93. Gregory of Nyssa: The Man, The Mystic, The Legend

Few things are worse than living in the shadow of a really successful older sibling. We imagine the siblings (or cousins, right Catholics?) of Jesus probably felt that way. 

Imagine being young Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of four siblings who would go on to receive sainthood. And two of them are your oldest brother and sister. What a nightmare. For Gregory, living a life of spiritual adventure like his relatives was far from his mind. But of course, the Lord had other plans. 

Join us this week as we cover the last of the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa. We'll discuss how his theological contributions and early mystical writings still bless the church to this day. 

Also Taylor talks about a rap group that he and John were a part of, and Thomas tells a joke from the Babylon Bee. 

Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/chumphistory

Chapters

• 0:00 Banter Banter Banter
• 5:00 Let's Get to Greg!

Transcript

Dinkleberg (00:00.528)
Hey everybody, welcome to Church History for Chumps. name is Jumpin' John Simon. We got the Buckshot Thomas Duell and we got the Rootin' Tootin' Taylor Treadway.

Caesar Of The West (00:11.724)
E.

The Gatekeeper (00:16.103)
He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west.

Dinkleberg (00:19.654)
Wild Wild West

Caesar Of The West (00:19.758)
W-W-W-W-

Dinkleberg (00:26.888)
People don't know this, but the three of us used to be in a barbershop trio. We used to sing on intersections for pocket change for a youth group. Remember that, boys?

Caesar Of The West (00:32.91)
Yeah,

Caesar Of The West (00:41.752)
Yeah, the state hired us to prevent people driving the wrong way down the highway. So we're like, don't go that way down the highway. Yeah, man, you remember it.

Dinkleberg (00:47.272)
That's right.

Highway. I can never forget that song.

The Gatekeeper (00:54.023)
You know, actual lore from John Simon and Taylor, we had a joke hip hop group.

Dinkleberg (01:02.31)
It was only sort of a joke hip hop group.

The Gatekeeper (01:05.289)
And it was.

Caesar Of The West (01:05.407)
I've seen this. This might still be on Instagram somewhere. Like on Bobby Bowman's retired Instagram or something.

The Gatekeeper (01:08.487)
It was called Illery.

Dinkleberg (01:09.086)
in the...

The Gatekeeper (01:11.921)
Yeah, it's called Hillary Clinton.

Dinkleberg (01:12.604)
Yeah, that's 100 % right. Yeah, that was... That's right. That's right. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (01:16.713)
Yeah, well, it hashtag. It was hashtag Hillary Clinton.

Caesar Of The West (01:20.756)
Isn't Hillary Clinton your I'm pretty sure that's your Twitter handle, isn't it John? Yeah. Okay, okay.

Dinkleberg (01:24.99)
Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah. No, it's in my description. It's in my description. Yeah. Um, yup. Yup. That was, uh, was a lot of fun. That was when I used to like write raps for fun and Taylor used to play the guitar for fun. Fortunately he gave that up because that was a disaster. Right? What's your job now, Taylor?

The Gatekeeper (01:28.41)
Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (01:44.329)
I still play guitar. my bad Yeah, you know is the best part of it is that I got us gigs by just being like we'll come play at this youth group thing and all these We did too we did too you played it you we played it my youth group. I knew the guy in charge It was me and then we

Dinkleberg (01:47.044)
of my bad but that's not but i've had my bad

Dinkleberg (01:57.629)
Why do you say gigs? We did one gig. We did one thing. We didn't do two. What was the second one? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes.

The Gatekeeper (02:11.43)
We played at that youth conference where I also knew the guy in charge.

Dinkleberg (02:15.408)
Was the youth conference the one where all the high schoolers just wanted to play blackout dodgeball? That's right, yeah. That was fun. Yeah, guess we did perform two times. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (02:20.925)
Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (02:27.208)
huh. We sure did.

Caesar Of The West (02:31.144)
Hey Taylor, did you get that Southern Baptist news I sent you in the chat?

The Gatekeeper (02:36.88)
Yeah, I loved the B. The B is I showed it around the office. The B was pretty funny. And dude, the best part, it was like an actual picture of the SBC annual meeting.

Dinkleberg (02:37.832)
Big news, big news.

Caesar Of The West (02:39.362)
Yeah dude, that's pretty exciting for you.

Dinkleberg (02:48.35)
Hahaha

Caesar Of The West (02:48.526)
Can I read, I know, can I read the headline on Church History for Chumps? Is it Church History for Chumps kosher?

Dinkleberg (02:53.086)
Just, just, censor, censor the S word.

Caesar Of The West (02:56.736)
Okay, Babylon B reports, Southern Baptist Convention lifts ban on marital relations after marriage. Big news for Taylor, big news.

Dinkleberg (03:06.75)
Because I know for a while for a while That was not the case. Yeah, and birth rates were plummeting right Taylor

The Gatekeeper (03:08.008)
It's so good.

The Gatekeeper (03:14.662)
Yep. Yep. Yep, that's where... Babies are back on the menu, boys.

Caesar Of The West (03:14.882)
You

Dinkleberg (03:21.938)
Bwahahahah

Caesar Of The West (03:23.593)
Jeez.

Dinkleberg (03:25.314)
Maybe the worst way you could have said that. Amazing babies are back on the bed queue. That's crazy. man.

Caesar Of The West (03:27.482)
That's like the worst reference to use. my gosh. I'm reporting you to the Ethics and Religious Liberty.

Dinkleberg (03:38.142)
Hahaha

The Gatekeeper (03:38.724)
Yeah, nobody cares what the ERLC says, Tommy. They fired... They... Yeah. They... They might make me the new president. They fired Brent Leatherwood.

Caesar Of The West (03:42.328)
They will when I say that Taylor said babies are back on the menu boys. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (03:45.118)
That's right. Yeah, I've got it recorded. Yeah, no.

Caesar Of The West (03:52.21)
Yeah, yeah. Jeez. All right, before we get you in trouble, we should probably...

Dinkleberg (03:55.361)
man, alright.

The Gatekeeper (03:56.915)
Yep. you guys.

This podcast will be the single singular reason I'll never be able to be president of an SBC entity.

