164 - Dr. Mario Baghos - The Mythical Constantinople

The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2021

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Support this channel: thesymbolicworld.com/support/ patreon: www.patreon.com/pageauvideos subscribestar: www.subscribestar.com/jonathan-pageau paypal: www.paypal.me/JonathanPageau I interview Dr. Mario Baghos, an Australian scholar. Dr Mario Baghos is Lecturer in Theology (Patristics) and Church History at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College (Sydney College of Divinity). Dr. Baghos has a PhD in Studies in Religion from the University of Sydney (2015). He has written a book called “From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium” wherein he explores the symbolism of the foundations of Constantinople and ancient civilizations. This discussion is a continuation of my first interview with Richard Rohlin (A Universal History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N5s4n_lwB8) where we talked about history through the more mythical, symbolic lens. In this interview Mario and I discuss the importance of Constantinople, the “second Rome”, as the first city founded upon a Christian vision of the cosmos, by Saint Constantine the Great after his conversion to Christianity. We discuss the legends around the founding of the city, its forgotten spiritual and cultural influence, its connection with Troy and role in the universal history as well as the preservation of ancient pagan texts and statuary and their place in a Christian hierarchy. Mario’s book, From the Ancient Near East to Christian Byzantium: Kings, Symbols, and Cities: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Near-East-Christian-Byzantium/dp/1527566277/ -Cambridge Scholars Publishing: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6627-9 Original Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vGTGBW8CS4 My links: website: www.thesymbolicworld.com facebook: www.facebook.com/TheSymbolicWorld/ twitter: twitter.com/pageaujonathan The podcast was edited by Justin Ward.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So hello, everybody. I am here with Mario Bagas. Mario is a scholar in Sydney. He teaches at St. Andrew's Greek
0:08.6	Theological College. He sent me a book in which he wrote about the symbolism of the foundation
0:16.3	of Constantinople, but also based on ancient civilizations as well. I found it very interesting his understanding Constantinople and kind of its place in world history and and mythical history, which you, if you watch my last conversation with Richard Rowland, you will seem that we're kind of going in that direction. So I was hoping to talk to Mario a little bit and explore the kind of the
0:39.6	foundation of Constantinople's place in how the ancients viewed the world and kind of its
0:44.6	mythical position, let's say.
1:02.5	Yeah. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So Mario, tell us a little bit about your own background, you know, how you kind of came to the subject.
1:18.1	And tell me, tell us a little bit about the impetus for your book.
1:23.3	Jonathan, I'd like to thank you for having me on.
1:26.1	It's a real blessing and the privilege.
1:29.4	You're much loved here in Sydney, especially in the milieus that I move in.
1:34.2	So when I mentioned to some faculty and students that I would be speaking with you,
1:40.1	the responses were, oh, the symbolism by it.
1:42.7	And also, oh, he spoke to Jordan Peterson. I'm like,
1:45.3	yeah, that's him. So it's a real honor. The impetus for my book, well, it goes back almost a
1:52.6	decade to when I started my PhD. And I was kind of being geared up to teach history at the college that you mentioned, where I'm teaching now in the discipline of statistics.
2:04.9	And so I was interested in symbolism, which you know more than I do about symbolism.
2:12.3	But I was interested in looking at how architectural symbolism imaged a particular civilisation's image of the cosmos,
2:23.3	their view of the cosmos, and, you know, honing in specifically on an Orthodox Christian
2:28.9	vision of the cosmos as well. So how did Constantinople reflect an Orthodox Christian vision of the universe?
2:36.0	And that was a broad topic, too broad for my purposes. So we basically had to look at the
2:44.0	founding of Constantinople, which took place in the fourth century, of course, in 330 AD, founded by Constantine the Great.
2:53.8	The issue was that at the time I wasn't really content with the sort of bricks and mortar approach that we were taking to the topic.
	...

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