The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. Here’s your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the Ancient Tradition. I’m your host, Jack Logan. Welcome to all of you, longtime listeners and new listeners. We’re glad that you’re listening in. Today I think you’re going to learn something new. Maybe not, but hopefully you will. If you’re a new listener, we heartily welcome you to the program. But I think it’s important to start by telling you what to expect from this podcast because this podcast is unlike other religious podcasts in the cyrosphere.

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This podcast is not set up like a sermon or a Sunday school class or a scripture a day podcast. There are plenty of awesome and wonderful podcasts just like that already available. Nor is this podcast focused on one particular religion like Islam, Taoism, or Hinduism. This podcast is unlike any other religious podcast out there because we start with the premise that in the very beginning of human history, God imparted

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to human beings the immutable truth about who he is, his true nature and divine characteristics, along with the immutable truth about the heavens, the spiritual realm where he dwells, and the immutable truth about why we’re on this planet. And why do we begin there? Why do we begin with this premise? Well, because that’s exactly what the ancients themselves tell us.

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They tell us in their writings that in the beginning, God imparted to them a rich, sophisticated theology. A theology which human beings needed to know and needed to understand if they were to reach their fullest potential. And I’m gonna give you an example of this. For example, in Hinduism, in the Satapatha Brahmana, it’s dated to sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, we find an important passage on Vedic ritual.

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The Satapatha Brahmana is a commentary. It’s a commentary on the Vajravita, which focuses almost exclusively on Vedic religious rituals. Now listen to what the Satapatha Brahmana 7.2.1.4 says about Vedic ritual. And this is the Julius Eggeling translation. It says, quote, “‘Now that same thing which the gods did is done here.'”

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This passage attests that the rituals that Hindus perform are understood to be the same rituals that gods performed. Even though it doesn’t say it directly in this verse, the verse actually refers to the rituals that the gods performed in the very beginning. The context of the chapter, chapter seven, is kind of important. It’s actually about the ritual erecting of an altar, which Hindus believe has the power to dispel darkness and evil.

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The erection of this altar was actually the ritual reenactment of the creation of the world in the very beginning, which we’re going to talk about more when we talk about altars. And the casting out or the dispelling of evil, which the gods did before the world, aka the altar, could be created. So in this first, Hindus are telling us that the rituals that are performing on earth are the same rituals.

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that the gods performed in the beginning. The rest of 7.2.1.4 reads, quote, Now that same thing which the gods did is done here. Even now that darkness and evil has indeed been dispelled by the gods themselves. But when he, and that he refers to the human being that’s erecting this altar, now does this. It is because he thinks, quote,

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I must do what the gods did. The passage is pretty straightforward. Hindus are telling us that the rituals they perform are modeled after the rituals the gods performed in the beginning. Rituals the gods modeled for human beings in the very beginning. This is what the ancients themselves tell us. So for you new listeners, what we just did here is what we do in every episode.

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actual texts the ancients left. The papyri and the hieroglyphs, cuneiform tablets and the codices. And we read directly from them right on the program. We read what the ancients actually had to say. On this program the ancients get the center stage. We give them the pulpit. Because we do this, because we dive into the texts,

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Sometimes the podcast can feel a little bit academic and sometimes maybe even a little bit tedious, but that’s because I don’t want you to take my word for it. I want you to hear it directly from them, from the ancients themselves. And if you’re anything like me, a bit nerdy and a bit of a wonk, then you’ll find that what the ancients had to say was incredibly exciting, especially because as we’ve discovered up to this point in the program, from what we’ve learned from their texts,

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that they’re teaching what looks like a number of universal truths and one theology, a theology which we call in this program the ancient tradition. If you’re interested in this topic, as I think all human beings should be, I of course invite you to listen in, but I also want to invite you to study the ancient texts for yourself. Don’t take my word for it.

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There are so, so many ancient texts now that have been translated into English or can be easily translated using Google Translate into any language, which makes them accessible to anyone who wants to take a look and study them. I also wanna make you aware of just a couple of additional resources. This podcast has a companion website, thea

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where you could find a webpage dedicated to each episode. You just go in to the menu and you click on show notes and you scroll down until you find the episode that you want. In each episode page, you’ll find pictures and you can find a full transcript and some links. And in addition to that, you can find full audio recordings as some of the ancient texts that we refer to on the program. On our sister podcast, the ancient tradition audio writ.