Dinkleberg (04:02.578)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (04:10.472)
Here's the thing, what would you rather have fame and status and a career and a job in ministry and, treasures in heaven or this church history for chumps. Yeah. Hey, we know the answer. Your eyes say it all. One eye for me, the other eye for Thomas.

Caesar Of The West (04:11.576)
You're gonna be.

The Gatekeeper (04:22.245)
us.

The Gatekeeper (04:26.376)
I'm gonna plead the fifth. Plead the fifth, John.

The Gatekeeper (04:32.616)
Mmm.

You

Caesar Of The West (04:37.395)
You're right in the middle of my screen too. So why don't

The Gatekeeper (04:39.442)
I know, I love it. I'm in the middle. Stuck in the middle with you.

Dinkleberg (04:39.806)
Just dink dink. Oh man. All right. Should we, should we jump in boys? All right, let's do it. All right. So, you guys already know the title because you, if you're a listener, you already clicked on the title, but we are talking about the third and sort of final of our Cappadocian series, our Alpha Beta Cappadocian series. So we've done Basil the Great.

The Gatekeeper (04:46.918)
I think so.

Dinkleberg (05:07.198)
We did Gregory of Nazianzus a couple weeks ago, which sadly Thomas was not here for, so I'm glad that you got the other Greg. And I told Taylor last time, when I read about Basil, I was like, I really like this guy. He might be my favorite dude that I've personally covered. And then I did Gregory of Nazianzus and I was like, crap, I really like this guy too. I think I've just realized I'm just a sucker. I'm just a simp for the fathers, bro, which you know what? don't want father simp. I don't want a t-shirt of that.

Caesar Of The West (05:27.662)
Hmm

The Gatekeeper (05:32.434)
Mmm.

Dinkleberg (05:36.882)
I was gonna be like, maybe I should get Father's Simp on a broidered, but I...

Caesar Of The West (05:41.878)
I could just see the regret on your face when you said that line. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (05:44.574)
As soon as I said that, man, fathers are back on the menu boys.

The Gatekeeper (05:46.985)
So I can't make this up and I wish I was making this up. I caught my boss today using AI to generate Cappadocian father's iconography so that he can order it as a print for his office.

Dinkleberg (05:56.626)
Mm-hmm.

Dinkleberg (06:07.942)
Why couldn't he just take one of the many existing icons of the Cava-Dotion Fathers?

Caesar Of The West (06:08.01)
my gosh.

The Gatekeeper (06:13.234)
I don't think they're like very clear. I'm not sure. He couldn't find one.

Dinkleberg (06:17.372)
That's so strange. Dude, an AI icon that someone puts up unironically is a very strange concept to me.

The Gatekeeper (06:23.834)
No, I think it's definitely ironic.

Dinkleberg (06:28.054)
it's still weird. I don't know. Well, no, if it's ironic, it's a Baptist seminary. It's probably ironic.

The Gatekeeper (06:29.01)
Dude, should, I should, that could be our first church history for chumps t-shirt is, and then in the Greek, can put it in the Greek, simp for fathers.

Caesar Of The West (06:40.53)
my gosh, yeah, what's Greek for simp, Taylor?

Dinkleberg (06:41.982)
Yeah, let's let's throw all our money away

The Gatekeeper (06:44.09)
It would just be like Sigma, Iota, Mu, yeah.

Dinkleberg (06:49.362)
mu pi yeah but we're not gonna do that we're not we're not gonna do that

The Gatekeeper (06:54.066)
Ton Padres.

Dinkleberg (07:01.53)
Alright, okay. Geez. Okay, so... I don't think so. I mean... I don't know. There's a lot. No, I think we're okay. Alright, so we're on Gregory of Nyssa this week, who is the third of the fathers. Like I said, we're not gonna stop here, because I want to do an episode, at least one more episode, on Makrina or Makrina. I think it's Makrina. Makrina sounds like a very ugly name.

The Gatekeeper (07:04.636)
Are can- are we cancelled yet?

Dinkleberg (07:29.31)
macron macrona macronus it's called her mac actually mac's not a bad nickname even for a girl gregory of nissa so hear me out let me i'll paint a picture for you boys close your eyes actually open your eyes listener close your eyes in 320 ad despite the passing of the edict of milan which forbade persecution on religious grounds

40 Roman soldiers were put to death by the Eastern Emperor Licinius. According to tradition, they were stripped naked and forced to stand on a frozen pond on a particularly cold night waiting to slowly freeze to death. It's a story. Decades later, Christians gathered in the Roman presence of Cappadocia to honor the memory of these fallen martyrs. In the crowd of weeping and mournful Christians, a young man had a different response.

He dozed off to sleep. Yet in his sleep, he was met with a vivid dream. He dreamt that he was outside of a beautiful garden, trying to find a way inside. After finally locating the entrance, he made his way toward it, only to be forced out by 40 men shoving him with rods, forbidding his entrance. The young man jolted awake and was completely jarred by this experience.

You see, this young man was born into a family with a rich Christian heritage with several siblings who would go on to be recognized by the Church for their holiness and strides in theology. He respected the spiritual efforts of his siblings and wasn't altogether opposed to them. He just didn't quite feel called into the spiritual life. But the Lord would soon reveal that his plans were quite different for the other.

Dinkleberg (09:26.46)
True story. True story, Greg, isn't it? So that's right.

The Gatekeeper (09:26.502)
Enter Gregory of Nyssa. Dude, heard that I recently heard that story of those martyrs on the frozen lake. It's horrific.

Caesar Of The West (09:27.042)
Alright.

Dinkleberg (09:35.078)
Yeah, yeah. Dude, the stories of martyrs, especially the first few centuries of the church, we could do an entire podcast. We could never stop just on that. We could just keep going and just do nothing but a podcast on martyrs. It would be crazy. So.

The Gatekeeper (09:56.978)
Mmm.

Caesar Of The West (10:00.3)
I mean, that was almost what season one of CH4C was.

Dinkleberg (10:04.125)
Honestly yeah, we just did a lot of martyrs.

