Church History for Chumps
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Saints, heretics, councils...and the occasional crazy stuff. We have fun.
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Church History for Chumps
Basil the Great: The Father of Monks and Defender of the Poor
We're back in the 4th century, baby.
And it's time we finally talk about the Cappadocian Fathers. Two brothers and one lifelong friend, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus were three of the most pivotal figures in the history of Eastern Christianity. And today, we begin with Basil.
During a thyme of heretical emperors, he was a voice of Nicene wisdom. When the east was peppered with poor and needy souls, he provided the sage hand of charity. His words with salted with discernment, and his actions seasoned with grace.
Basil was awesome. This is a fun episode.
Also, is it a flex to have steak for lunch? What if you cook it in the air fryer?
Also also, Thomas and John are pretty mean to Taylor in the first ten minutes of this episode, so Taylor if you're reading this, we love ya bud.
Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/chumphistory
John Half-brown (00:00.521)
Hey everybody, welcome to Church History for Chumps. My name is John Simon and parents. You know what your- you know what your children are?
The Gatekeeper (00:08.891)
It's 10 o'clock.
KillaGorilla (00:12.148)
It's 8.45. They better, they better be in bed, dog.
John Half-brown (00:12.383)
Thomas, where are your children at?
John Half-brown (00:17.309)
Yeah. How are the kids doing these days,
KillaGorilla (00:21.602)
They're vibing. They're doing good.
John Half-brown (00:23.989)
Yeah, any of them hit any big milestones lately?
KillaGorilla (00:27.662)
Mmm.
yeah, I mean, I've got one that's like figuring out how to talk all the time. And then one that, I've got, I've got one, my youngest should be crawling, but he's just like this big beefy fat man. And he just, he just, he just likes to, just likes to sit and deal with, do you, do you two like to just sit in one place? Yeah.
John Half-brown (00:35.986)
Mm-hmm.
The Gatekeeper (00:45.384)
can relate to that.
John Half-brown (00:49.855)
Wait, are you talking about Taylor right now?
The Gatekeeper (00:54.024)
Thomas is my spiritual father.
John Half-brown (00:56.073)
My youngest son. Yeah, he's having some trouble getting around, but I think it's the gout.
KillaGorilla (01:00.014)
Yeah. Yeah. He won't stop just eating ice cream.
The Gatekeeper (01:00.787)
It's the cow that's- That's it.
John Half-brown (01:07.221)
He's just a big, he's a beefy boy.
KillaGorilla (01:08.93)
He's a big- he's a big Dairy fan.
The Gatekeeper (01:09.2)
It's... It's whipped cream.
John Half-brown (01:11.229)
Yeah. man. Taylor, how is the gout? We haven't gotten a gup date lately.
The Gatekeeper (01:20.376)
update. Okay, well, Brandy basically realized that keto is the worst possible thing you could have for gout. So I stopped doing keto. It's old news. And then the gout has not appeared. I had I had Yeah, it's true. Like, and I had a steak at lunch the other day. And it was a lot of steak. And it was a mistake to eat that much steak. See what I did there. And I felt
John Half-brown (01:29.149)
yeah yeah that's that's old lore man we need updates updates yeah okay okay so the keto uh-huh
John Half-brown (01:47.807)
Did it give you gout?
KillaGorilla (01:47.928)
The at lunch is a flex, by the way. Lunch steak?
The Gatekeeper (01:50.097)
I, it was bro. Okay. All right. Let me you want to tell me now since I'm being accused of being bougie here. We bought a pound of steak from Kroger and then put it in an air fryer at the office.
John Half-brown (01:52.053)
Yeah, that's pretty impressive.
KillaGorilla (02:05.032)
my.
John Half-brown (02:06.101)
That's a flex. Martha Stewart does that.
The Gatekeeper (02:07.323)
I don't think it's a flex, but
KillaGorilla (02:10.67)
Do you guys just add seasoning or?
The Gatekeeper (02:12.478)
No, bought the preseason stuff, The marinated. Dude, it was lunch. Remember how all the Baptist boys go to the grocery store for lunch? Remember I told you guys about that? Anyway, I had a small, tiny little flare up, and I thought, I can't even eat steak. I got to be careful. So I haven't had any gout. I haven't been gimping around.
John Half-brown (02:16.021)
What's wrong with you dude? That's weird.
Hmm.
KillaGorilla (02:24.494)
Mm-hmm.
KillaGorilla (02:28.066)
You know, crowed your luck to see him coming.
John Half-brown (02:37.909)
So you just need bread. Maybe you just need to bring a nice loaf of garlic bread with you to your next steak outing. Yeah. So what's good for you is bad for gout. And I guess what's good for the gout is bad for you. That's tough.
The Gatekeeper (02:40.295)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I just have a few little baby pieces
KillaGorilla (02:55.566)
Yeah. So we're going to have to try out a new segment called Gouts Out.
The Gatekeeper (02:56.413)
it.
John Half-brown (02:59.241)
Gout's out. Yeah. How are we going to get Taylor trim and slim for his next mission trip? So you don't get ridiculed.
The Gatekeeper (03:05.918)
Dude, I don't...
KillaGorilla (03:05.966)
So what does gout do? Does it just make you say ow in your foot? Is that kind of what gout is?
The Gatekeeper (03:11.322)
It's yeah, except it's incredibly painful. Like I've never experienced this kind of pain. It's like a very severe inflammation and not after the gout. mean, dude, like it it it. yeah, I'm like, you know. When.
John Half-brown (03:15.093)
Hmm.
John Half-brown (03:22.857)
To be fair, you've lived a pretty coddled life, haven't you?
KillaGorilla (03:28.032)
Hahaha
really puts the apostles into perspective.
The Gatekeeper (03:39.11)
James was shoved off the building and shattered his knees.
John Half-brown (03:43.286)
Yeah, now just imagine his knees had gout. You got it. You know, it's crazy. Like at least some of the old, no, a lot of the figures from like old, old, early church history probably had some of these random medical illnesses, but they just didn't have like a term for it.
The Gatekeeper (03:45.862)
No, imagine. Yep, that's right. That's right.
The Gatekeeper (04:03.646)
It's Paul's affliction.
KillaGorilla (04:04.428)
Right, that's why the apostle John, when they were boiling him in oil, he was like, well, at least I don't have gout.
John Half-brown (04:10.325)
He's like, this is the second worst thing I could imagine.
The Gatekeeper (04:16.446)
That's right my suffering is is up there so
John Half-brown (04:22.453)
We're sorry man, we're glad that the flare up this week wasn't too bad.
The Gatekeeper (04:27.646)
Yeah, no, it was good. It was good. It cleared up immediately. So is tonight the Q &A?
John Half-brown (04:31.955)
Mm-hmm.
John Half-brown (04:36.851)
That's the next episode, man. so if you're listening to this on Tuesday morning, because we have a lot of early riser listeners, we did not drop chump talk last week. That was our apology. That was purely a scheduled mishap, a snafu as it were. But we're going to have it on Friday. What?
The Gatekeeper (04:55.496)
Wait, is Chump? This is going out on Friday. OK, right.