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And you can find audio writ anywhere that you get your podcast. With that, let’s jump into today’s episode. We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past couple of episodes examining who the major civilizations in the ancient world, in particular, the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Canaanites, Hebrews, Persians, Chinese, Hindus, and early Christians.

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tell us God is. And we’ve dug into the ancient texts and the iconography and we found that each one of these ancient civilizations taught the same thing about who God is. Each one attested and continue to attest that a civil government exists in heaven and that God reigns at the head of that celestial government as a king. And there are several other ancient civilization that

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to the magisterial character of God, like Zeus, who reigned as the king of the gods in ancient Greece, and Jupiter, who reigned as the king of the gods in ancient Rome, and the Japanese Amei no Minakhanushi, who rules in the very center of heaven as the great kami sovereign, and the Vietnamese god, Om Troi,

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who’s always depicted dressed in imperial attire, and who was referred to as the Vlaa Cha Njap Jong, which in English is the monarchical father, or the Aztec god, Tezla Copoca, from which Aztec kings drew their legitimacy, and who in the frontispiece of the Codex, Freyavari Meyer, is featured in the center of four trees, each marking a cardinal point.

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and who wore jade jewelry, which symbolized his divine status. And of course, the Norse god Odin, whom we learn in the Old English poem titled Nine Herbs Charm, dated to the 11th century AD, slew a worm, wyrm, which is a serpent or a Germanic dragon, with, get this, the twig or branch.

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a tree. The poem reads, and this is the Bill Griffiths translation, a serpent came crawling but it destroyed no one when Odin took nine twigs of glory and then struck the adder, which is the serpent, so that it flew into nine pieces. So there’s the Theomache and it’s quite interesting, of course, that he used a branch of a tree to slay the serpent.

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And Odin, of course, goes on to rule as the king of the gods, the king of the Norse pantheon. In a book titled Myth and Religion of the North, written by Edward Turville Petra, professor of ancient Icelandic literature and antiquities at the University of Oxford, it says this of the god Odin on page 70. Odin appears as the god of chieftains, kings, and thus the highest god.

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the legendary founders of the English nation, were said to descend from him. And as Bede said, many indeed nearly all of the provincial kings traced their descent from Odin. So here again, we see a direct tie between the king of heaven and the earthly king’s right to rule. There’s an important Norse text titled Gilfonganing.

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which is found in the 13th century AD proseda, which we’ve talked about on the program. The King of Sweden, King Gylfi, is taken into heaven to Asgard, to the home of the gods, where he sees three figures, each seated on a throne. And this is the Arthur Gilchrist Broder translation, speaking of what King Gylfi saw. Quote, he saw three high seats.

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each above the other and three men sat there on one on each. Note how there are three separate thrones here and three separate gods who are described in the text as men each seated on a throne. Quote, and he asked what might be the name of those lords. He who had conducted him in

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answered that the one who sat on the nethermost high seat was a king. Note how the god seated on the high throne is called a king. A couple of lines later, King Guilfy learns that this is Odin, the All-Father, called the All-Father because he is the father of all the gods. The text reads, quote, Gonglery began his questions thus, who is foremost or oldest

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of all the gods. Howrey answered, He is called in our speech All-Father, but in the Elder Asgard he had twelve names. Then the text goes on to list Odin’s twelve names. He lives throughout all ages and governs all his realm and directs all things great and small. Then just guess what the text recounts next.

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one of whom is Odin, slew the terrible giant Ymir, after which Odin created the earth out of Ymir’s dead carcass. And you longtime listeners know why Odin used Ymir’s carcass to create the earth. What the text says right after this is really important, but I’m gonna save it for our next episode. In section 14, we’re told that the first thing that Odin did as the king of heaven was, quote, established rulers, of which there were 12.

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gave them power to, quote, ordain fates, and bade them build a house, a palace hall in Asgard where they could hold council or court. The text reads, then said, gonglery, what did all father then do when Asgard was made? Howrey answered, in the beginning, he established rulers and bade them ordain fates with him.

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and give counsel concerning the planning of the town that was in the place which is called Eid-el-Feyeld, and that is a large field or plain in the center of Asgard, which is heaven, in the midst of the town. It was their first work to make that court in which their twelve seats stand, and another the high seat which All-Father himself has. That house is the best made of any on earth and the greatest.