The Gatekeeper (10:05.256)
What's the, what's the, it's like Seminus Sanguine. What's church in Latin? Ecclesiastes? Yeah, no, it's Greek. It's Greek. Anyway, Tertullian, Tertullian's quote, dude, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Dinkleberg (10:15.088)
Ecclesia and that's Greek

Caesar Of The West (10:17.89)
Let's see ya.

Dinkleberg (10:20.497)
What are you trying to say?

Dinkleberg (10:25.671)
seed of the church. Yeah, were you trying to say it in Latin just now? Because you were like, Spamoni, tortellini, macaroni. All right, so like I said today, we're speaking of the last of the three men known as the Cappadocian Fathers, some of the most significant fourth century figures specifically for the Eastern Church. I think you could say

The Gatekeeper (10:29.062)
Yeah, I'm good. I got I got a seminary.

I know, it's fine.

Dinkleberg (10:55.281)
that what Augustine, maybe Jerome, maybe Ambrose are for the Western Church. I'm actually not, I'm spacing on if Ambrose is Western or Eastern not. Milan, Milan, there we go, Eastern, thank you, or Western, thank you. That's what the Cappadocian Fathers are for the Eastern Church, alongside Athanasius. What's up?

The Gatekeeper (11:07.708)
Milan.

The Gatekeeper (11:12.36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Caesar Of The West (11:17.198)
So I just don't know enough, why is the Eastern Church like these guys so much?

Dinkleberg (11:27.033)
Well, well, so they actually not even the, the, the interesting thing is like someone like Athanasius, he was in Alexandria, which is a huge hub for the Eastern church. The irony is that the Cappadocian fathers were as their name implies in Cappadocia, which is like Asia, minor modern day Turkey. So the closest major C that they were to was Antioch. And I don't know if any of them had major dealings there.

Caesar Of The West (11:27.79)
Is it because where they're from? that it?

Dinkleberg (11:56.338)
So they were actually famous in spite of the fact that they weren't in very big areas, but they were prominent because they contributed a lot theologically. Basil was like a monastic heavyweight. of course the Eastern tradition is really big on their monastic movement. And then what we'll get into with Gregory of Nyssa is that Gregory of Nyssa is gonna develop

The Gatekeeper (12:00.2)
Mmm.

Dinkleberg (12:22.737)
basically the early writings of mystic theology, which is another huge thing for the Eastern Church. And then just, they're going to write a ton about the Holy Spirit, about priesthood, about the Trinity. They're going to contribute to the Council of Constantinople. So they're going to fight Arians. Like they're doing everything basically. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (12:43.837)
From my understanding, their influence on Trinitarian theology specifically is what put them on the map.

Dinkleberg (12:51.325)
Mm-hmm.

That's the big one. Yeah, that's the big one. So Basil, like we mentioned, was the one who kind of defined the Greek disti- defined the distinctions of the Trinity using Greek terminology in the same way that Tertullian had with Latin. And then Gregory of Nyssa is going to take that even further.

The Gatekeeper (12:56.007)
Well, it-

The Gatekeeper (13:11.26)
Mm-hmm.

The Gatekeeper (13:18.246)
He just nods. He just nods for the answer for your question. He gets a super long answer. Just nods.

Dinkleberg (13:23.165)
Also, I interrupted you, Taylor. thought that you were going to jump back in, but you just, you didn't say anything.

Caesar Of The West (13:23.912)
so-

Caesar Of The West (13:31.118)
That's kinda what I thought too.

The Gatekeeper (13:31.24)
Oh, oh, it's on me. Well, I was gonna say, last week's Greg, or two weeks ago Greg, even had the moniker, The Theologian. Which, poor Athanasius, am I nothing to you?

Dinkleberg (13:38.781)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Am I nothing to you? Yeah. So Gregory of Nyssa, man, the whole premise of this is so interesting. And I love that we did the order the way that we did, because just imagine, so we talked about this a little bit with Basil. In the family of Basil, Macrina, and Gregory, there's 10 children.

Caesar Of The West (13:45.838)
Are you not entertained?

The Gatekeeper (13:49.616)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (14:14.59)
Probably. Historians are not 100 % sure. It could be like nine, could be 10, could be a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But five of them are recognized as saints by the church. Like five kids.

The Gatekeeper (14:18.93)
They had a Charmy.

The Gatekeeper (14:26.47)
Yeah, this is the power of homeschooling.

Dinkleberg (14:32.218)
Actually, no, because they were all sent out to like get really good educations all over the empire. And I don't think they were schooled at home.

The Gatekeeper (14:40.028)
This is the power of homeschooling until they get into Yale.

Dinkleberg (14:44.67)
Okay, all right. But Basil was the oldest of the brothers. Macrina was the oldest of the daughters. And so imagine like your older brother who like gave you noogies when you were eight years old and your big sister who was like always kind of sweet, but always a little mean too. They just become these very holy, spiritual, very mature, but also very intimidating people.

And then your oldest your older brother's like best friend also becomes this like theological genius and they're just hanging out all the time like if you're if you're growing up in that you're either like I want to be just like my brother. He's so great. He's so wonderful or you say no heck to heck with that I just want to I just want to live very I want to I want to pave my own way and so The sense that we get from Gregory of Nyssa is that I don't think he really wanted

to like he wasn't, he didn't have the, you know, the famous Augustan confessions of this debaucherous lifestyle. And, you know, like, like I often say, he wasn't smoking weed out by the, by the dumpsters. Like he just, he, he, went to school. He didn't, he actually didn't do all of the, like, cause Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil went to Athens and they, they went to some of the

best academies in the empire. Gregory of Nyssa kind of just went to a community college, you know, did some local stuff. And then he was like, you know what, I'm going to do rhetoric. I'm going to practice law. He's like, I want to get married, have, you know, settle down, just kind of chill out. He really didn't have much interest in going into this spiritual life.

The Gatekeeper (16:34.472)
He wanted to take the fifth wheeler. Yeah, he wanted to take the fifth wheeler out on the weekends Maybe hit maybe hit up Disney on Labor Day

Dinkleberg (16:39.983)
Exactly. Yeah. He was saving up. He was saving up for an RV, man. He just, wanted to, he wanted to hit the road. Yeah. And so to him, spiritual life just really wasn't that appealing. And then, you know, he had that dream that, that happened. was some, that was a story that he recalled later on and it really jarred him. And for a while he was like, hold on, hold on. I might, God might be calling me into something here. And then he was like, actually, no, I'm probably fine.