John Half-brown (04:59.253)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we're to drop this on Tuesday and then we're to drop the next one on Friday. Yeah. But this, this right now is this normal episode. This isn't chump talk. Yeah. Yeah, bro. Come on. Yeah. We're, we're doing, we're doing the meaty stuff or it's the meat and potatoes.
The Gatekeeper (05:08.43)
this is normal episode. Ooh. Yeah. Okay. So, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump Talk comes on. Trump Talk is on, is this Friday, my friends.
John Half-brown (05:17.877)
That's like a bunch of effort.
KillaGorilla (05:18.35)
Trump talk.
John Half-brown (05:27.669)
That's right, should we? What's up?
KillaGorilla (05:27.69)
that reminds me. I've been looking at the Spotify auto captioning and there's been some bangers recently, some that can't even be repeated on the air. But one of my favorites was John said chump talk and it automatically made it Trump talk in the caption.
John Half-brown (05:35.371)
huh.
John Half-brown (05:40.297)
the
John Half-brown (05:49.302)
Trump talk. Yeah. I get it. I mean, Trump has got to be probably one of the most widely used proper nouns.
The Gatekeeper (05:50.943)
That could be our new podcast, Trump Talk. So it looks like John Simon froze up. That's not good.
KillaGorilla (05:53.272)
Trump talk.
KillaGorilla (05:57.838)
did we lose John? John... Old Johnny boy.
John Half-brown (06:02.185)
What? shoot. I'm right here.
The Gatekeeper (06:04.636)
You know, remember last time he got up and left? he's cooked.
John Half-brown (06:08.297)
The Gatekeeper (06:13.624)
man. All right.
John Half-brown (06:13.925)
up man's is back you guys is there yeah yeah yeah i can hear you guys okay maybe i got too much going on here i'm gonna make sure my phone's not connected to the wifi just in case
KillaGorilla (06:14.722)
There we go. You had a little bandwidth problem, buddy. Can you hear us? Okay, we're good. We can carry on.
The Gatekeeper (06:27.07)
What internet are you guys paying for Tommy's been fine since he upgraded?
John Half-brown (06:33.363)
This is the first time I've had internet problems.
The Gatekeeper (06:36.582)
I guess I can't talk, I disappeared for a whole episode one time.
John Half-brown (06:40.275)
Yeah, and you pay for, you know, the best that Blizzard Games has to offer.
The Gatekeeper (06:45.758)
Okay, first off, Blizzard's not an ISP. Second off, yeah I do.
John Half-brown (06:49.941)
Anyways, alright, so before we get before we get cracking we have a couple shoutouts to do because we did get a couple also We got some great advice from our friend friend of the show Enoch that we should call our buy me a coffee chump change Because that's just sounds way better. That sounds so good So now whenever we do our shoutouts, we're gonna call it chump change shoutouts But of course, it's our buy me a coffee. You guys know how this works
The Gatekeeper (06:52.19)
You
The Gatekeeper (07:08.828)
that's so good.
KillaGorilla (07:09.09)
John Half-brown (07:19.603)
We do a shout out for anyone who gives us money on buy me a coffee, usually in the form of haiku. So I have two haikus prepared. One is for our friends, Nick Lang, who has been featured on the show because we've plugged his sub stack before he's never been on the show. But I know eventually he will. We've actually talked about it. He wants to do an episode about David Livingston, who is a really baller, freaking missionary. So that would be great.
KillaGorilla (07:37.739)
One day, one day.
John Half-brown (07:49.268)
But yeah, so we'll do so yes, I have a haiku for our good friend Nick Lang. Read this cool sub stack. The author is a my friend. Chomp theology.
The Gatekeeper (08:05.214)
What are you, Italian? He's some of my friend!
John Half-brown (08:07.125)
I just needed another syllable. So it worked out. Alright, the next one I'm really excited about. So first off, we've talked about Jackson Gagney about 17,000 times, but mostly just because he's very responsive and he loves to us comments and we love to read his comments. a very, but dude, a very real shout out to him because
KillaGorilla (08:07.435)
is a migrant.
The Gatekeeper (08:30.782)
Jackson's our real fan.
John Half-brown (08:36.115)
Not only is he the realest, but he and his wife just had a baby girl last week. And so he wanted us to give a shout out to her. Yeah. So that's, that's like amazing. So I wrote a haiku specifically for the little girl and I actually put some effort in this one. This wasn't like a meme one. No, it's no Italian in this one. No, no, no. All right. So here we go. Dorothy sweet girl.
KillaGorilla (08:42.35)
Ayyyy
The Gatekeeper (08:55.06)
No Italians.
Okay.
John Half-brown (09:07.189)
Praise God that you are on earth. You have much to see. Wasn't that good? Wasn't that good? Thanks guys. Yeah. Also check out his podcast, Tales from the French and Indian War. It's probably good. But you want us to shout it out and we'll really do anything for people who donate to us. But also Jackson's the homie. So check it out. All right. That's all we got. Are we ready boys? Are we ready?
KillaGorilla (09:13.934)
Hey, that was a nice jump. Good job. Good job, Johnny boy.
The Gatekeeper (09:14.91)
Mmm, sweet. It's good. Wow.
The Gatekeeper (09:28.55)
It's right. That's right.
KillaGorilla (09:36.526)
Let's do it.
The Gatekeeper (09:36.676)
I've never been more ready.
John Half-brown (09:40.438)
Let's do it. All right, guys, I have a question for you before we get started. What's wrong with a margarita pizza with homemade tomato sauce, a drizzle of olive oil and fresh mozzarella cheese? Any guesses? It's missing the basil. And you know what drives me crazy about this show, boys? It's missing the basil. That's right. Basil the great. We're on it. We're on it. We're on it. Tommy, you.
KillaGorilla (09:55.232)
Missing the basil.
KillaGorilla (10:00.878)
Yeeeeah. Yeeeah baby! Nailed it.
The Gatekeeper (10:07.804)
Is that our new series? The Cappadocian Fathers?
John Half-brown (10:09.735)
This is- we're on to the fathers, brother, the Alpha Beta Kappa Doshin fathers, that's right.
The Gatekeeper (10:18.036)
Ha
John Half-brown (10:20.105)
The Beasts from the Easts, it is time to get it poppin'. So boys, here's our cold open. That actually should have been my cold open, but I thought of that last second. But here's my actual cold open. All here we go. I'm gonna school you guys on something very near and dear to my heart real quick. I'm gonna school you guys real quick on something called hip hop. Do you know who is widely considered the first real rapper in hip hop? He is a man who is sacrilegiously referred to
as the God MC, the New York rapper known as Rakim. Because of Rakim's innovations with flow, cadence, multi-syllable rhymes, Rakim is considered the first true breakaway from the sugar hill hippie to the hop you don't stop kind of rhyming style. Rakim was a trailblazer in every sense of the word. However, when you consider some four odd decades later, the MCs that are widely considered the greatest.
Unless you're speaking to a demographic with a particularly bad set of knees, Ra Kim is not in their personal Mount Rushmore. And that's not to say that the world of hip hop doesn't owe a ton to his innovation. It's to say that sometimes the better man is not the one who creates the foundation, but the one who builds on it. And sometimes you just need someone who can do it a little better. And that brings us.