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Without and within, it is all like one piece of gold. Men call it gladshime. If you’re a long time listener to the program, I’m sure you can see the pattern here like we see everywhere else, where God reigns as a king over a royal court in a celestial palace.

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And finally, the Celtic god Lugos or Lugus was the king of the gods over the Celtic pantheon. In Ireland, there was a mortal hero by the name of Lug. He was a victorious youth who, no surprise, defeated the monstrous Balor, who was, quote, a malevolent supernatural being who wrecked havoc and destruction in the Second Battle of Moitura.

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After Lug defeats Balor, he goes on to be the, quote, paradigm of holy and priestly kingship. And of course, you’re not going to be surprised at all to learn that Lug had in his possession several special weapons, a, quote, unstoppable fiery spear, and a special sling stone. Lug is the Irish expression of the Celtic god, Lugus.

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The pattern of kingship and kingship theology here is unmistakable, and it’s unmistakable in all of the examples that we’ve covered today and that we’ve covered over the past couple of episodes. Now I know I have really driven home this point, and I’ve probably overdone it. I understand that, but that’s because it’s so important. If we don’t get that God reigns as a king,

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and see that this is a universal truth that all the ancients taught, then we’re never going to understand the full magnitude of the theology that God imparts in the beginning, in the dream time, in the first time, in the Garden of Eden. And that would be a terrible misfortune because as we’ve already begun to see on the program, this theology holds a whole heck of a lot of answers for why we’re here on this planet and the nature of our highest destiny. Now

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Before I can return to a discussion of the first time, we kind of have to take a slight step back and talk about a few things, which are gonna greatly increase our understanding of the first time. Over the past two years, we’ve taken a deep dive into the ancient texts. We’ve seen the ancients teach us over and over and over again, regardless of where we are in the ancient world, the same theology, which follows a consistent

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sequence of events. Now please forgive me for just a moment as I briefly recount them. I just want to make sure that our new listeners are following along. The ancients tell us that in the beginning number one a rebellious God sought to overthrow the order of heaven. Number two a selfless God stepped forward and offered to battle the rebellious God. Number three the selfless God

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with the help of special weapons defeated the rebellious God. And number four, having victoriously defeated the rebellious God, the selfless God was crowned by his father, a divine heavenly king. Now it’s what the ancient texts tell us happened next that we’re going to talk about today and is of utmost importance to understand to get a comprehensive understanding of the remainder of the podcast.

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All of you long time listeners out there, do you recall what happens next? Well, the ancient texts tell us that one of two things happened. The newly crowned heavenly king either number one began creating the universe or the world, or number two, he began building a temple or both. I want to take

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Just a minute here and briefly review a couple of the examples of this in the ancient text so you get a feel for this aspect of the theology. For example, in tablets four and five of the Mesopotamian enumerate, it tells us that after Marduk defeated Tiamat, he then used Tiamat’s carcass to create the earth. We saw the same thing among the Hebrews in the Old Testament in Psalm 89

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where the text tells us that Yahweh defeated Rahab and then created the world. And like we mentioned in our last episode, we saw the same thing in the Rig Veda when Indra defeated Vritra. He initiated life into the world, having unleashed the waters Vritra was imprisoning. And like I just mentioned earlier in today’s episode, like we see in the prose Edah, where the sons of Bor, one of whom is Odin, defeated Ymir.

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then used Ymir’s carcass to create the world. In each of these texts the ability to create the universal world to impose order on chaos was the result of the selfless god’s defeat over the rebellious god, the god of chaos. Now in other texts we see that after the defeat of the rebellious god the first thing the selfless god does is seek a place to rest.

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after the battle. He can’t find a place to rest, so the first thing he does is build a palace temple where he can dwell. We see this mentioned in Tablet 4 of the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish right after Marduk uses Tiamat’s carcass to create the earth. Tablet 4 reads, and this is the Stephanie Dalley translation, quote, He sliced her in half like a fish for

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roof the sky. Then two lines after this and I’m going to talk about those two lines in our next episode because they’re really important but I’m going to save that for then. The text reads, speaking of Marduk, quote, he crossed the heavens and sought out a shrine which is a temple. In tablet five Marduk says, I shall make a house which is a temple to be a luxurious dwelling for myself.