So he went right back to being lukewarm like I don't know not long after and then something happened Which I think proves a very important lesson that all of us in Christianity should know very well Which is sometimes the best person to hit you with the come to Jesus talk is just the person who's not in your family sometimes you just need someone with a different last name to speak that good that good good wisdom and

Caesar Of The West (17:33.699)
Mm-hmm.

The Gatekeeper (17:35.718)
It's the Camp Pastor.

Yeah, yeah.

Dinkleberg (18:02.671)
And so Gregor was convinced and he went with the other Gregory to Basil's monastery that he had just started that they operated on this private lot of land that the family owned. And the three of them just kind of hung out. The older two taught young Gregory about the Bible and theology. And this is also when the three of them really, really got into origin.

which is fascinating because we've kind of talked about this before. know, Origin was kind of like this unpasteurized milk of, you know, he's like, he's like straight from the utter, but also probably not good to drink. And then these three just came along and like picked out all the gross stuff and made it, made it, you know, send it to send it to Walmart to be, to be bought wholesale.

The Gatekeeper (18:57.21)
Am I hearing you correctly that he left his family to go live in a hut in the desert with the homies?

Dinkleberg (19:05.533)
He did not, okay, no, no. His wife was still alive. I don't believe he abandoned her. I don't think he had any children. I don't remember reading anything about that. So I don't believe... Look, maybe it was like a three month staycation. It wasn't vacant. It was like a lot in the middle of town. don't think it was like the, you know, he wasn't living somewhere super remote. I don't think, but...

The Gatekeeper (19:15.538)
So he brought his wife with him.

The Gatekeeper (19:23.25)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (19:34.973)
That's a good question.

The Gatekeeper (19:35.112)
But he basically told his wife, baby, I gotta go to seminary. God's got a call on my life. And she's like, wow, I support this. And then she finds out that he's just like smoking cigarettes, reading Origen with his homies all day.

Dinkleberg (19:39.165)
He's like, I gotta.

Dinkleberg (19:45.135)
hanging with his brother.

Caesar Of The West (19:49.228)
Ha, at least it wasn't a golf trip.

Dinkleberg (19:52.325)
Yeah, basically.

The Gatekeeper (19:53.478)
Yeah, that's true.

Caesar Of The West (19:54.39)
I'm looking, looks like his wife is someone of note in church history too.

Dinkleberg (19:59.814)
Yeah, I got very little about his wife, honestly. Sometimes I didn't even see her named. So I think she's one of the like, there was one account, which is I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, but there was an account where a historian names someone who

Basil or sorry who Gregory had lost and it's a female name and they're not sure if it was one of the family's distant relatives or if it was his wife So I think there's not a lot of clarity about her background. That's like set in stone but

Caesar Of The West (20:39.314)
This is a great line I'm reading. Gregory of Nyssa, unlike the other Cappadocian fathers, was married according to his own testimony in his work on virginity that he could not benefit from the subject of his own work. Okay.

Dinkleberg (20:51.11)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (20:54.855)
We'll get to that. We'll get to that. He wrote, he wrote on virginity after his wife died, which I think, I think, it actually said, this was actually, this is super sad that one of the notes he makes in on virginity is virginity is a great thing to practice. If you don't find yourself desperate for a spouse, cause then you don't have to go through the pain of losing a spouse, which is like, that's super sad.

Caesar Of The West (21:21.198)
Aww man, that's tough.

The Gatekeeper (21:23.091)
Mm. Dang.

Dinkleberg (21:25.053)
So yeah, as we learned last week with Gregory of Nazianzus, Big Brother Basil was very much a natural networker and kind of a pain when it came to recognizing the giftings of people around him and then wanting to catapult them into positions that they were probably not prepared for. So...

The Gatekeeper (21:48.04)
Where does he send lil bro?

Dinkleberg (21:51.516)
you know he's gonna send him somewhere, He sends him to soon to be his namesake, a tiny, tiny little village called Nyssa, which was at the time still in Cappadocia, so still kind of this Asia Minor area, but an absolute stronghold of Aryans. And like, Basil's just, he's just playing chess, bro. He's just moving pieces around.

The Gatekeeper (22:14.248)
Hazel has NAMM Churchplanter. He has NAMM Churchplant Coordinator written all

Dinkleberg (22:21.063)
Dude, I think there's definitely room for a personality like Basil. But one of my favorite things we covered with Gregory of Nazianz last week or two weeks ago was that this was actually a huge strain on their relationship. Like Basil being so forceful with how to practice ministry. So little bro didn't seem to suffer as much in his relationship with his brother.

The Gatekeeper (22:37.852)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (22:49.479)
but he did suffer because he was not prepared for this role. And so he's not even just ordained. He's made Bishop of Nyssa, which again, small village in Aryan territory, once again, through an inexperienced loved one into this place. And Gregory was a great speaker. He was a great teacher. Remember, he had all of this training in rhetoric and he was really sharp in terms of theology.

but he was just not prepared for the logistical work of this role. And he was not prepared for the opposition that he was about to encounter.

The Gatekeeper (23:26.152)
He got the M.Div, but he was not prepared for the small country church meetings.

Dinkleberg (23:29.775)
You

No, especially not in freaking Baghdad where like people were where there were like, you know Wanted pictures of him and the outside the sheriff's like deputy's office

Caesar Of The West (23:44.521)
You know what's interesting? We've noticed this theme of people with relatively limited ecclesial experience being put into the position of bishop. When we first started seeing that, before I realized it was a trend, I kind of thought, why did they do that? Now I'm starting to wonder if there was almost like a method to that where it's like, instead of taking the career politician, you put the guy who doesn't know all the politics.

you in the role like you jump somebody to the authoritative role fast so that you know they they can get done what needs to be done without the

Dinkleberg (24:14.577)
Mm-hmm.