To the man of the hour, one of the most influential church fathers, in the East, Saint Basil of Caesarea, otherwise known as Basil the Great. And here's the thing, Basil was an innovator and we're going to get to that. He birthed some ideas that blessed the church to this day that we still are collecting dividends on. But what I love is that often he takes ideas that were founded by the giants behind him.
Whether it's the hermeneutical ideas of origin that of course he cleaned up a little bit. The ethics of monastic living from Saint Promius. Some of them I throw out there. The battle against Arianism of Athanasius. He takes the ball and he runs with it and that's what made him so freaking great. By building on the works of the fathers before him, he became a father of great influence and reverence in his own right.
John Half-brown (12:43.881)
Basil the Great, let's freakin' go. You guys ready?
KillaGorilla (12:47.598)
Go.
The Gatekeeper (12:47.612)
Yeah, that's good.
John Half-brown (12:48.629)
Let's do it. All right. So Basil was born into honestly, probably one of the holiest families of all time, which is really amazing. His father's name also Basil. He was born in the fourth century, probably around the year three 30.
He was born into a family where I think like his grandfather was a martyr, like his uncle was a well-respected confessor of the faith, which is someone who's like tortured, like like Origen, someone who's tortured for the faith but doesn't die directly from the persecution. But he's born into a family where of the 10 children born to his parents, him and four of his siblings would go on to be venerated as saints.
That's like incredible. Like that's dynasty levels of holiness. Mans was born in Cappadocia, which is a region of central Anatolia. That would be modern day Turkey. He would be the oldest boy of 10 children, which would include his brother Gregory, who would be one of the three Cappadocian fathers alongside one of their good buddies, who he would meet.
during his schooling who was also by the name of Gregory. He was born into a Christian family with significant wealth as a result of their father's successful career as a well-known lawyer and rhetorician. Basil went to school in some of the finest cities in the empire including Cappadocia's capital city, Neo-Caesarea, Constantinople, and even Athens in Greece. During his schooling he would meet a young man named Gregory who he would become once again
lifelong pals with and even though they would kind of veer off in different directions eventually they would meet each other again as good friends and become the kind of theological giants that history knows them as. There's like a random fun fact that when they were in school in Cappadocia they would like have these conversations with this dude who was in class with them who was just super obnoxious
John Half-brown (15:07.537)
They constantly harassed him for or they they felt harassed by him as like this really pompous pseudo intellectual dude who always talks down everyone else's ideas and that man was No, no, he was the nephew of Constantine one day Emperor of Rome. He was Julian the apostate
KillaGorilla (15:21.826)
Tail as old as time.
The Gatekeeper (15:23.569)
areas.
The Gatekeeper (15:35.13)
No way. my gosh. Imagine when that guy takes the throne, the Capodician fathers are like, great.
KillaGorilla (15:36.012)
No,
John Half-brown (15:36.615)
Yeah, yeah, that was so they were just.
John Half-brown (15:44.534)
Dude, it sucks. It's like when Julian became emperor, we were like, man, we thought the Aryan emperors were bad. Julian, I think, was like one of the last pagan emperors of the Roman empirical reign. So he kind of sucked.
KillaGorilla (15:44.694)
Yeah
The Gatekeeper (15:52.861)
right.
The Gatekeeper (16:03.368)
Which Greg? Was this Nazianzus or Nissa?
John Half-brown (16:07.157)
shoot, it was Nazianzus. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Nissa was his brother. I believe.
The Gatekeeper (16:09.426)
Nazianza so so
KillaGorilla (16:09.815)
Yes.
KillaGorilla (16:13.922)
Yes.
The Gatekeeper (16:14.042)
Okay, okay. But they all have known each other well. Obviously, Basil and Nazianzus known each other for the longest, they knew each other for a long- Nyssa is the brothers. Okay.
John Half-brown (16:23.315)
him and Nessa, because him and Nessa are brothers. But Nazianzus, he, yes, yeah. So yeah, so after his schooling, he returns home. He's an educated dude. He's got this supportive family, largely just like the majority of all of these fourth and fifth century guys. He just comes home. He's got this great career under his belts and he's
really comfortable living in worldly pleasure. He's kind of indifferent to Christ and he's just kind of like, yeah, you know, just ready to take up a career in law, make some money, live comfortably, just kind of vibe out. And then the story is that his older sister, Macrina, who we're probably going to do a full episode on, that might be like our bonus episode outside of the Cappadocian Fathers, because she was an incredible lady in her own right. The story,
is basically this is from a text called the life of Macrina, which was written by I believe Gregory of Nyssa, which would have been her and Basil's brother. She was essentially like, yeah, she took her brother by the hand and schooled him so hard that he realized his life was in complete shambles and that he needed to not only abandon the idea of material wealth, but really commit himself to Christ as a Christian.
The Gatekeeper (17:47.806)
Bro, what was that dress down?
KillaGorilla (17:48.054)
Nice.
John Half-brown (17:48.242)
So I can't imagine what that conversation would have looked like. Like she just like, Hey, Hey little brother, let me, let me, let me talk to you outside real quick. just, yeah, she just ripped him a new one, but apparently he was like, he was not only like, it wasn't just a come to Jesus conversation. It was a come to Jesus and forsake all worldly gains. And he was like, you're right.
The Gatekeeper (18:01.554)
Have you lost your mind? Cause I help you find it.
The Gatekeeper (18:16.986)
my gosh.
John Half-brown (18:18.473)
He's like, I'm so sorry.
KillaGorilla (18:19.032)
That's awesome. If we ever do a Makrina episode, we ought to see if Pastor Palmer wants to come join because they do their Makrina's table events a couple times a year. So they have those, they're like philosophy nights that they're are named after her.
John Half-brown (18:31.029)
yeah.
John Half-brown (18:36.837)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no her she's got a whole Interesting story that is is well worth getting into and she is of course one of the five Of the children that were venerated really makes you just feel bad for the other five that were probably just farmers or something something lame So, so Basil realizes, okay
I've got my schooling under my belt, but I need to get my life together spiritually. I need to grow up a little bit. And so he heads out to where everyone goes if you are looking to find God in the fourth century, and that is to the deserts of Egypt to talk to the monks and to spend some time learning the tricks and trades of being an ascetic Christian.
and likely this is where he met a very significant figure this is another one of those sitcom moments with the special guest appearance for the audience collapse yeah
KillaGorilla (19:35.374)
Mm.
The Gatekeeper (19:37.758)
Woo!
KillaGorilla (19:40.526)
He's gonna be a friend.
John Half-brown (19:40.638)
He's going to meet a friendly guy who was there meeting with a good friend of his to write a biography for him. This was Athanasius. No, gosh dang it. He ran into Athanasius, who Basil would become good pals with, likely, according to what history says, because they were going to essentially, in due time,
The Gatekeeper (19:51.646)
Charles Spurgeon.