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and I shall establish my private quarters and confirm my kingship.” Now, the statement that he makes right there comes just six lines after the text says, quote, they, the gods, gave kingship to Marduk. So here in the Mesopotamian enuma Elish, we see that after Marduk defeats Tiamat, he’s crowned a king, and then he both creates the universe and builds a temple. In the ancient Canaanite literature,

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We see that after the god Baal defeated Yam, the first thing that he desired to do was build a temple. In fragment two, AB, Baal appeals to the high god for their right to build a temple. The text reads, quote, “‘But alas, he cries unto Bol El his father, “‘to El the king his begetter. “‘Look, no house,’ which is a temple, “‘has Baal like the gods.’

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Let a house be built for all like the gods. So build thou a silver and gold house, a house of most pure lapis lazuli. And I realize I’ve been pronouncing that wrong this whole time. I thought it was lapis lazuli, but it’s apparently lapis lazuli. It doesn’t look like that when it’s spelled that way, but there you go. After this comes Kather Wakasa, who’s the divine master builder. Then answered Poussaint Ball.

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Quickly, a house, O Cawther, quickly raise up a palace. Quickly the house shalt thou build. Quickly shall raise up the palace. A thousand fields the house shall cover. A myriad acres the palace. So the temple that Baal wants to build is massive. It covers, according to this text, quote, a thousand fields, a myriad acres.

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The sheer size of this temple is actually an important tidbit. In this text, the victorious god Baal earned the right to build this temple because of his victorious defeat over Yam. Among the Hittites, in a text known as the Myth of Iluyanca, the storm god teams up with a god by the name of Inaris.

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Ulyanka the dragon. And after they succeed, Inaris builds a temple. The text reads and this is the Gary Beckman translation quote when the storm God and the serpent came to grips in the town of Kiskalusa. The serpent smote the storm God and then he seeks Inaris help. The storm God came and slew the serpent. The other gods were at his side. Inaris

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went to the town of Kiskalousa, that’s where the battle originally took place, and set her house. Temple. And if you recall, we saw the same pattern in ancient Greece. In line 287 of the Homeric hymn to Apollo, when the god Apollo, after defeating Python, resolved to build his, quote,

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Here is the place I intend to erect a most beautiful temple.

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From these examples, we can clearly see that after the hero God defeats the dragon and is crowned a heavenly king, he does one of two things or both. He either initiates the creation or he builds a temple. Okay, so why two different options? Well, the answer to this question is incredibly important because

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In the ancient world, there is no difference between the two. Between creating the universe and building a temple. They are one and the same thing. To create a universe is to create a temple. To build a temple is to build a universe.

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both are expressions of kingdom building. They are both expressions of the newly crowned heavenly king initiating the creation of his newly inherited cosmic kingdom. And this is pretty easily illustrated in ancient Egypt. If you remember when the ancient Egyptian high god Atum appeared over the primordial waters of Nune and he saw nothing but an infinite mess of chaotic

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And this is found in Coffin Texts, Spell 80. Quote, I could find no place on which to stand or sit. My throne had not yet been put together that I might sit on it. So when Atum looks out, he sees no creation, no palace temple, no throne on which to sit and rest. And what happens next? Well, Pyramid Texts 600.

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which we talked about extensively in episode number 31, tells us that the chaotic elements, which we learned from the Memphite Shabaka Stone were commanded via divine utterance by the god Ptah to order themselves into land, into a hill known as the Primordial Hillock or Primordial Hill, rose out of the chaos. The creation began. See,

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The response to Atum’s distress about not having a throne that had been put together yet wasn’t the building of a brick and mortar throne. The response was the initiation of the creation, the initiation of his cosmic kingdom. And that’s because the building of a palace temple where the throne would sit in the center and the building of the universe, the creation, where God would sit in the center of his

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and the same thing. To create a universe was to create a cosmic temple. And this is exactly how the ancient Egyptians depicted Atum. Now remember Atum was syncretized with Re and Ra. So when I say Atum, I’m talking about Atum, Re, Ra. They’re all the same. They almost always

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seated on a throne at the very top of the obelisk, right on the Pyramidion, the Benben stone, the stone that represented the Primordial Mount. The creation, that first land to come out of the chaos. For example, if you’re lucky enough to visit the Piazza del Popolo in Italy, I have not yet been. You’ll find what’s known as the Flaminio Obelisk.

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It’s an ancient Egyptian obelisk dedicated to King Sedi I. He was the second pharaoh of the 19th dynasty. And this exact obelisk was actually the very first obelisk that was removed from Egypt on the orders of Emperor Augustus, then taken to Rome, where it was placed on the Spina as the axle center of the Circus Maximus. That’s where they ran the chariot races. This is actually really important and we’re going to talk about that more in another episode.

