The Refutation of Christian Fascism

As though the prophecy seen by John anticipated the fascism of the end times, those redeemed are explicitly said to be from

Every

5:10 “…tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

7:9; nation tribe people and tongue

This formulation repeats 5 more times, never in the same order:

10:11 people, nation, tongues and kings;

11:9 people, tribe, tongue and nation;

13:7 tribe, people, tongue and nation

14: 6 nations tribes tongues and peoples

17:18 peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues

These are 3) those on whom John must yet prophesy, in the second half, from the little scroll; 4) Those who will gaze on the bodies of the two witnesses; 5) those worshipping the beast; 6) those to whom the gospel is preached, and 7) the waters on which the harlot is seated.

Reading the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Revelation 6

Thinking about the four horsemen, which we failed to understand in writing on the Revelation (pp. 123-129), some advance in clarity is possible. I had determined that Hal Lindsey was on the wrong track, but did not know what to do with this section, except that it leads up to the martyrs seen under the sixth seal. But the church history sought by Erdman and others in the 7 letters rather would be more likely to fit literally here, literally after the things concerning martyrdom that do pertain to the 7 churches. The four horsemen are like the 4 horses in the dream of Zechariah (1:6-10), sent out to patrol. There is also a similarity to the four beasts that arose from the sea in the night vision of Daniel 7, seen to refer to empires over Jerusalem Each is introduced by one of the four “living beings,” the Zoa seen around the throne. The fourth is most terrible, and is specified to effect one fourth of the earth, while an extent is not specified for the first three horsemen. This extent, leading to martyrs, is about the same as the extent of twentieth century totalitarianism. The first, on a white horse goes out to conquer, and did so. This is similar to the Roman empire to 365 AD, though then I lose track of the argument. The sword could be Islam or the general wars that superseded the peace of Rome. The second and third, the red and black horses, whose riders have a sword and then a balance, are not clear. Then the fourth is pale, and his rider’s name was “Death and Hades.”

What if these were something like:

Ancient

Medieval

Modern

Totalitarian

Another might be the nations scattering Jerusalem, Rome, Islam, the knights and then the Turks or the British. But we look especially to huge things like the succeeding empires over Jerusalem addressed in Daniel ( the Babylonia, Mede-Persian, Greek and Roman).effecting the church (es), in keeping with the theme, and resulting in the martyrs seen under the throne. The sixth and seventh seals then concern the completion of their number.

That John the Apostle Wrote the Revelation: A Selection and Note 1 From “The Vision and Letter of John to the Church”

Readers currently assume that John the Apostle could not be the author of the last book of the Bible, the Revelation. Here are the reasons that it seems quite clear that John the Apostle is the author:

The text of the Revelation seems to identify which servant John is its author by saying it is the John “who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” This could be read as referring to all that he saw on Patmos. Yet it may mean that this John is an eyewitness of the teachings and passion of Jesus. There seems to be no reason that this could not refer to the things told in the Gospel of John, and to all that he saw while he went about with Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection. As the one Apostle present at the Crucifixion, he is the fullest witness. The same statement, “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus,” occurs at 1:9, referring to the reason John was sent to Patmos to begin with—that is, prior to the vision. And again the phrase occurs referring to the reason that the martyrs are beheaded (20:4), as was his brother James. The Apostles are the eye witnesses of the Gospel. John is the last of the Apostles, the only one alive in the last decade of the first century, and the only John sent to Patmos. So the end of the Gospel of John (“this is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things…”) seems to lead into the beginning of the Revelation (“…John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw”).

One reason that the Gospel of John and the Revelation seem to have been written by the same author is that while the other three gospels have an apocalyptic section, recalling the teaching of Jesus on the coming of the Kingdom, the Gospel of John does not, so that the two fit together quite nicely. For unlike Matthew in Chapter 24, Mark in Chapter 13, and Luke in Chapter 21, the Gospel of John does not contain a late section of the words of Jesus regarding the end times. It is just as if the author left these things to be discussed elsewhere, or was content with that discussion. His apocalypse will be that of the risen Christ.