John Half-brown (20:08.165)
lead the fight against Arianism in their different areas. Basil back in Cappadocia and Athanasius back in Alexandria. And we believe that during this time Athanasius was in the desert with Saint Anthony writing The Life of Anthony, which is a book. Totally. And you can read The Life of Anthony on PDF right now. It's pretty interesting. So he's going to spend a few years out there.
KillaGorilla (20:25.486)
amazing crossover event.
John Half-brown (20:37.737)
He's going to return back to Cappadocia and he's going to start a communal monastery with his younger brother because he doesn't want regional distance to be an obstacle for young men to learn how to live a Christian monastic life. And so he goes back home. And I think the story is like his family had this giant plot of land. so he and his sister, McCrena,
just kind of split it up where he took one half with the boys and she took the other half with the ladies and they just had these communal neighbor monasteries that they kind of led. And as the movement would grow, Basil used his two great disciplines. One is that he had a great knack for leadership and of course he was very well trained in rhetoric. And so he's going to write the rules for communal monastic movement.
I'm heavily inspired by what he had experienced in Egypt. And this is the first written blueprint ever for monastic living, especially in the East. And it's still considered very, very influential, even in the Eastern monastic communities to this very day, which is super cool. So he's going to spend roughly half a decade in these monastic circles and he'll be
summoned back to the capital as the bishop of Caesarea was getting older and they needed fresh blood in the fight against Arianism and who would summon him back to Caesarea other than his old friend Greg from school? So as some of our listeners might know this was about a decade and some change after the Council of Nicaea. So we know that the issue of Arianism
was going to be a thorn in the paw of orthodoxy for many years to come. So the Council of Nicaea had a very strong stance saying Arianism, which is to summarize this idea that Christ was human and a created being, but not divine. Council of Nicaea is going to say unanimously, this is not a Christian, orthodox, biblical way to see.
John Half-brown (23:01.023)
the divinity and the humanity of Christ. And even though the Council of Nicaea is going to make that very clear, Arianism is still going to be a big problem. One, because there's pockets of Arianism all throughout the empire that are just going to flat out not listen to Nicaea. And the second is that occasionally there will be Arian emperors, and those emperors are going to use their political influence to uproot
point bishops or provide resources or support to bishops who are going to push the Aryan narrative. And so there's going to be this back and forth for a long time.
The Gatekeeper (23:36.658)
What, when just?
When does Constantius take the throne? Like 350? That's Constantine's son.
John Half-brown (23:43.573)
Constantious.
I... I don't know. I don't have the list of emperors. Yeah.
KillaGorilla (23:51.84)
I think that sounds about right, Taylor.
The Gatekeeper (23:54.015)
350, okay, so Basil's coming back before Arianism is really about to, because when Constantius takes the throne, he returns all the Arians to their seas. He's like, have at it boys.
John Half-brown (24:06.739)
That sounds right, yes.
KillaGorilla (24:09.548)
And even, even Constantine, even though he was, he really helped the fight against Arianism, it also seems like he, he was so interested in unity that he also could be like swayed by like whatever bishop happened to be like standing right in front of him. So I think, I think even after the council, Arian's sometimes could get a little bit of traction by just
John Half-brown (24:30.677)
Mm-hmm.
KillaGorilla (24:38.862)
healing their case to him. He was political like that.
John Half-brown (24:43.401)
So this is going to be, this is several decades after Constantine, because Constantine is going to be emperor through 337 and this is going to be the 360s. And the emperor during this time is Valens.
KillaGorilla (24:54.179)
Okay.
The Gatekeeper (24:55.038)
Oh, you said 10 years after Nicaea.
John Half-brown (25:01.915)
I did. Yeah, that is not true. Because Nicaea Taylor was...
The Gatekeeper (25:07.682)
325. Did you guys know it's this? Did you guys know it's the 17th 100th anniversary of Nicea this year? It is cool. Well, we know it started in May. We went through the summer. So we're past it.
John Half-brown (25:08.981)
That's right. This is like 40 years.
KillaGorilla (25:16.974)
That's pretty cool.
John Half-brown (25:18.069)
So we have the day.
KillaGorilla (25:21.357)
the year.
John Half-brown (25:23.238)
that's fun.
well, that's pretty disappointing.
The Gatekeeper (25:28.658)
You missed my birthday.
KillaGorilla (25:28.686)
Excellent, let's go.
John Half-brown (25:33.674)
so yeah, yeah, so this is, this was a few decades, my apologies, after Nicaea, and this is going to be under the reign of Emperor Valens and Valens is an Aryan and he is going to be kind of the worst. so the problem is that in Caesarea, there's a bishop who is a strong Nicene Christian, but he is dying and they basically need to put good
theologically sound respected Christians around him that will continue to support and fight against Arianism. And Basil will travel to this area and he will be ordained and become the Bishop of Caesarea, which is a role that he will serve in for the majority of the rest of his life. Taylor, you are right, man. You look like you're dying.
The Gatekeeper (26:25.864)
That was the bit I muted so I could cough. And then I just really threw myself into it.
John Half-brown (26:29.683)
Okay, you just, you just, I, I was like, I was like, do we have to stop recording? Cause I feel like I needed to call for help. You just looked.
The Gatekeeper (26:38.494)
You
KillaGorilla (26:38.702)
Those ice cream coughs can really, really hit.
John Half-brown (26:43.155)
They can really get you. So, Cesarean, even though not widely considered one of the most significant areas because of its central role in geography, historians have said that his influence spread from the Balkans to the Mediterranean and even from the Aegean to the Euphrates. So he had quite a bit of influence here.
The Gatekeeper (26:43.353)
Okay, it was whip cream.
Anyway, continue on about asshole.
John Half-brown (27:13.607)
One of the things that Basil's going to do in his early years after his ordination is he's going to contribute to what is called the Liturgy of St. Basil, where he's going to basically use a lot of his theological training and a lot of his mastery of the Greek language to pen a liturgy that was used in basically when Christians would come to gather for mass on Sundays.
And that is one of the liturgies that the Eastern Orthodox Church practices to this day. It's like secondary to the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but you can pull it up. Now, there is some controversy. I guess the earliest historical tracings of it are only back to the sixth century. So there is a little bit of like historical criticism on
if this can truly be attributed to Basil or not, that just depends on if you're some dork like Taylor who cares about historical whatever, right Taylor?
The Gatekeeper (28:15.454)
Believe whatever you want.
Fine I'm just I'm just some post-enlightenment filthy academic
John Half-brown (28:25.91)
That's right. If I can't see it, I don't believe it. That's why I'm a Christian. All right. In 368, a famine struck Cappadocia and much of the population was affected by it. Basil would respond by selling all of his remaining personal fortune and all of his assets and land and plots, all of his family inheritance. And he would
The Gatekeeper (28:31.783)
John Half-brown (28:55.866)
sell it and distribute it amongst those who were in need. And he used church funds to open soup kitchens that would feed the poor. And he would often be seen there in person serving and helping those who were in need. there's a great, dude, I love it, man. Like regardless of his status or his...
KillaGorilla (29:13.816)
Good Bishop.