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This very obelisk originally stood outside the very, very important temple to Re in Heliopolis. Now if you were to examine this obelisk on the pinnacle of this obelisk right on the Pyramidion, the Benben stone, you’re going to see a depiction of Atum seated on a throne, a scepter in his hand. But it’s simply

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This obelisk depicts Atum sitting directly atop the primordial mound, directly atop his creation. That’s where his throne is. Iconographically, his creation is his palace temple. You see that? If you’d like to see a picture of this, you can find it on the webpage for this episode. In the ancient world, the creation of the universe was understood to be nothing less

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than the construction of a temple. And this is no better illustrated than in chapter 8 of the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. So listen very closely to these verses to how Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, himself uses temple imagery to describe the process of creating the world.

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See if you can count how many temple building references Yahweh uses to describe the creation process. Starting in verse 4, Yahweh says, and he’s speaking to Job here, and this is the revised standard version, quote, Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know.

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or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone? How many temple references did you count? I counted five. In these three verses, Yahweh directly links the creation of the world to the building of a brick and mortar temple. He refers to a foundation.

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precise measurements, bases, which are solid supports, and a cornerstone. Yahweh also asks, quote, “‘Who stretched the line upon it?’ Which actually refers to a very important ancient temple building ritual where a line or a rope was stretched out to lay out the temple’s foundation and to plot its axis. In ancient Egypt, the stretching of the line ceremony

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and this is going to come as no surprise to many of you, was directly associated with Ma’at, which represented truth and righteousness and order. And don’t forget that just two episodes ago, in episode number 48, Uhura Mazda, we saw that the Zoroastrian god Uhura Mazda is universally depicted holding what looks like a ring in his hand, but which we learned represents the rope.

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that was used to stretch the line for a sacred temple. And to drive home the point even further, it’s this ring, this rope, that Ahura Mazda grants to the earthly king, which signifies that Ahura Mazda has granted the earthly king the right to rule as a king and to build a temple. Don’t miss the profound depth of the theology here.

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temple building is equivalent to creating a cosmos, a cosmic kingdom, then what Ahura Mazda is really symbolizing when he grants the rope ring to the earthly king is the power and authority to create, the power and authority to build a sacred cosmic kingdom, the power and authority to create a sacred cosmic temple. This is the theology of the ancient world.

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That is the theology that is conveyed when Ahura Mazda passes the rope ring to the Earthly King. It’s all right there. But you have to know that in the ancient world, like we just saw in the book of Job with Yahweh, that the creation and temple building are one in the same thing if you’re to see and understand the theology that’s being conveyed. If you’d like to see pictures of Ahura Mazda grasping the rope ring, or a picture of him giving the rope ring to the Earthly King,

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You can find it on the webpage for episode number 48. You know, it’s no wonder in the Lord of the Rings that the creature Smeagol didn’t want to let go of the ring because that ring would give him unimaginable power. In a previous episode, we talked about how Gandalf experienced a name change. Well, did you know that in the series, Smeagol did too? See, Smeagol was originally a hobbit.

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It was actually his cousin, Deagle, who originally found the ring in a river bed near Gladden Fields. Smeagol killed his cousin so that he could obtain the ring. And because he killed for the ring, we already know he wasn’t worthy for it. He wasn’t worthy to have the ring or that kind of power. And when the other hobbits found out that Smeagol had killed his cousin, they banished him from the Shire. So now he’s an outcast.

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and he goes into the Misty Mountains and he finds shelter in a dark, dank cave. And then he lets the thoughts of that ring consume and corrupt his mind to the point that he becomes a hideous, disfigured creature. Smeagol was his birth name. That’s the name he was given at birth. The new name was given to him to represent the monster that he became.

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The name he was given after that awful transformation that took place was Gollum. Pretty interesting. Again, in the ancient world, creating a universe is the same thing as creating a cosmic temple and building a cosmic temple is the same thing as building a universe. So why is creating a universe and building a cosmic temple the same thing? Well,

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That’s because the definition of a temple is a sacred or holy precinct. A holy precinct that’s cut off or separated from everything that’s profane. Whenever God brings about order, or in cosmology speak, cosmo-sizes something, which comes from the root word cosmos, which if you remember, literally means ordered or orderly arrangement. It changes. It shifts.