The Apocalypse section in the Gospel of John is very brief, occurs early, and describes the resurrection of the dead (5:28-29), as in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. It begins:

“The one who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life…Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God, and those who hear will live…Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

Together with the passage in Luke, “the kingdom is not coming with signs to be observed,” the kingdom is present. And so these passages are the basis of the reading that these things are entirely spiritual, and not coming at all, in the sense in which we read it “with signs to be observed.” “…But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). The things of the Revelation, like the incarnation, describe how being is, always, and what is always true: The Kingdom of heaven is accessible now, and in the most fundamental sense, is present, though we do not come into it. The hour is now when the dead will hear his voice and rise. This is the sense in which the coming of the Kingdom begins with the incarnation, like a mustard seed. It may be, because being is this way, that human history and the world in time unfold in this way; and this would be the most fundamental source of prophecy: It is because things are the way they are that their unfolding in time can be foreseen. The resurrection is both present and future, though in John it is emphatically also future: “And I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40; 44; 12:48). The future kingdom is assumed but not addressed in the Gospel of John. Though the statement is an attempt to write what Jesus said and not what John said, still, it is very interesting to wonder whether the Apocalypse could have been seen and written yet when John wrote his gospel. The above passage reminds of those in Chapter 20 of the Revelation, those over whom the second death has no power (20:6). The Revelation, then, seems to fit together with the Gospel of John as the missing Apocalypse obviously authored by the Apostle.

Note 1

Contemporary readers think it to be conclusive that the Revelation could not have been written by John the Apostle (David Aune, 1997, pp. xlviii-lx). And so this question has seemed to us a good place to begin. The tradition seems otherwise to always have assumed that John the Apostle is the author, beginning, in preserved writings, in about 155-160 A.D., with Justin (Dialogue with Trypho, 81; p. 40 below). It is not clear whether Justin cites the book or an oral report of the teaching of John, or how widely circulated the book was. It may have been a secret work in the first half of the second century, or the preserve of the churches in Asia. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, writing in the fourth century, seems to be the first of preserved writers to doubt that the apostle John wrote the Revelation. Dionysius suggests that the apocalypse was seen by a different John (Roberts, A., and Donaldson, J. The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. VII, pp. 82-84). One reason for his doubt is that in the gospel and first letter, John the Apostle does not refer to himself by name. And so it is thought, since the John of the Revelation does call himself John, that this is likely to be another John. Yet surely John might identify himself in one writing and not do so in another, and this is less an argument than a hunch. Dionysius also comments that in the Revelation, none of John’s characteristic “phrasing or diction” appears to be present. The writings “share hardly a syllable in common,” and unlike the gospel and letters, the Revelation employs “barbarous idioms” and a dialect and language that are “not of the exact Greek type.” We will consider in place below certain symbols, such as the door, the way of speaking about being, and about the divinity of Jesus, that seem nearer to John than anyone else known in history. A characteristic phrase is “to prepare a place,” in the Gospel of John 14:2-3 and Revelation 12:6; Aune, 1997, p. 691). Modern linguistics notes that the rate of the use of words unique to the text is similar to the Gospel of John, and the use of the preposition ek is similarly higher in the Gospel of John and the Revelation than in any other Greek Biblical text (Aune, ccvii; cixxix). The identification of Jesus with the Word, though, is the most obvious similarity (Revelation 19:13; John 1:1), and it may even be safe to say that no one else in the history of humanity is able to speak and write in this way. The “Lamb of God” is another characteristic name from John the Baptist, as reported in the Gospel of John (1:29). Aquinas notices the light in the gospel (John 1:9), letter (1 John 1:5) and Revelation (22:5, Summa Contra Gentiles, III. 53). There is, though, quite a difference between the Gospel of John and the prophetic vision of the Revelation. One wonders how much of the difference might be due to the dictated and descriptive character of the Revelation, or to John having been told what to write. He is simply shown what he saw, and told to write this. We need not presuppose that it is impossible for these things to have occurred just as they are written. So in the dictated letters to the churches, there are different concerns, for example regarding heresy and idolatry, than in the three letters of John.  If one compares, for example, the writing preserved of Polycarp and Papias, or even Justin or Irenaeus, it is difficult to believe that anyone capable of the height of thought in receiving the Revelation was alive in the first or Second Century other than the author of the Gospel of John. Jung believes John to be the author of the gospel, the Revelation and the letters as well, writing that “psychological findings speak in favor of such an assumption” “Answer to Job,” in The Portable Jung, p. 625, 636 note 177.