Dinkleberg (24:21.307)
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. I also think another perspective that I think reflects well on the church is that if you're a well-loved and respected figure like Basil was, and Basil can attest to the character of somebody and say, look, they know their stuff, they're going to be a good pastor, but also like they are, they're a good guy.

Like it's not just someone who, you know, can like someone who really knows their stuff, but it can really do this. I think that being able to testify to someone's character was a huge leg up for this stuff, which probably was, you know, could, create some problems, which we're going to have for Gregory. But I think I'm encouraged that they were trying to put people in the right position.

The Gatekeeper (25:14.586)
I'd like to think, and I have not read much of Basil, and I think I should because I want to see behind the lens of this like church planting genius. I do wonder if it was almost this. It's the modern day equivalent of the network leader grabbing some kid fresh out of seminary, bright eyed and bushy tailed and saying, I'm going send you to this church. They need a pastor.

Dinkleberg (25:21.309)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dinkleberg (25:43.068)
Yes.

The Gatekeeper (25:43.504)
And this church is the middle of nowhere and it's first Baptist so and so and hasn't kept a pastor for longer than three years. And he's like, he's like, this kid is going to get eaten alive, but it'll be good for him and he'll be good for them.

Dinkleberg (25:52.253)
Mm-hmm.

Dinkleberg (25:59.566)
Yeah, I mean like it takes you have to have people with that kind of ambitious personality or else everyone's gonna stay in their own little circles and you know because at the end of the day that small town church does need a pastor like they they do need some support so yeah, there's there's definitely a very special place in the church for the Basils out there even if they you know

The Gatekeeper (26:13.178)
Yeah.

That's right.

The Gatekeeper (26:23.952)
I'm guessing that Gregory stays in this scene is that's the title he earns.

Dinkleberg (26:31.345)
He does and he is actually going to stay there for quite a while. So the first big snafu, so he's going to hit a few years, which are just going to absolutely rock this dude. with Gregory of Nazianzus, if you guys remember, he had a lot of kind of just these seasons of tragedy and these seasons of loss and pain.

The good news for Gregory of Nyssa is he's gonna get all his tragedies out of the way in a very short period of time. So essentially what happens is he gets to Nyssa, which again is this role that he's not super prepared for, that is filled to the brim with Aryans, and he's gonna get exiled. He's gonna get exiled on trumped up charges, so he's basically gonna be kicked out of his role, kicked out of his home, and he will be basically just this depressed dude.

The Gatekeeper (27:02.247)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (27:25.021)
roaming the countryside until two years later he will be called back after after the The political climate kind of shifts back home But shortly around this time. He's gonna experience three more very personal losses Basil is going to die who is at this point not just his older bro, but he's been like a spiritual mentor for him

and someone who, for better or worse, has encouraged him in ministry, taught him the Bible, walked through a lot of life with him. And as we've talked about, Basil's death was pretty unexpected. He died, think, before the age of 40. So that was a really tragic and unexpected thing. Not long after that, his big sister, Macrina, is going to die, who he was also very, very close to.

Gregory wrote about some conversations that the two of them had had where he was basically able to visit her while she was on her deathbed and the author of the book I read was kind of joking that He like she's dying on her deathbed and instead of like consoling her he's just kind of using the opportunity to be like man life's real rough right now sis like

I don't know, just kinda need, and then she just, you know, she does the same thing she always does. She's the big sister encouraging him to see the goodness of God and all the things and reminding him of God's faithfulness. And then not long after that, she dies too. And then the third is that it's believed that around this time, being the only married one of all of the Cappadocian fathers, his wife would die also. And so in a very short period of time,

He's going to face a ton of trials and a brand new, very difficult season of ministry. Then he's going to get ousted from it. He's going to lose his mentor and one of his best friends. He's going to lose his big sister and then his wife's going to die too. And yeah, just slammed, slammed with the heaviness. But what I love about this is that

Caesar Of The West (29:27.982)
Mmm.

Dinkleberg (29:37.405)
One of the most characteristic things we see about Gregory of Nyssa's writing and you know, one of the authors that I read that said, know, if we see Basil as the monk of these three because of his influence on monastic practice, and if we see Gregory of Nazian's as the theologian, then we should really see Gregory of Nyssa as the mystic because he is going to write

The Gatekeeper (30:04.584)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (30:06.659)
really substantially about this kind of, not just this theology, but he's really kind of fleshing out what a lot of Christians for centuries on, even till today, are going to basically say is, what is it to explore this relation with God? Or someone I read quoted,

The Gatekeeper (30:07.856)
Ahem.

Dinkleberg (30:31.031)
basically a good definition for mysticism, because I know that's kind of a weird word in a lot of our context, we don't really use that too often, but a good definition I would use for it is a dynamic adventure of progressively, of progressing deeper, sorry, progressively deeper union with God. And so he's gonna write this, go ahead man, sorry.

Caesar Of The West (30:53.432)
I would say...

I, it's not super common to run across this, but I would say even in like the reform tradition, there's a, the language of like mystical union is used to describe like, you know, what's going on in the sacraments in particular in the Lord's Supper. And it also doesn't surprise me. I've noticed this with people that I've known.

Dinkleberg (31:11.645)
Mm-hmm.

Dinkleberg (31:17.988)
Absolutely.

Caesar Of The West (31:25.326)
who have experienced a lot of loss and then also through church history, this seems to be the trajectory of Christians who experience an enormous amount of loss, is they really start focusing on union with Christ, which is like, I feel like that's like Christianity's answer to Buddhism. Instead of withdrawing from the pain where you're like, that doesn't hurt me. It's like, actually that hurt me a lot.

Dinkleberg (31:35.655)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (31:45.949)
Mm-hmm.

Caesar Of The West (31:54.958)
And I'm gonna draw nearer to Christ because of it.

Dinkleberg (31:55.355)
Yeah, yeah.

Dinkleberg (32:00.048)
Right, right. Like one of the most, probably one of the most familiar texts that was influenced by Gregory of Nyssa is The Dark Knight of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, which is literally unpacking this concept of in the depths of darkness, my soul was kind of ignited with this passion that led me towards the...

