts the wax, right? In other words, everyone goes to the judgment of God, but some people experience it as hellfire, and some people experience it as a melting flame, you know, that melts our hearts and allows us to
mike (55:52.91)
Mm-hmm.
mike (56:04.142)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (56:06.561)
Unify with God and things like that
mike (56:08.85)
Or as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, right? Some fire, like everything passes through fire, but some of it is, the works are burned up completely and some of it is refined like gold in that 1 Corinthians 3.15.
Jacob (56:18.552)
Yeah, like gold. And that, and he also says that like, be kind to your enemies, because in so doing, you’ll keep fire upon their head. Right? I’ve heard different interpretations for that verse. Some of them are like a reference to like cultural practices at the time, like people bringing like coals to eat, but they would like carry it above their head or whatever. So I don’t know, there’s different ways of interpreting that verse. But at the end of the day, I think they all have in common this idea that our lives
Jacob (56:49.836)
are a judgment, not just for ourselves, but for the world. Right. And so when we go out into the world and we practice mercy and forgiveness and Christian virtues and love, you know, some people will reject that and some people will embrace that. But it’s up to us to bring it. Right. We got to bring the fire mic. Maybe I can start doing sports analogies.
mike (57:09.686)
Mm hmm. That’s right. Why not be utterly changed into fire? That’s my question for you, Jacob. Did you want to close with our, you want to kind of close with our, so there’s this story that Jacob and I both love. And it’s actually the other thing, too, is it’s a there’s a band called Me Without You who has it in their it’s a lyric in their song, The King Beetle. Do you remember that when we listened to that song, talked about that song a little bit? This is like years ago now. But it’s a saying from the Desert Fathers.
Jacob (57:16.465)
Ah, nice.
Jacob (57:34.888)
Mmm.
mike (57:39.438)
And the sources that I’ve seen, it says, about lot said to about Joseph. So those that we’re just going to go with, that’s the two people in the story. But do you want to tell the story, Jacob?
Jacob (57:49.18)
Well, honestly, there’s basically the he’s like, I’ve done everything the one because the one guy says the other guy sounds like I’m setting up a joke, right? The problem I always get all the names mixed up in the desert fathers. So I can never remember like who said what to who. But, you know, according to you, it’s Joseph and lot, I guess. And I think that means that Joseph was like, hey, I’ve done all this stuff. I’m doing really well here. You know, I’m doing all the practices right. I’m just wondering what else can I do?
mike (57:57.1)
Yeah.
Jacob (58:19.06)
to which Abbott lottery towards why not become like fire, which is a reference to the final transfiguration of us, to our theosis, our becoming like God.
mike (58:31.806)
Yeah. So it goes along with this idea of when he says, why not be utterly changed into fire? Why not become like fire? And in the story, his fingertips turn into lamps, or they turn into flames. Now, what’s interesting about that is, that’s the menorah in the Jewish temple is the menorah had the little flames at the end, and that the menorah was supposed to be symbolic of the burning bush. And so there again,
Jacob (58:45.693)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (58:51.994)
Oh.
Jacob (58:58.993)
Mm-hmm.
mike (58:59.998)
it’s representative of the presence of God that did not consume, right? In the same way, right, when we take on that tongue of fire at Pentecost, when we received the Holy Spirit first at our baptism, obviously, you know, continue throughout our Christian life, chrismation as well, but we’re becoming like fire, right? And we’re uniting ourselves to the…
Jacob (59:06.324)
Mm-hmm.
mike (59:27.234)
presence of God, which as the Bible says is a consuming fire. And so we need to become, you know, we’re the lampstands, we’re the menorah, because that was the continued burning presence of God and where it was in the temple. And so you have, yeah, these two desert fathers, which it kind of sets up just like the rich man to Jesus, where he says, you know, I’ve followed the law, what more must I do? And he says, go sell everything.
Jacob (59:55.94)
Yeah, it is very similar to that story, isn’t it?
mike (59:57.114)
you’ll be perfect. Now what’s funny about that is in that story is Jesus was looking for kenosis. He was looking for emptying, right? And in the same way, right, that’s the final step is that kenosis. It’s that self-emptying, but it’s not to become nothingness. That’s kind of the whole Buddhist misunderstanding of the Buddhist application. It’s not the becoming nothingness. It’s self-emptying.
Jacob (01:00:06.794)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (01:00:18.628)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
mike (01:00:24.746)
so that it’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, to quote St. Paul. And so there again, it’s all kind of circled around this idea of, yeah, God’s presence is that fire, right, and for us in the Christian life, the last step isn’t doing another thing. It’s, you know, being able to recognize or becoming dasa enough to welcome in that presence of God and be utterly changed into fire.
Jacob (01:00:55.068)
Yep. And not to put it under a bushel.
mike (01:00:59.186)
Exactly. So thank you, Jacob, for indulging me for this fire. This very, what do you say? Yeah, hopefully we hopefully we’re able to give as much light as we were able to give heat in this episode. Yeah, and, and. All right, all right. Thank you guys for coming to.
Jacob (01:01:07.38)
this not this not Pentecost fire episode.
Jacob (01:01:16.269)
Ah, mm-hmm. I feel downright illuminated.
mike (01:01:24.29)
to listen to, well, you know, it’s fun to finally get off of monsters for a little bit. I don’t know, I was feeling a little bit like, I don’t know. Yeah, so, but, but anyway, and yeah, we look forward to talking with you guys more. Just don’t forget to leave a five star rating, like and subscribe, positive review, all that stuff kind of helps us get out there a little bit more. And so we can keep having these fun conversations and making fun of our producer at the end of a episode.
Jacob (01:01:30.336)
Time to move on. Yeah, I’m down, yeah.
Jacob (01:01:53.6)
And I’m not fired yet.
mike (01:01:55.778)
Duh.