Wilbur Smith (Holy Bible, 1881, p. 28) gives a fine summary of the reasons it is obvious that John wrote the Revelation:

…The evidence in favor of St. John’s authorship consists of the assertions of the author and historical tradition… The author’s description of himself in the first and [last] chapters is certainly equivalent to an assertion that he is himself the apostle. He names himself simply John…He is also described as a servant of Christ, one that had borne testimony as an eyewitness of the word of God and of the testimony of Christ–terms which were surely designed to identify him with the writer of the verses John 19:35; 1:14, and 1 John 1:2. He is in Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. It may be easy to suppose that other Christians of the same name were banished thither, but the Apostle is the only John who is directly named in early history as an exile at Patmos. He is also a fellow sufferer with those whom he addresses, and the authorized channel of the most direct and important communication that was ever made to the seven churches of Asia, of which churches John the Apostle was at that time the spiritual governor and teacher. Lastly, the writer was a fellow servant of angels and a brother of prophets, titles which are far more suitable to one of the chief Apostles, and far more likely to have been assigned to him than to any other man of less distinction. All these remarks are found united together in the Apostle John, and in him alone of all historical persons.

The theory that John was not the author may require that the text is lying or misrepresenting itself. While this is possible, and not unheard of, there is no reason to think that is what is occurring here. Similarly, in the face of the admonition not to alter the text (22:19), it seems unlikely that followers of John did much editing, let alone writing on it, though it would not be surprising if John himself did some work on it.

The decisive consideration, though, is in the text and not the notes: John does not include an apocalyptic section in his Gospel, as the other 3 do. The reason is that it occupies a separate work. The Apostle John is the very eye witness, from beginning to end, referred to in the text of the Revelation.

The First Meeting of Jerusalem and Ancient Greece: Josephus on Alexander, 333 B. C.

   Alexander, the pupil of Aristotle for a while, met with the High Priest at Jerusalem on his way to conquer Asia, as reported by Josephus. From Book xi. 4-5, Jaddua the high priest was in terror when he heard that Alexander was coming. Alexander had sent a letter to Jerusalem during his siege of Tyre, asking for provisions, auxiliaries, and suggesting that Jerusalem send tribute now instead to him rather than Darius. The high priest had answered Alexander that…”he had given his oath to Darius not to bear arms against him; and that he would not transgress this while Darius was in the land of the living.” After the siege of Tyre, when Alexander was approaching, he and the people then appealed to God for protection,…

…whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. Upon which, when he rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced; and declared to all the warning he had received from God. According to which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of the king. And when he understood that he was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests, and the multitude of citizens…

Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine purple and scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the High priest. The Jews also did altogether, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the High priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, I did not adore him, but that God who hath honoured him with his high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians. whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind. And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the High Priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city; and when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest’s direction, and magnificently treated both the High priest and the priests. And when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended; and as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day he called them to him, and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and pay no tribute on the seventh year. He granted all that they desired; and when they entreated him that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Medea to enjoy their own laws also, he willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired; and when he said to the multitude, that if any of them would enlist themselves in his army on this condition, that they should continue under the laws of their forefathers he was willing to take them with him, many more were ready to accompany him in his wars.