John Half-brown (29:21.918)
like position of authority, was boots on the ground. And I think one of the things that I love about Basil is just how about it he is when it comes to serving the poor. In fact, one of the quotes that's attributed to him is in response to the larger community that was not engaging to serving the needy during a time of great vulnerability. And he says,
You refuse to give on the pretext that you haven't got enough for your own need. But while your tongue makes excuses, your hand convicts you. That ring shining on your finger silently declares you to be a liar. How many debtors could be released from prison with one of those rings? How many shivering people could be clothed from one of your wardrobes? And yet you turn the poor away empty handed. So good.
KillaGorilla (30:15.662)
Hmm.
The Gatekeeper (30:16.51)
Dang. That's like when you hear about the modern pastors that drive a 2005 used Corolla, and they're happy about it. Yeah.
John Half-brown (30:16.606)
I love that.
John Half-brown (30:26.69)
Yeah, yeah
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I love that. There's there's another version of that quote that I think I first heard for the first time a few weeks ago and it's it's it's stuck with me because it's so Bothersome he says the unused coat in your closet does not belong to you It belongs to the one who is in need I was just like gosh dang like it really makes me want to just go through half my stuff and and give it away But I mean, it's it's it's wonderful
KillaGorilla (30:58.424)
That's really good.
John Half-brown (31:00.053)
of it man. So Basil would become bishop of Caesarea in 370. I may have said that he was already ordained but I think he had just been ordained as priest at that time. It wasn't until 370 that he became bishop of Caesarea after the old priest finally passed away. So during this time Athanasius is still holding things down in Alexandria but because of
the prominence of Arianism in the East. And this is something that we talked about during the episode on the Council of Constantinople that Taylor led us through, which was that Arianism was a distinctly Eastern problem. And despite the fact that Athanasius was very, very influential in Alexandria, one, he was getting exiled like every six months because of all the imperial turnaround that was happening.
The Gatekeeper (31:53.342)
Snip, snap, snip, snap.
John Half-brown (31:55.4)
snip, snip, snip, snip, also there was just a lot of Arianism elsewhere. And so having some regional diversity would help for Nicene Christians. And that was beneficial for Basil. Emperor Valens sent this dude named Modestus down to talk to Basil after he was appointed as bishop, basically to kind of feel out.
KillaGorilla (31:55.694)
You
John Half-brown (32:21.947)
if he could be easily swayed. they had this beautiful argument. So here I'm going to read a passage from this real quick. In 8370, when his bishop died, Basil was elected to succeed him to the delight of Athanasius and the chagrin of the emperor. Valens immediately made plans to visit Basil to bring him into line. He decided to send his right-hand man, Modestus, ahead of him.
so as to procure Basil's advance submission to the Emperor's arianizing agenda. Modestus came armed with threats of the confiscation of property and exile for bishops who resisted. He was used to dealing with flatterers whose supreme desire was to protect their positions and curry the Emperor's favor. He was not quite prepared for a personal confrontation with the likes of Basil, who stood up to his bullying with these words.
Where God is endangered and exposed, there all things are considered to nothing. Him alone do we look to. Fire, sword, beasts, and instruments for tearing the flesh are wished for by us as delights more than horrors. Afflict us with such tortures. Threaten. Do all that you can now. Devise. Enjoy your power. Also, let the emperor hear this, that at all events you will not persuade us
nor win us over to the impious doctrine of Arianism, though you threaten with cruel deeds." When Modestus, taken aback, remarked that no one had ever spoken to him like that, Basil responded, Perhaps you have never met a bishop before.
The Gatekeeper (34:02.778)
And also, you're dumb. Dude. Yeah. Wow. It's like the meme of when the Chad quote unquote leans in and is like, your terms are acceptable.
John Half-brown (34:05.462)
And you smell bad Yeah
John Half-brown (34:21.51)
That's really like the whole church when they're just like, oh no, you're gonna kill me if only there were some way in my Christian belief system that me being killed wouldn't be a bad thing. Oh wait like
The Gatekeeper (34:21.6)
my gosh.
KillaGorilla (34:35.064)
So I saw something, did that end up impressing Valens? Because I saw something that said he sent a messenger that observed the liturgy and was so impressed by it that Valens ended up giving him some land.
John Half-brown (34:49.982)
Yeah, I read something like that too. It seems like, I think Valens and Basil did eventually meet each other. And while certainly Basil didn't rebuff at all, nor did Valens change his position, they kind of respected one another. And yeah, I think Valens did do something like that. So I think there is some validity to that story, that they did not completely antagonize one another.
throughout their lives.
The Gatekeeper (35:19.698)
What was the, where was that quote from? What was the source on that?
John Half-brown (35:25.174)
let me see. It is from Gregory. So it's from one of the Gregories. Gregory of Nazianzus recounts this in his Oration 43.
The Gatekeeper (35:36.446)
That's crazy.
John Half-brown (35:38.58)
Yeah, so living memory Taylor, haha. Yeah No
The Gatekeeper (35:41.134)
for sure. No, I wasn't doubting whether it happened. I was just wondering what was actually going through my brain is what we have about the Aryans just makes them sound so bad.
John Half-brown (35:53.49)
such like such dorks man
The Gatekeeper (35:55.932)
Why, well, they're just, they're just hated.
John Half-brown (35:59.231)
Yeah, yeah. All right, well, no, I was just gonna get back into it, but I'll let you go first.
KillaGorilla (36:01.71)
So I was doing some, go ahead.
KillaGorilla (36:07.662)
I was just looking to see if I like using the 2019 Book of Common Prayer sometimes. I did a little keyword search to see if there's anything from Basil in it. And they do have a prayer from his liturgy that's for after communion, and it's really good. It goes like this. Finished and perfected is the mystery of thy dispensation to us, O Christ our God.
John Half-brown (36:27.702)
Mmm.
KillaGorilla (36:37.038)
For we have beheld the likeness of Thy death, we have seen Thy resurrection and the breaking of the bread, and we have partaken of Thine inexhaustible and divine delights, of which do Thou make us worthy, both now and in Thy kingdom, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
John Half-brown (36:54.794)
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, dude. So, so I'm going to share just a few more things about, about Basil, just about his life. I think these are some of my favorite contributions that he had. the first, and this was kind of in line with his, support of the area after that plague happened. But during his tenure as a bishop, he would see to the construction of this
KillaGorilla (36:57.261)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (37:23.882)
building that would be called the Basileus, which was a multifunctional building that would essentially in more modern terms serve as a hostel for travelers who needed a place to stay, would serve as a hospital for people with chronic illness who needed inpatient care. It served as a home for the poor. It served as a refuge for lepers and it served as
essentially a nursing home for the elderly who did not have like family or relatives to take care for them. And this is in some circles essentially seen as the first hospital to be created. And this is certainly not the first time that Christians offered charity and compassion to those in need. But from what I read,
This was the first time it was introduced as an inpatient location, like creating a location specifically for the purpose of all of these ways of serving people, which is amazing and very much in line with Basil's teachings about serving those in need, which I love. On a more theological basis, when we get into his contributions for theology and
KillaGorilla (38:32.782)
It's really cool.
John Half-brown (38:50.838)
against the heresy of Arianism. One of the problems that the empire was having was really just logistical when it came to language and how theological concepts were understood. So for example, the idea of the Trinity, as we've discussed, had been established by Tertullian, who again, was taking an idea that the church already had, but was putting a systematic explanation to it.