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from a profane, disordered state to a sacred, ordered state. Take the disordered, inert, dark, primordial waters where the dragon dwells, for instance. These waters represent disorder and chaos, a profane state. When God imposes order on them, it sanctifies them precisely because such order can only be brought about by upholding the cosmic law of righteousness.

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It can only be established through truth and justice and righteousness. So to establish order is to sanctify it. The antonym of chaos is order and the antonym of profane is sacred. So when God brings about order, he’s bringing about the sacred. This means that every single thing that God has ordered into existence, the earth,

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the universe, the entire cosmos, his entire cosmic kingdom is sacred space, a sacred cosmic temple. In other words, God’s entire cosmic kingdom is a temple. So when we read in the ancient texts that the young Canaanite god Baal, after defeating the dragon Yam, desired to build a temple,

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a temple that covered quote, a thousand fields and a myriad acres. We know that it’s talking about a much, much, much, much grander temple than our finite minds have the capacity to comprehend because it’s talking about creating an entire cosmos, a sacred cosmic space or bubble with myriad planets and myriad stars that are cut off from the profane chaotic waters. It’s talking about Baal.

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building not just any old temple, it’s talking about him building a cosmic temple. In the ancient world, earthly temples like the temple of Karnak in ancient Egypt or the temple of King Solomon in Jerusalem or something like the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia were and are miniature models of God’s vast cosmic kingdom or temple.

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Earthly temples were designed as microcosms or miniature representations of the macrocosm, which is the entire universe or cosmos. These ancient temples were intentionally crafted to reflect the structure and order of the larger universe, which because its sacred space is a cosmic temple. As above, so below. Now, these are not my ideas.

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This understanding is well established in the scholarly community. A scholar by the name of Dina Ragavine out of Harvard, who worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, organized a seminar and edited this amazing tome. And it’s a tome titled Temples, Ritual and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World. And this is what she says on page one, quote,

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The idea that sacred architecture held cosmic symbolism has a long history in the study of the ancient Near East. From the excavations of the mid-19th century to the scholars of the early 20th century, we see repeated the notion that the Mesopotamian ziggurat reflected the form of the cosmos. Temple topography provides evidence for the conception of the temple as a reflection or embodiment of the cosmos.

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And then on page three she says, the heart of the seminar published here is the idea that architectural forms at any scale can be images or replicas of the greater cosmos. Microcosms of the macrocosm. I wanna illustrate this notion. I wanna illustrate the notion of the cosmos as sacred space or a cosmic temple, and the notion of earthly temples as miniature models of the cosmic temple.

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by using R.T. Rundle’s cosmic bubble metaphor. And part of this is gonna bleed over into our next episode. So don’t worry if you don’t get it all here. Rundle argued that the ancient Egyptians understood the universe like we would a massive air bubble, an air bubble completely surrounded by water. The ancient Egyptians attested that everything within the air bubble was ordered and sacred. They understood that the bubble was sacred space.

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a cosmic temple. They attested that everything outside the bubble, the waters, which I’m referring to here in quotes because you long-time listeners know that the ancients weren’t talking about actual water here, they’re talking about unorganized chaotic matter, was disordered and profane. The waters were the place in the cosmos where God did not dwell. Now as you’re going to see in just a second, the ancient Egyptians were not the only ones who taught that the cosmos were structured

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virtually every group of people that I’ve come across in the ancient world attest to this exact same structure. That out there in the cosmos there is a division, a cosmic division between sacred and profane space. I’m gonna give you example. While R.T. Rundle Clark likes to symbolize the ancient Egyptian understanding of this division with the image of a sacred air bubble, other ancient civilizations used the symbol of an egg.

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or like we saw in ancient China, a gourd. Or do you remember the Chinese account of the Old Yellow One? We talked about it in episode number 39, Symbols of the Sacred Center. And I love the account of the Old Yellow One. It’s one of my favorite. I haven’t shared the whole account with you yet, but if you recall, in that account, the first man, the Chinese Adam, who’s referred to as the Old Yellow One, is visited in the very beginning

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by a gold being who teaches him some very important things, all of which align with the theology we see taught in the ancient tradition. As part of this instruction, the gold one teaches the old yellow one this very thing, this very thing, how the cosmos are truly structured. And as a quick aside, take note how this gold being descends from heaven in a ray of light. That’s going to be important down the line.