One interesting point in this story is the double true or verdical dream.  That Alexander had seen the name on the breastplate, and the high priest was instructed to show the name is rather astonishing. There is nothing like this in all the history of dreams. Another is of course the interpretation of Daniel. The five are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, the legs being the East and West empires, then the feet and toes…5 from each, iron and clay, and from this will emerge 10 kings, in ch. 12, etc.

   A personal note: My first history lesson came from Mad Magazine, when at the age of 12 I read from Al Jaffe: “Alexander the Great/ Was not really so great.” I wondered about this through all my studies. One wonders why Alexander was not better advised- though he had dismissed Aristotle.

1) The goal is not world conquest. Don’t keep going east, but establish and consolidate- and enjoy! Rule for the good of the ruled and the realm: Why not?

2) Deal with the question of succession immediately, and work on institutions that secure Greek liberty. What if Alex had Thomas Jefferson and James Madison?

3) Don’t be all full of yourself. You MIGHT be lucky, but learn what a mortal god is- and go find Diogenes in his bucket!

Genesis on Man [commentary, draft blog]

The updated version of this essay is available in the menu at the top of the page,under “Revelation.”

   Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is easily among the ten or so greatest books possessed by mankind. As with the book of Revelation, and scripture generally, more so than other books, the reading of the text unfolds anew each time we take up the work, so that comment is inexhaustible, yet always insufficient. Even while we are dependent upon the stewards of the text for access to the original language, Genesis in English may be the most influential of all books, so that some understanding is required for the study of man and history, having now set the principles of Western Civilization. Having then recently attended a course of taped classes, and needing to come up with a term paper, I will write an essay as best able. For, As Steven Rowe professor at Grand Valley, would say, “no impression without expression.” We learn better by trying to write, regardless of deficiency.

   Abraham, with Melchizedek, swears by “God Most High, the maker of heaven and earth (14:19; 22; 12:1).” Genesis is unique, or nearly so, in presenting the transcendent God, above and beyond anything in heaven or on earth. The same is God, directing Christians, Israel and Islam. Genesis tells the history of Israel from the beginning, through Noah, to the distinction from the rest of mankind of Israel as the twelve tribes of the sons of Jacob. It is entirely possible that Moses, writing Genesis, retained an oral teaching of the Creation from Abraham, who may have had this from a source common with the Gilgamesh tradition of Babylon, Ur and Erech, even passed on from those who spoke to Noah, only 292 years prior to the birth of Abraham. Written Hebrew seems to come after the captivity in Egypt, related to Arabic and Egyptian alphabet and script, but the story of the flood does not come from Egypt (Plato, Timeaus 22c). Spoken Hebrew is from Eber, the son of Shem, prior to the division of languages after the flood, and so it may be original language, at least from Noah.

I. Chapter One

  Leo Strauss writes: The first account (of creation) ends with man; the second account begins with man.”[Note 1]. So in considering Genesis on man, we may approach the account of the creation. The second account, in Chapters 2-3, is a drawing out of 1:26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” That is, the story of Eden is an explanation of what it means that man is made in the image and likeness of God, drawing out the account of the male and female, leading up to the account of how man became “like one of us, knowing good and evil.”

   The first chapter leads up to the distinction of man among the beings. Its summary is the work of reading and commentary. Strauss writes:

“The clue to the first chapter seems to be the fact that the account of the creation consists of two main parts…” “The first part begins with light, the second with the sun,…” “Only on the third and sixth days were there two acts of creation.” (p.11)… The creatures of the fourth to sixth days are “able to separate themselves from their places…” “The principle of the second half, the fourth to sixth day, is local motion. It is for this reason and for this important reason that the vegetative world precedes the sun; the vegetative world lacks local motion.”