The problem with that was that Tertullian was a Latin theologian and the Eastern Empire spoke Greek. And so the notion of the Trinity understood as one substance, three persons made sense in Latin because the terms just fit well. But in Greek, it was a little messier because in Greek, the word for person derives for the word that was related to the masks that actors would wear on a stage.
So the idea of one substance, three persons kind of gave you this image of a person with three masks. Yeah. Which is interesting because that actually fed into a very modalist idea of the Trinity that like, yeah, which is like the heresy that God presents himself in the form of each person of the Trinity without occupying them simultaneously. And so the,
KillaGorilla (39:53.672)
swapping out masks.
The Gatekeeper (40:01.426)
That's modalism, Patrick.
John Half-brown (40:18.004)
the Greek speakers had obstacles to get through to understand this, this idea better. And so Basil basically said, well, I don't want to use the word person, but I want to use the terms hypostasis. and he also distinguished the Greek term, oosia, which was the word he kind of used for nature. And so instead of using the one substance, three persons, he would say, one.
but three hypostases, which is also kind of where we get this idea of hypostatic union, which is the divinity and humanity of Christ. And so I know this sounds a little complicated for some of our listeners who may not be super familiar with the languages, but the cultural context behind words and vocabulary is super important when you think about it. If you've ever spoken to a missionary explaining how they translated Christian terminology,
into a different language, it's not always a copy and paste solution. So this contribution was actually really, really helpful and laid a really great framework for how the East would understand these things.
KillaGorilla (41:31.79)
That's great. you're saying he introduced the word usia? Because wasn't that kind of on the table in Nicaea?
John Half-brown (41:39.266)
No. Maybe I don't. He didn't introduce it here. I'll pull up my text and I'll read it.
KillaGorilla (41:48.514)
He was just fletching it out more in the context of the Trinity.
The Gatekeeper (41:52.456)
Poor John, Tommy's asking like some hyper specific questions.
John Half-brown (41:52.586)
That's probably a better way to put it.
No, it's okay. It's okay. This is why I keep the text close. Let me see
The Gatekeeper (41:59.103)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (42:07.435)
Basil was the first to distinguish the two terms, the term for essence and the term for entity in Greek. He was the first to distinguish them and define them in the following fashion. Ousia refers to one being or nature of God. Hypostasis refers to the distinctive way that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit participate and express that one divine nature.
KillaGorilla (42:37.09)
So it's the same ending, but I'm thinking of, so in Nicaea they were arguing over Homo Ussius and Homo Iusius, but the word substance, which is the ending part of that, the Ussia, that's what he was doing more work with when it came to how the Trinity works together.
The Gatekeeper (42:44.765)
Yes.
John Half-brown (42:44.86)
Right. And those are those are,
John Half-brown (42:52.727)
Mm-hmm.
John Half-brown (42:56.669)
Exactly. Right.
The Gatekeeper (42:58.142)
So what year was this all taking place? Right, so this is directly leading into 381, Constantinople. This all makes a lot more sense. If this was like the dialogue of the guys at the time, and then they get to 381, and that's when they update the Nicene Creed to be a little more fleshed out from a Trinitarian perspective.
John Half-brown (43:02.431)
This would have been in the 370s.
John Half-brown (43:08.829)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and yes, yes.
Mm-hmm.
John Half-brown (43:25.907)
Exactly. Yep. So yeah, he is, he is not just fleshing out these ideas on a more grand widespread basis, but he's also helping those with a less Latin centric understanding of theology to like grasp it too, which is, which is, you know, really powerful and really significant to be able to communicate something across cultural,
you know barriers and all that stuff
KillaGorilla (43:57.134)
It's actually, think, one of my favorite parts of church history is the way that different cultures and languages get a hold of the apostolic message, and then they kind of are able to bring different things to the table with how their language works. In fact, that's one of the coolest things about the gospel being transmitted to Greek cultures is the way Greek language is
John Half-brown (44:13.111)
Mm-hmm.
The Gatekeeper (44:19.614)
Mm.
KillaGorilla (44:24.684)
The Greek language is uniquely equipped to engage with some of these concepts in a way that not necessarily like Hebrew couldn't, but in new ways and in fresh ways. It's more precise language. There's more vocabulary range, and there's theological, like good theological consequences that come out of that.
John Half-brown (44:50.955)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And the last thing we'll share about him as far as like theology and like contributions is that he's going to write a text called On the Holy Spirit, which was a very, very influential book that will affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Because essentially after some people will eventually start to settle on Arianism.
some of them will be like, okay, Arianism is probably wrong and Jesus is probably divine, but the Holy Spirit is definitely not divine. And it's like, gosh dang it, dude. Will you guys just get on board? So Basil writes, writes on the Holy Spirit, which presented some really interesting ideas that I'll share with you guys. He essentially says, first of all, he concedes that there is no place in the New Testament that
explicitly says the Holy Spirit is God. But he shows there are countless places where the scriptures teach the divinity of the Holy Spirit implicitly. For example, Jesus said that the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy is a sin against the divine name. Does not this teach the divinity of the Spirit? He asks. Also, the Spirit is spoken of as filling the world. No created being can be everywhere at once, points out Basil.
only God. If wherever God is, the Spirit is also present, what nature shall we presume him to have? Next the Spirit is called Lord, clearly a divine title." So he just kind of breaks down these really good theological arguments.
KillaGorilla (46:27.342)
Yeah, that's like...
The Gatekeeper (46:27.686)
is super, super simple systematics. So that's good, dude.
KillaGorilla (46:31.382)
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
John Half-brown (46:31.711)
Yeah, yeah, just... I'm telling you man, dude was a rock star, so...
The Gatekeeper (46:37.838)
You know, this begs the question, because I feel like I should have already read this book by now in my life. So I confess that I haven't. But it makes me wonder, why do we keep feeling the need to write new books on stuff when it's like, well, he covered it. There it is. Don't need to go back.
KillaGorilla (46:57.228)
Right.
John Half-brown (46:59.223)
I think one of the hopes of studying church history is that we would feel less compelled to reinvent the wheel when it comes to this stuff. Like the church has had a pretty darn good explanation for why the Holy Spirit is divine from 375 AD. So yeah, I'm sure John MacArthur, rest in peace, could have written a
bang-up book about the divinity of the Holy Spirit or maybe we could have just updated a new translation of a book that already exists. I don't know. That's a good question,
The Gatekeeper (47:39.174)
Yeah, we should.
KillaGorilla (47:39.63)
I think part of it is our American tendency to want to make new things all the time instead of preserving old things. mean, that's just across the board kind of, I think our consumerism drives us to want to make new things. And you're right, Taylor, I remember first time reading some of the church fathers just thinking like, man, like every Christian should read this stuff like long.
John Half-brown (47:47.127)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
The Gatekeeper (47:53.662)
Hmm.