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I’m going to read Barbara C. Sproul’s retelling of the account on page 200 of her book Primal Myths. In this account, the Chinese atom is gazing upon the setting sun when a quote, brilliant ray fell to the earth. The account reads quote, out of this illuminating powder, out of this illuminating pattern, a brilliant ray fell to the earth.

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and standing in front of this amazed man, and that’s the old yellow one, appeared someone like him, yet different. He was completely golden in color. Now, this probably goes without saying, but note how this being who descended from the heavens in a ray of light looked just like a man. That’s what the account says. He had anthropomorphic features, yet he was different. He was golden.

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like there was a glory to him. The Gold One goes on to teach the Yellow One a lot of important things, one of which is the structure of the cosmos. The account continues, and this is the Gold One speaking to the Chinese Adam. The great earth lies in the middle of the world sea. The water flows around all the sides of the great earth. Here we see the Gold One teaching the Chinese Adam.

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how the cosmos are actually structured. He’s telling him that in the cosmos, God’s sacred creations are surrounded by the waters of chaos. And then get this, the gold one uses an analogy to help the Chinese atom grasp the concept. The account continues, quote, “‘The great earth lies in the middle of the world sea. “‘The water flows around all the sides of the great earth “‘as the juicy meat

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surrounds the seed of fruit. I love this. The golden one compares the structure of the cosmos to a piece of fruit, like a peach, where the stone seed inside the fruit represents God’s sacred creations, his sacred cosmic temple. And then the flesh or the meat of the fruit around the stone seed represents the chaotic profane waters. And then the gold one tells the Chinese Adam something really interesting.

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He says, speaking of how the fruit or peach is a microcosm of the greater macrocosm, the following, quote, in this way, everything corresponds to the great in the small and the small in the great. He’s basically telling him as above, so below. He’s teaching him that the things on earth, even a piece of fruit is patterned after what’s above.

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But it sounds like what he’s saying is even more profound than a piece of fruit. I mean, it almost sounds when he says the small, that he could be talking about the very structure of the atoms that make up this world, which if you’re familiar with the structure of atoms is very similar to the structure of a peach, where there’s a dense center called the nucleus made up of positively charged protons.

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which is surrounded by a mist or cloud of negatively charged electrons. If this is what the gold one is teaching the Chinese atom, then this is pretty darn cosmologically and theologically amazing, because this would mean that literally every single atom, the microscopic building blocks of matter which make up the material world, attests to the true structure

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the cosmos themselves, where God resides in the sacred center of his creation, like the dense nucleus of an atom, which is shielded from the profane space, like the nucleus is shielded from the cloud of electrons that surround it. Did you know that it is nearly impossible for an electron to penetrate the nucleus of an atom? Did you know that it is nearly impossible for an electron to

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penetrate the nucleus of an atom? If you’re interested in this, then read up on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Each of these symbols, though they’re different, give us the same image of how the cosmos are structured. The bubble, the egg, the gourd, the peach seed, and the nucleus of an atom symbolize distinct, enclosed spaces, indicating that what’s within the bubble, egg, gourd, peach seed, or nucleus

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is qualitatively different from what’s outside of it. And they also symbolize that a clear boundary of some sort separates the two spaces. For the bubble, this boundary is the outer membrane. For the egg, it’s the outer shell. For the gourd, it’s the tough outer rind. For the peach, it’s the stone seeds rock-like exterior. And for the atom, it’s the repulsive shield.

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that’s created around the nucleus. Everything within the bubble, egg, gourd, peach seed or nucleus is sacred space. Thus, the bubble, egg, gourd, peach seed and nucleus symbolically represent God’s cosmic temple. And the membrane, shell, outer rind, rock exterior and repulsive shield symbolize that there is some sort of wall

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or protective barrier around God’s cosmic temple that is protecting it from the profane space that surrounds it. Virtually all ancient peoples taught this. Virtually all ancient peoples taught that in the cosmos there are firm barriers or cosmic barriers, if you will, between sacred and profane space. It’s a strong stubborn bit.

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I don’t know whether you caught it or not, but in the account of the old yellow one, the gold one tells the Chinese atom that the Earth is surrounded by profane waters and not the cosmos. Now, I don’t want you to get confused by this. In the ancient world, the cosmos and the created Earth were understood to be essentially the same concept. The creation. For example, in ancient Egypt. Egypt itself.