Caesar Of The West (32:12.683)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (32:28.135)
towards the divine creator. And so, yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on. I really believe that his suffering was kind of what brought him here. And so he's gonna write this text, one of his most significant texts called The Life of Moses, where he's essentially gonna unpack, he's kind of answering this question of what is the quintessential human life? And so he unpacks that question by saying,

by basically going through the book of Exodus and saying, we can look at Moses as living the quintessential human life, not just because of his obedience in following God, but because Moses had this unquenchable desire to see God and experience God and his moments of intimacy with God on the mountain top, his experience of him in the cloud.

his one-on-one conversations with him, asking to see God and God kind of passing through, like, just all of these very experiential moments of his pursuit of God that he kind of uses to unpack. And so he's going to, this is also gonna really help formulate this Eastern concept of theosis. If you ever speak into an Eastern Orthodox person, you'll notice that they,

Caesar Of The West (33:46.126)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (33:48.921)
tends to replace what we as Westerners would call sanctification with this idea of theosis and You could mince words and say that they're functionally the same thing I think I'd get people mad at me on both sides if I said that but essentially theosis places the emphasis on being made like God like Sharing in the divine nature. Absolutely. Yeah and Tommy what you what you said earlier I want to say is true

Caesar Of The West (34:10.99)
sharing in the divine nature.

The Gatekeeper (34:15.613)
Man.

Dinkleberg (34:18.684)
most of the time when that mystical language is used especially in the western world i think it's more widely used in the eastern world it's it's sacramental so i just want to affirm that taylor sorry

The Gatekeeper (34:31.72)
was just gonna say, man became, God became man so that man might become God.

Dinkleberg (34:38.906)
Yeah, I wrote that down. That's Gregory of Nyssa. That's Gregory of Nyssa. It's Gregory of Nyssa wrote the original quote that I believe was repurposed. Yeah, mean, hey, you fact check me on that. I've seen both versions, but yeah. Let's see. He's going to identify three significant terms.

Caesar Of The West (34:39.117)
at Augustine.

The Gatekeeper (34:40.732)
That's Athanasius. What?

Caesar Of The West (34:42.71)
Athanasius. really?

The Gatekeeper (34:47.376)
And then Athanasius stole it.

Hold on. Let's do it.

Dinkleberg (35:07.438)
And so, this is one of the coolest things I saw about Gregory of Nyssa. He has this idea, and all these are Greek phrases, but the first one is, is a epictasis, which means endless ascent, which means that the trajectory of every human soul, specifically, I think he would specify, of Christians, is that there is an unending pursuit and an insatiable growth into the infinite depth of God's...

union and presence. So basically trending upward is the definition of a Christian, like just always longing for, like seeking out more. Like we can try to contain it and suppress it, but the natural place of a Christian soul is to constantly desire more and more of union with God.

Caesar Of The West (35:55.306)
It's like Lewis's Further Up, Further In.

Dinkleberg (36:00.028)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so he has these three ideas that he fleshes out, catharsis, gnosis, and theoria. Catharsis he identifies as purification. So he says that the starting point for every new believer is purification. We have to, you know, mortify sin, purify the heart of evil desires, but it's also purifying the mind of all types of worldly attachments.

This is where people kind of say, there's some neoplatonist influence here. With gnosis, that's knowledge. It's the knowledge of divine things, which comes from, it's not just about reading books and Bible studies, but it's also the things that God reveals to us as we spend time with him. So everything is very intimate and very relational. And then theoria is this idea of beholding or contemplation, which is he compares it a lot into

The final stage of Moses' ascent into Sinai is when he's in this dark cloud which encapsulates God's presence. And so he uses this cloud through this term, luminous darkness, which essentially says you're in this place of darkness where you can't see and you can't understand, but you are also like the world is revealed through it and it's this paradox of God being both known and unknowable.

And it's really, it's basically kind of, he's the first person to kind of represent God as someone who we should be fully just enraptured with, but who we also must understand we are woefully limited to truly know and understand. these might seem like basic ideas, but they're gonna influence tons and tons of Christians, including, like I said,

Caesar Of The West (37:46.114)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (37:54.173)
Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Maximus the Confessor, just lots and lots of Christians are going to take these ideas and run with them. So really cool stuff there. Let's see. So despite the fact that Gregory received by worldly standards the worst education of the three Cappadocian fathers because he was not Athens trained like other Greg and Basil were, he actually, as Taylor alluded,

Caesar Of The West (38:06.51)
for sure.

Dinkleberg (38:23.268)
contributed the most to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. He's going to explain that the unity of the Trinity implies that their nature be unified by a single indivisible divine nature, which means that in his words, it is not correct to solely see the Father as the creator or to solely see the Son as the Savior because it severs the will and operation of the Godhead. So he coins this term

Caesar Of The West (38:27.566)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (38:53.318)
called perichoresis, which essentially is having a fully united will and action to kind of allow the Trinity to act in complete harmony and solidarity within itself, which is a very important way of kind of tying down the loose ends of the Trinity, which is really, really big.

The Gatekeeper (39:14.76)
I am not versed in the historical theological movements of the Trinity, but I wonder, a lot of us have probably heard the operations described as the God's economy, right? And it's like the operations at intra, at extra, within himself and outside of himself. And I wonder if...

And that's a very modern like understanding you take any theology class at school. You're gonna get that I wonder if we don't even get there or We we get there way later if Gregory of Nyssa doesn't Help help right what they're doing now or what you're explaining right now Because that sounds really foundational to even get to that next movement, right?

Caesar Of The West (39:57.293)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (40:00.413)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.

Dinkleberg (40:08.335)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I can't disagree. I think that when you look at church history, like, you know, a lot of the, you know, because like a hundred years ago, they were still arguing about whether Jesus was God or whether he was man. Like, it does seem like church history is kind of moving along inch by inch and like tiny theological stance at a time.

So yeah, I think if he doesn't come through with this and then attest to it at the Council of Constantinople, which he'll do in a few years, yeah, that would set the church back and how it understood stuff. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (40:49.864)
I heard my church history professor actually pointed out last week that Because he talked about the explosion of Christianity post-edict of Milan and Constantine and he talked about that Yes, nominal Christians get introduced into the world. But when the church isn't being persecuted they have time to do theology

Dinkleberg (41:13.981)
Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (41:14.714)
And he said, and he said, that's the he that's why he thinks fourth century is when you just see this explosion.