KillaGorilla (48:08.052)
long before we read any of kind of like pop theology books that come out. And they're not hard to understand. I think sometimes like, don't know what it is if it's like modern reformed, like modern systematic theology stuff can be kind of dense. And so I think sometimes people assume that that's how all theology has been done throughout church history. And most of the time, it's just not the case. You get into some of the
John Half-brown (48:12.246)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (48:31.287)
Mm-hmm.
KillaGorilla (48:38.03)
scholastic theologians and Aquinas and it gets pretty thick again. But even Aquinas, you you take it in bite-sized chunks and like it's not horrible. But certainly the Church Fathers, it's just as plain as like the pastoral epistles are. It's just good stuff.
John Half-brown (48:56.31)
Yeah.
And that's the thing, dude, like the pastoral epistles were literally written for mildly educated dudes to read to their churches. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like they were meant to be accessible and understood. And when we look at like the epistles that Ignatius wrote on his road to martyrdom.
The Gatekeeper (48:59.57)
Yeah.
The Gatekeeper (49:07.56)
Tim.
Tim and Titus.
John Half-brown (49:27.499)
They had the same spirit of like, these are letters to my friends. You know, we can say the same thing for like Clement stuff too. Like a lot of these things weren't written as dense systematic, you know, explorations. They were just like, hey, let me just send this message of, you know, with biblical themes to this person. So yeah, that's a good point.
The Gatekeeper (49:52.231)
I wish we just normalized, because I was reading, this is another great example, what you pulled up. And then earlier this week, I was reading Clement of Alexandria, which we did an episode on him. But I was reading his apologetic to the Greeks. And I'm thinking, this is just good apologetics. It's just simple. And it's good. And I don't know. I don't know why.
John Half-brown (50:04.024)
Mm-hmm.
John Half-brown (50:15.842)
Mm-hmm.
The Gatekeeper (50:21.468)
that's not more like Sunday School lessons should revolve around that stuff as the examples rather than like like have the Bible right and then you have your like and then this guy came along and did this and this was really good and you know
KillaGorilla (50:31.48)
Yeah.
KillaGorilla (50:36.664)
Yeah.
I think that'd be huge if we, I think I would love to see a lot more Christian creativity, especially in Protestant circles of teaching children church history. Because it's the unbroken chain of faith, you know? And it doesn't surprise me, it doesn't surprise me when oftentimes people who are struggling with deconstruction end up.
John Half-brown (50:51.98)
Mm-hmm.
The Gatekeeper (50:56.798)
A rule of faith?
John Half-brown (51:01.656)
Stop it, Taylor.
KillaGorilla (51:07.758)
They don't see how they're connected to the apostles and it doesn't have to be that way.
John Half-brown (51:14.252)
Yes, yes, I think that one of the best remedies for deconstructing is realizing that your faith or the Christian faith is much more timeless than just the Baptist street, the Baptist church on the corner. And that's no disrespect to the Baptist church on the corner, Taylor. But yeah, it's a bigger thing. It's bigger. Even the churches that don't acknowledge the...
The Gatekeeper (51:33.15)
Thank you. Thank you.
John Half-brown (51:42.09)
the spiritual heritage that we've inherited are still affected by it, you know? Like that's amazing, I think.
KillaGorilla (51:48.696)
We need to make a meme where it's the astronauts and the moon. And they're like, wait, church history has always been for chumps? It's like, always has been.
John Half-brown (51:56.345)
Always has been. It's good.
The Gatekeeper (51:57.407)
That's good. I do think it's a relatively new thing in the grand scheme of the church to just kind of do it the way we're doing it in America. I think that's relatively new. I think it's fair to say, you know, for a while in the West that people weren't reading their Bibles and that led to like significant problems, right? Things went off the rails.
And then there was a little party in 1517. And like we got back on the right track. And now I don't know. Look, we all read Church History. We were just reading last week with Isaac McCoy when he talked about like, appears that like the what was the quote about like, something's perfectly dead in this court. The faith is dead in this in this corner of the Lord's Vineyard.
KillaGorilla (52:48.004)
yeah. Religion is dead in this corner of God's garden.
The Gatekeeper (52:54.748)
So I mean, we're not new to denominational woes, but it's always good to just be a little squeaky wheel and say, me some WD-40.
John Half-brown (53:07.286)
I will say one time, this would have been like a year and a half ago, I was leading a kids lesson at my church and it was about the Trinity. And I kind of wanted to just summarize with the Trinity is not something you should try to like make an analogy for, but I wanted to do it by using an analogy. And I read that St. Cyril, who was also very impactful for fighting heretics and talking about orthodoxy.
came up with an analogy about how the Trinity is kind of like the sun and the father is the energy and the spirit is the heat and Jesus is the light. And I had so many freaking engineers just like, actually energy is heat and light is the light is the calculation of the formula of the
The Gatekeeper (53:55.688)
mean,
John Half-brown (53:59.199)
of the energy and I'm just getting heckled by like 50 different people. I'm trying to just like teach these kids. I'm like, you know what? Forget it. Forget it. Turn my mic off. But so yeah, sometimes you just can't.
KillaGorilla (54:07.992)
You
The Gatekeeper (54:08.572)
Right, yeah. No, poor sea-year-old had no idea. He didn't even fully know what the sun, he didn't even know what the sun was.
John Half-brown (54:14.806)
Yeah, he'd... That's exactly right. He's like, yeah, and this is why the sun circles around the earth. He didn't know any better, man. He was from... And it worked fine. Gosh dang it. So around the year of 379, our good friend Basil would die at the unfortunately young age of 49.
The Gatekeeper (54:26.866)
Right, and it worked. It worked in his context.
The Gatekeeper (54:40.612)
No!
He never saw 381. He was never there. Oh.
John Half-brown (54:44.088)
He's only 49 when he passed. No, no, he didn't. No, sir. Yeah. Just died outside the gates, man. So apparently we believe he had liver disease that was, that came about just from the extent of his aesthetic practices that his body was just not in a good place. And, and so, yeah, his health had just kind of deteriorated at a pretty young age and he would die when he was 49, which is a bummer. And
Despite the fact that he was a baller on all accounts, he wouldn't get a lot of acclaim for his works until long after he died. But beautifully, 72 years after he died, the council, not of Constantinople, but the council of Chalcedon, would describe him as the great Basil, minister of grace, who has expounded the truth to the whole earth. So.
The Gatekeeper (55:31.486)
The Gatekeeper (55:40.638)
So Basil's Trinitarian work definitely lived on then. He definitely influenced Nicene Creed update. And then it's like the guys were reading him that were doing the Christological work at Calseed. What?
John Half-brown (55:45.769)
yeah, for sure.
John Half-brown (55:51.063)
Mm-hmm.
John Half-brown (55:58.167)
Yeah. Yeah. And remember, dude, like a lot of the big time systematic theologians during this time were Latin speakers. And so I think that being a Greek speaker really helped. Gosh dang, I'm man. Six, seven. What does that mean?
The Gatekeeper (56:11.112)
Well, John's dying. Six, seven, as the kids say.
Yeah, it's like code for a dead body or something. So the kids...
KillaGorilla (56:23.682)
see I'd never even heard of that and actually John's wife put something on her Facebook story this week that like all the kids are saying 6-7 in class. I'm like, wow.