                                                           On the Interpretation of Genesis, p. 11

   Except that the green world precedes the sun, the order of the creation is astonishingly like the account we have from modern science. The author knows that the birds and fish are as if creatures of a different day, and the same day as the creeping things, just as we distinguish the age of the dinosaurs from that of the mammals. As has been noted, the first three chapters set something like the places to be inhabited by the beings created on the fourth through sixth days, vegetation too making something like a garden [Note 2]. The Fourth day makes the Sun, moon and stars, which move, and then on the fifth day, it is beings which change their courses. Then on the sixth day, in the second speaking, man. Strauss draws out this teaching:

Local motion is separation of a higher order, …to be set off against a background” of what is not moving…Local motion is followed by life. Life too must be understood as a form of separation…animals can change not only their places, but also their courses. From this it follows that the being created last, namely man, is characterized by the fact that he is a creature which is separated in the highest degree; man is the only being created in the image of God…finally, a being which can separate itself from its way, the right way (p.11-12). Man “can move or change his place to the highest degree. But this privilege, this liberty, freedom, is also a great danger. Man is the most ambiguous creature; hence man is not called good, just as heaven is not called good…(p. 17).

   As Jung too notes, there is a medieval commentary which notices that unlike the other days of creation, on the second day, the text does not say that God “saw that it was good (Maimonides, Guide, II. 50, p. 353″ Similarly, on the sixth day, after the creation of the animals and man, it does not say that God saw that it was good, but says that he saw the whole was “very good.” Heaven, it is said, or “sky,” is incomplete, as is man, the one to be completed by the ascent or redemption of man.

II. The First Sentence

   Maimonides explains that the correct translation of the first sentence is: “In the origin, God created what is high and what is low” (Guide, p. 352). “En Archae” is the Greek written by John for In the beginning when he repeats the opening of the Bible (John 1:1). An archae is a ruling principle or first principle. The word “Baro” is used uniquely of Gods’s creating. Barashis Elohim Baro’…Is the Hebrew, “In  the Beginning, God created…” It is said that heaven is demoted as the focus of interest, but it is quite possible, we think, that the account of heaven is simply set aside, turning to the earth, which was “without form and void.” Augustine, too, notes that the coming into being of the angels, assumed by the text to exist, is not described, unless it is included in the light created on the first day (City of God, XI.9). The first sentence may be a chapter summary rather than an act of creation without a word. It is indicated that this book, like other ancient books, was titled later, not by the author, so that the first sentences functioned as a title. The text does not decide the question later introduced (Sacks, The Lion and the Ass, p. ), of creation “out of nothing.” What exists when God speaks first is the formless earth and the wind of God moving on the face of the deep.” We imagine sea, but what the earth as formless is becomes clear as the waters are separated and the dry land appears. Water is not created, but separated out. There is also motion or “energy,” even before light. “Saw,” or seeing, and “good,” too, are not brought to be with the light, but must be assumed to just ” be.” Sacks note too that evening and morning are not brought to be, but simply result from the creation of “day,” or, what we call “light” and its separation from “darkness” or “night.” The heaven and earth of the first sentence, the earth that is formless, cannot be the same as the  sky and earth of the second day, as dry land has not yet been separated out. Earth in the first sentence might mean the whole visible world that we distinguish from the intelligible, not the planet, which appeared not even as round to the view of the writer, nor even the ground beneath the sky. Is it possible that he did not see that days depend upon sun, or are caused by the sun rising? Did he think there are waters above because rain falls, as when the windows of the deep are opened? Could the author have seen the sun as rather inhabiting than causing the day? But, it seems, there must also be space and time, which may as well be permanent or eternal, as Aristotle teaches, so far as Genesis is concerned. It surely does not say that time itself was created, introducing the contradiction of a time before time. The six days of the creation might from another view be seen as ongoing, as light too is even now still being created, ontological precedence being set in in a temporal articulation. There is also “face” and “the deep.” “Word,” too, is in or before the beginning, and the trinity is hence said to be present in the first three sentences of scripture. It does not say otherwise what the creation is “out of,” but that it is “by his word (Psalm; Note 3]” When Jesus turns water into wine, he need not begin with nothing. When he heals the blind man, he uses clay. From the image of God in man, one suggestion would be “out of himself,” even as Eve springs from the rib of man.

III.

Evening

Note 1 “On the Interpretation of Genesis,” p. 17.