Dinkleberg (41:22.075)
Yeah, yeah, you can focus a lot on these ideas when you're not in literal survival mode, you know? mm-hmm. Shout out, Dr. Chun. Yeah, let's see, there's this great quote that I read from Gregory that I really loved. was an author, he was an early defender of...

Caesar Of The West (41:22.414)
That's a really good point.

The Gatekeeper (41:23.782)
Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.

The Gatekeeper (41:30.544)
Right, Dr. Chun. Dr. Chun credit. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (41:47.194)
I guess I wouldn't say early defender, but he was a defender of inherent human dignity and he actually spoke out against slavery, which you know is a cool thing to happen this early on in church history. But he says in reference to owning slaves, he says, for what price do you own slaves? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many, how many, you know,

How much currency did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many dollars, not, you know, reframing that, did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God and rules the whole earth and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer? Tell me. Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power.

The Gatekeeper (42:25.009)
Sheckles.

Dinkleberg (42:44.933)
or rather not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God's?

Caesar Of The West (43:08.184)
That was good.

Dinkleberg (43:08.445)
So good.

The Gatekeeper (43:09.424)
I'm so glad he wrote that and everybody listened.

Dinkleberg (43:12.797)
That's right. Yeah. So glad.

Caesar Of The West (43:13.39)
That's such a good line though, it's like how much did you pay for that human being?

Dinkleberg (43:19.387)
Yeah, how much did you pay for that person, you know, given dominion of the world by God himself? Like that's, that's crazy.

Caesar Of The West (43:27.342)
bars.

The Gatekeeper (43:27.538)
Dude, this makes me want to read more Gregory of Nyssa.

Dinkleberg (43:30.705)
Dude, he is very fun to read. And honestly, like there's some good translations out there.

The Gatekeeper (43:37.181)
What else?

Caesar Of The West (43:37.6)
Is there a single volume of writings of the Cappadocian Fathers that you would recommend,

Dinkleberg (43:45.918)
Honestly, me and Taylor been talking about getting sponsored but we've I've just been pulling a lot off of new advents or really wherever I can pull reliable PDFs and stuff, but

The Gatekeeper (43:58.951)
Tommy and to anybody listening that wants to read patristic-ish stuff, you can read the anti-Nicene Fathers, which is like the collection. You just Google that, and there's a couple websites that host them, PDF. So you can search, you know, Control-F, search what you want. And then there's the post-Nicene Fathers. These are massive, massive volumes. I guarantee you what you will find. Tommy will be there.

Dinkleberg (44:27.377)
Yeah, because.

Caesar Of The West (44:28.034)
Emphasis on that's not A-N-T-I, that's A-N-T-E. Big difference.

Dinkleberg (44:31.421)
Yeah, these are not the up they're not opposed to the nice scene they're not fathers who were anti

The Gatekeeper (44:33.369)
All right.

Our listeners understand Latin.

Dinkleberg (44:42.385)
Maybe, I don't know. It's hard when you speak English, I understand. Yeah, I mean, and I think another point to what you said, Taylor, is when persecution isn't happening, you get to save a lot more stuff. Like we have so many more, because how many dudes from the second and third century, we were like, yeah, they were really impactful. We have two things that they wrote down because nothing was saved.

The Gatekeeper (44:46.504)
Mm.

Caesar Of The West (45:08.654)
Ha ha.

The Gatekeeper (45:08.666)
Right, and Eusebius preserved both of them. Yeah. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (45:12.015)
Yeah, exactly. But when you look at even the Cappadocian Fathers, like they've got homilies, they've got orations, they've got commentaries, like they've got so much like freaking Gregory of Nazianzus, you can find books of poetry that he wrote. Like these do not only were they prolific, but they were preserved, which is amazing.

The Gatekeeper (45:30.888)
Dude, I was told that all of Augustine's stuff hasn't even been fully translated yet, which is how much we have.

Dinkleberg (45:38.501)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. It's like thousands of pieces for Augustine. It's crazy. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (45:44.07)
Yeah, yeah. So and then, and then origin all of his stuff that we have is like a pamphlet. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (45:53.246)
Yeah. And it's like halfway ripped. So you can't even like read a full sentence. Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (45:57.693)
Right. No, it's pretty wild. I think the Lord does bless this period with a lot of peace. And they go for a while, centuries of peace. And yeah, they're able to sit around and think and read their fathers.

Dinkleberg (46:09.074)
Mm-hmm.

Caesar Of The West (46:19.566)
There's a really interesting take on, so in Revelation, I forget which chapter it is, but there's the imagery of the dragon tries to destroy the woman and the child, which is like Mary and Jesus, like the church and the church's children.

I think he like opens his mouth and a bunch of water comes out and he tries to like flood them I think that's what happens. Look it up for yourself and something like that and I think was Matthew Henry was of the like historicist Way of reading Revelation in his take on that which I'm not sure this is my take but I think it's interesting is that What that was depicting

was as the church is born and is starting to grow up, the devil hates it, and that flood depicted in Revelation is the flood of heresies that hits the early church, and the church has to fight back against that and kind of tread water in order to not drown, which I think is a really fascinating way of thinking about this time in history. I mean, we did our hefty heresies

Dinkleberg (47:36.669)
Hmm.

Caesar Of The West (47:47.818)
series which is kind of going on concurrent to what we're talking about right now and Certainly was the case that they had a lot they had to deal with theologically at this time Which fits with what dr. Chun was saying of just they had the breathing room to actually address these things They weren't being killed physically anymore, but they're having a different type of spiritual attack Now with all these heresies and they have to really hammer these things out

Dinkleberg (48:10.311)
Mm-hmm.

The Gatekeeper (48:10.588)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (48:14.525)
Yeah.

The Gatekeeper (48:14.588)
You ever get the vibe that people even back in the day just thought the Old Testament was kind of boring, so they just had to allegorize it?

The Gatekeeper (48:28.38)
They just over-allegra- you know, no, it's me being silly. They definitely allegorize as we looked at last episode. Like, people in this time period are so happy to allegorize.