John Half-brown (56:24.504)
It's hilarious.
The Gatekeeper (56:33.534)
Yeah, I don't know if 90 % of them even know what it means. They just say it because like everyone else says it and people are sheep. But that's another discussion.
John Half-brown (56:34.248)
I legit had no idea.
John Half-brown (56:46.466)
There was a Bible verse in church today that was like something, something versus six through seven. And my wife looked at another teacher friend and she was like, six, seven. And the other one was like six, seven. And I was like, a hundred percent, dude. That's the first time I heard it. Sometimes, sometimes when I think that I'm living in a Truman show simulation, like I'll hear a new phrase and then all of a sudden I hear it all the time. It's like when someone talks about like,
KillaGorilla (56:58.456)
Did that really happen?
Dude.
The Gatekeeper (57:04.252)
I think-
KillaGorilla (57:06.349)
You're-
John Half-brown (57:15.02)
Volkswagen's and then out now all you see is Volkswagen's I'm like these these simulators are getting smarter
KillaGorilla (57:19.598)
Dude, your wife is just a front line soldier against the tidal wave of internet brain rot that is just being permeated through the young children of our nation.
John Half-brown (57:29.496)
cheese.
The Gatekeeper (57:33.33)
Dude.
John Half-brown (57:33.378)
Dude, it's like, remember that meme that you shared a long time ago that was like, Orthodox woman, praise for everyone in the whole world every day. And it was like, it was her as like that one person holding the dam that's breaking, like holding back God's wrath. Like that's my wife for the brain rot of the young generation.
KillaGorilla (57:40.258)
Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.
KillaGorilla (57:47.714)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
The Gatekeeper (57:53.459)
Dude, in an Overwatch match the other day, somebody told me to Saibow, and I had no idea what that meant. And I had to Google it like a...
KillaGorilla (58:02.316)
I barely even know what Overwatch matchmaking is.
John Half-brown (58:04.45)
Taylor, think you thought you were contributing to the fight when in reality you're playing for the other team. You are your sleeper agent.
The Gatekeeper (58:11.699)
No! I'm an inside agent.
Ugh, I see him.
KillaGorilla (58:17.176)
You just talk in your- you just talk in your Roblox voice the whole time, you're like, you guys ever hear about church history for chumps? You guys wanna learn about church history? You guys still say skibbity?
The Gatekeeper (58:22.984)
I'm
John Half-brown (58:23.521)
my gosh. Church history.
The Gatekeeper (58:26.46)
What? is that the roblox voice? my gosh.
KillaGorilla (58:31.566)
He's like, no, we say six, seven now, you boomer.
John Half-brown (58:34.422)
Yeah. Okay. That's it. That's the first step of our Cappadocian series. We'll probably do a, we'll do one Greg next. We'll do another Greg after that. And then, we might do Peter might do McCrena might put them together. I don't know. We'll see. And then there's another dude whose name was like Faustus or he's like, he's like, I don't know. He's like the fifth beetle. It's like, who he's seen as like Faustin is or something weird like that.
KillaGorilla (58:40.438)
Oof, man, that was good. That was good.
The Gatekeeper (59:02.046)
That was cool though.
KillaGorilla (59:02.592)
Every time I hear Cappadocian Fathers, I always think of the one flame line where he's like, no cap like Cappadocian Fathers. Dude, he's great. Yeah.
The Gatekeeper (59:10.588)
I love Flame. He's a cornball, but he's solid guy.
John Half-brown (59:16.308)
he's just the only one making punchlines about church fathers like these that's not a good punchline
KillaGorilla (59:20.77)
Yeah, he's also the only one writing albums about the sacraments.
The Gatekeeper (59:20.839)
Okay.
John Simon, let me ask you this. I want you to fast forward. I want you to pretend that you and Annie have three children 10 years from now, and they're all starting to get into their own music. And you're like, OK, what do you guys want to listen to? Would you rather that they listen to Flame and Shy Lin or any of whatever the new, quote unquote, Christian mumble rap is?
John Half-brown (59:31.338)
Okay.
John Half-brown (59:35.382)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (59:51.927)
I mean, probably either. It's fine. I don't think that the current wave of Christian hip-hop is really all that bad. I don't know.
The Gatekeeper (59:54.846)
Yeah, I mean...
KillaGorilla (01:00:00.718)
Don't let him listen to that flame unless you want him to be Lutheran.
John Half-brown (01:00:04.086)
Yeah, that's my problem. I don't want him to get indoctrinated.
The Gatekeeper (01:00:05.886)
I them to be indoctrinated for healthy things.
John Half-brown (01:00:10.858)
Yeah, but not Lutheranism,
The Gatekeeper (01:00:12.664)
I guess, maybe I am too much of a boomer.
KillaGorilla (01:00:14.7)
I play the Lutheran rap for my kids.
John Half-brown (01:00:18.818)
Flames just making diss tracks to Calvinists. don't need that cognitive dissonance in my life, bro.
The Gatekeeper (01:00:23.602)
Okay, fair. Okay, but yeah, whatever, whatever the new like equivalent of like the mumble rap is where all they're saying is like, I six seven demons or whatever, like,
John Half-brown (01:00:35.692)
Honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that Exactly, this is why this is why my blood pressure is so low like I'm just vibing out here. You guys are all stressed
The Gatekeeper (01:00:38.494)
This is why you're a chill. You're gonna be a good dad.
The Gatekeeper (01:00:48.354)
My poor kids, I'm going to be like, now guys, I don't know if we should build that LEGO set. There's Dr. Strange is in it, and I think we want to make sure we avoid an appearance of evil.
John Half-brown (01:01:01.484)
That's right, actually I'm a little worried about the MCU's version of that LEGO set. Let's do another Tower of Babel, huh kids? And then I'll knock it over when you're halfway done.
KillaGorilla (01:01:05.186)
Yeah. Yeah.
The Gatekeeper (01:01:07.598)
Right.
Or more like, more like, why don't we build another Lord of the Rings set? And I can talk to you about Allegory.
KillaGorilla (01:01:11.278)
Mm-hmm.
KillaGorilla (01:01:18.51)
When we're on the Gateway Campus, only build Lord of the Rings legos.
John Half-brown (01:01:18.68)
You
The Gatekeeper (01:01:23.934)
Bro, my gosh. OK. Whatever.
John Half-brown (01:01:27.959)
That's awesome.
KillaGorilla (01:01:28.962)
Remember daddy has a job, this is how we pay the bills. No Harry Potter Lego set said daddy's work.
The Gatekeeper (01:01:32.179)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (01:01:32.984)
That's right, yeah. You keep that one.
Keep Ron Weasley in your pocket, okay sweetie?
The Gatekeeper (01:01:41.362)
We're not fundamentals. Fundamentalists. Okay. End the episode.
KillaGorilla (01:01:41.632)
Yeah.
John Half-brown (01:01:45.996)
Alright, alright homeboys. Let's move on. Thanks gang, we appreciate you listening. We love you bunch.
The Gatekeeper (01:01:51.89)
Bye bye.
KillaGorilla (01:01:52.962)
God bless you.