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represented the whole earth and the whole earth represented everything that had been created or the cosmos. So because of this we find temples that were erected as microcosms of the earth like the great pyramid of Giza and the pantheon in Rome and Chichen Itza in the Yucatan which I’ll talk about more down the line.

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points out that all religions reproduce on Earth this cosmic differentiation between sacred and profane space. On page 24 and 25, he writes, quote, to exemplify the non-homogeneity of space, meaning that not all space is the same, like non-religious man would claim, we may turn to any religion. We will choose an example that’s accessible to everyone, a church in a modern city.

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For a believer, the church shares in a different space from the street in which it stands. The threshold that separates the two spaces indicates the distance between two modes of being, the profane and the religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that distinguishes and opposes two worlds.

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Note how Eliade stresses that there’s a boundary that delimits sacred space from profane space, a boundary that’s symbolized in churches by the front doors or the threshold. The front doors have the ability to keep one out or let one in. The doors serve as the boundary between the sacred and profane. Like I just mentioned, the ancients teach that there is a

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completely surrounds God’s cosmic temple, blocks the profane out, keeps them from entering God’s sacred cosmic temple. Every church on earth serves as a microcosmic reflection of this larger macrocosmic divide. It acts as a model of the sacred air bubble, the egg, the gourd, the peach, the

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mirrors the separation found in the heavens, in the cosmos. This is deeply significant because it indicates that every church or temple in its very structure affirms the reality of this sacred cosmic division. As I’ve mentioned on the program of the symbols used to depict God’s cosmic temple, I really like the air bubble.

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And that’s because this is exactly how modern astrophysicists are beginning to theorize that the cosmos are actually structured as an infinite number of cosmic air bubbles. Listen to physicist Brian Cox explain this. There’s a theory called eternal inflation, which is a theory that, and it’s actually the most popular theory, I think, at the moment for what happened, but why the Big Bang is the way that it is.

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It’s got some very special features of Big Bang, which we could talk about. But inflation is the idea that space, space time was around before the Big Bang, and it was expanding extremely fast. And it was doubling in size in the most popular of these theories, every 10 to the minus 37 seconds, which is 0.00000 with 37 knots, one of a second. So it’s an unimaginably fast expansion. And then the idea is that draws to a close, so it quite naturally sort of dies away, and the expansion slows down.

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And all the energy that was causing that expansion sort of gets dumped into space and heats it up and makes particles, and that’s what we call the Big Bang. And those theories, that slight extension to those, say that that slowing down just happens in little patches. So most of the universe, the overwhelming majority of the universe is still inflating at that insane sort of speed. And the just little patches stop and they’re Big Bangs.

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So you get multiple universes, a multiverse, it’s called the inflationary multiverse, and we are in one of those bubbles. And that’s one of the more popular theories.

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So interesting. And for the record, R.T. Rundle Clark, who wrote Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, where he talks about the ancient Egyptian conception of the universe as a cosmic air bubble, wrote that book in 1959, which was more than 25 years before Andre Lind, the physicist at Stanford University who developed the concept of eternal chaotic inflation.

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which suggested that our universe is just one of many, many universes or bubble universes. Seems like the Egyptians knew what they were talking about. If you ever get the chance to watch any of Brian Cox’s interviews on the internet, I highly recommend it. He’s got this enthusiasm and awe for the cosmos that I find pretty infectious. But it’s his humility.

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and his honesty about what physicists do and don’t know about the cosmos that I love the most. If you’ve got extra time be sure and check him out. To summarize, the ancients taught that in the beginning, God appeared over an infinite expanse of profane, disordered, chaotic elements. Elements which the ancients referred to as water. And through the power and authority of his righteous name,

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commanded some of those disordered elements to order themselves into his creations. One of which was this Earth. The ancients tell us that he didn’t command all of the disordered elements to order themselves, only some of them. As the disordered elements were infinite, like a never-ending ocean or sea, this ordering process transformed the profane elements

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and sanctified them, making them sacred. The ancients tell us that in order to preserve the sanctified, holy, sacred nature of His creations, God created a cosmic boundary around His creations, around His cosmic kingdom, which separates it from and protects it from the profane waters

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where dwells chaos and the awful sea monster and his followers, thereby creating a sacred, holy precinct on a cosmic level, thereby creating a vast cosmic temple. That’s it for me. We’ll pick it up right here in our next episode. I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare, knowledge.

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is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production.