Dinkleberg (48:28.955)
spicy take that's a spicy take

Dinkleberg (48:38.715)
Yeah, yeah.

Dinkleberg (48:45.147)
I also think, I think the opposite could also be true. That we assume that it's so boring as modern readers that we assume there can't be allegories because everything must be literal. Because literal means true and true means enlightenment approved.

The Gatekeeper (49:00.348)
Yeah. Escaping. Yeah, dude, escaping, escaping our post enlightenment paradigm. I don't know if that's even possible for us. And I just hope future church historians look at our generation and understand. Okay. They were, they were trapped.

Dinkleberg (49:12.007)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dinkleberg (49:23.067)
I just hope that in the future church historians remember that when the whole world was burning under the flame of the Enlightenment, there was a lone podcaster who once posed the question, where has all the whimsy gone? And his friends crucified him. All right, so I'll wrap up. There's really not a whole lot left. But you were right, Taylor. So Gregory is going to, after he's reinstated,

Caesar Of The West (49:36.654)
Where's the whimsy at?

The Gatekeeper (49:40.176)
Where the whimsy at? Yeah.

Dinkleberg (49:51.977)
pretty much stay faithfully as the bishop of Nyssa for the majority of the rest of his life. He will participate in the council of Constantinople and later on when the winds of the empire shift from the Aryan Valens to the Nicene Christian Theodosius, Gregory will become a theological advisor for the emperor Theodosius which

I guess meant he had to follow him around, which he was not a huge fan of. So eventually he does get back to Nyssa and he will retire from his role and he will return to a monastic lifestyle, which just like his other buddy Greg, was really all he wanted, just to kind of live and contemplate and pray. Tommy, did you listen to the episode?

The Gatekeeper (50:38.66)
Let me be as Jonah.

Dinkleberg (50:46.787)
cause we, we spit an all time quote from a church father.

Caesar Of The West (50:51.598)
I'm sorry, I have not listened to it.

Dinkleberg (50:53.31)
It's all good, it only just dropped. the quote was basically, this is, it's Gregory of Nazianzus who had to be coerced into every role of leadership that he took. And he was so grumpy and frustrated. All he wanted to do was just go back to his countryside and live by himself. And this was a quote in response to him being,

at first arranged to help lead the council of Constantinople and then having all these fake charges dredged up and he like loses everything and they're like, sorry, man, we can't actually have you do this. And he says, let me be as the prophet Jonah. I was responsible for the storm, but I would sacrifice myself for the salvation of the ship. I was not happy when I ascended the throne and gladly would I descend it. It's just such a good quote.

Caesar Of The West (51:45.898)
The Gatekeeper (51:46.973)
Hmm. Sounds like how Nissa probably said that to Theodosius too, and he's like, let me go back home. Dude, it's like the equivalent of a president of the United States kidnapping John Piper. Like, you're on my cabinet now.

Caesar Of The West (51:48.92)
That's great.

Dinkleberg (51:53.638)
He's like, let me go home, dude.

Caesar Of The West (52:02.776)
Heh.

Dinkleberg (52:06.878)
Oh man, so he's gonna die in 394 after having, you know, I think he died in Nyssa, but I think he had a little bit of retirement, know, John Piper B. Darned, he had a little retirement going. But yeah, so those are the big three. And I gotta say, I loved researching these guys so much. I really wanna get into some of their original texts and we will do an episode on Big Sis.

The Gatekeeper (52:11.336)
Dang.

The Gatekeeper (52:36.7)
Sweet.

Dinkleberg (52:36.711)
Coming up soon. So yeah, all right

Caesar Of The West (52:38.828)
noise. Good job. That's good.

The Gatekeeper (52:40.07)
So were you guys just teasing me that we'll do some great awakening for a while?

Dinkleberg (52:46.814)
I mean we gotta finish this early church stuff, but we're not teasing.

The Gatekeeper (52:50.66)
I know, but after we're done with early church, you're that we could go take a little time travel to the future.

Caesar Of The West (52:56.846)
I'm down dude.

Dinkleberg (52:56.86)
I mean, I want to do second grade awakening. we got it. We got to organize it. here, here's a question I wanted to pose to our listeners. Listeners, listen up. we have done a handful of series is where, like Taylor's done this apostles series where we do one apostles episode every few weeks. Do you guys like that format or

Caesar Of The West (52:59.885)
Yeah, I've got some-

The Gatekeeper (53:21.224)
Yeah.

Dinkleberg (53:24.828)
Would you prefer if we did a series that was like, bing, bang, boom, four weeks in a row of just this one topic? Like legit, let us know because this will help us decide how we can tackle series in the future.

The Gatekeeper (53:39.24)
I'm glad you're asking that because I was wondering, but I didn't have the courage to ask. Yeah. Yeah, could go either way. You got to tell us though. So.

Dinkleberg (53:45.0)
Worry no longer my friend. Yeah, so. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, that would help us out a lot, because that would give us a picture of how we can do this. But anyways, we love you guys.

Caesar Of The West (53:55.416)
We could do a Great Awakening series where we just go back and forth between the first and second and it's like, here's something great to happen in the first awakening. Here's something terrible to happen in the second Great Awakening. I've got a lot of pent up rage against the second Great Awakening, so.

Dinkleberg (54:07.284)
my gosh, that just sounds...

The Gatekeeper (54:07.336)
Hmm.

Dinkleberg (54:12.85)
The Second Great Awakening, I don't like it as a Christian, but I love it as a fan of history, because it's such a mess. It's like someone poured some toxic sludge over some churches and these mutant denominations formed with four arms and stuff. That's what the Second Great Awakening was. Anyways.

Caesar Of The West (54:21.676)
Yeah

The Gatekeeper (54:35.442)
Hmm.

Caesar Of The West (54:37.27)
I call- I call the Charles Finney episode.

Dinkleberg (54:40.414)
Deal. All right. Well, we love you guys. Thanks for rocking with us. We will see you again real soon.

The Gatekeeper (54:48.211)
Hugs and kisses.

Caesar Of The West (54:48.942)
Bless you.