Note 2 The New American Bible, Reading Guide.

Note 3 There is no scriptural teaching of creation “out of nothing.” The closest is Maccabees 7:28 …God did not make them out of things that existed.” Hebrews 11: 1-3 “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

Bibliography

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford University Press, 1973, 1977.

The New American Bible. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.

Anastaplo, George. Class at the Clearing in Wisconsin, 1990.

Augustine. The City of God.

Maimonides, Moses. Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago APress, 1963.

Keller, Werner. The Bible As History. NY: William Morrow and Company, 1956.

Sacks, Robert. The Lion and the Ass. Interpretation.

Strauss, Leo. On the Interpretation of Genesis.

________. Athens and Jerusalem: Some Preliminary Reflections. In Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy. Edited by Thomas Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

_____________. Progress or return? The Contemporary Crisis.

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the “Last Man.”

   Nietzsche is of course a very bad man, a diabolical thinker, in fact. People do not realize how bad Nietzsche and Machiavelli are, until they are subjected to a tyranny and it is much too late, for the political expression of the diabolical is tyranny. Jung, though, knew quite well about Nietzsche. But then, once these things occur, everything we care about, everything worth living for, will be gone, as it was for Germany in 1938- though they did not realize it until 1946. And it will be the same for us, apparently, as we are letting what is now occurring occur, and no one seems to be able even to see it, let alone to do a thing about it. We watch those who see be attacked one by one, and no one will stand. We are the “last men.”

   One respect in which Nietzsche’s Zarathusta is prophetic is in his foreseeing the coming of the “last man.” These remind me of our U.S. citizens on Oxy, where one can say to them the most earth shattering things, as Pope Francis just said, and they stare back in stupefied dull amazement, indeed like cows to whom Lincoln practiced his speeches. It is Sunday, indeed, what time is the game on? The world is in danger of nuclear war today, and Putin is trying to destroy America and with it all hope for political liberty, and they blink. They do not know what political liberty is, or why it matters if Putin destroys it and America, nor do they know what tyranny is, or consider the difference between tyranny and liberty, but how is that stock market doing, and jobs jobs jobs, it is the economy, stupid.” No, it is in fact LIBERTY, stupid!! And for nuclear war, well, it will likely only fall on those other people, right? What time is the game on?

   In the fifth section of the Prologue to Zarathustra, Nietzsche prophesies the “last man:”

What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star? Thus asks the last man, and he blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea beetle; the last man lives the longest.’We have invented happiness,’ say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth. ..Who still wants to rule, who obey? Both require too much exertion.

No shepherd and one herd! Everyone wants the same, everybody is the same: Whoever feels different goes voluntarily to the madhouse.

Formerly, all the world was mad,’ say the most refined, and they blink…One still quarrels, but one is soon reconciled- else it might spoil the digestion. One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night; but one has regard for health.

   Bodily health has of course replaced all ethics for us, as the one objective good we can all agree upon. “Just don’t smoke,” they say, as they blink.

We have invented happiness, say the last men, and they blink.

‘Give us this last man, O Zarathust,’ they shouted. ‘Turn us into these last men! Then we shall make you a gift of the overman!’ And all the people jubulated and clucked with their tongues.

   Here are two lines to compare, from early and then late in Prologue 5:

They have something of which they are proud. What do they call that which makes them proud? Education, they call it; it distinguishes them from goatherds…

and then

I listened too much to brooks and trees: Now I talk to them as to goatherds…

   We, the Jesus philosophers, can appreciate the beauty of the diabolical, though it be at peril of our souls.

   The “overman” or “ubermench” is of course the superhuman tyrant who will seek to impress his form onto the matter that is mankind, since, you know, there is, according to Nietzsche, no natural form of man that we seek to fulfill in order to find true happiness (as for Plato and Aristotle), but rather a form that we create and impose tyrannically, expressing our “will to power,” since this- self-contradictorally- is the truth about how man is. All modern philosophy is self contradictory. And why should this form be cruel and tyrannical? It just is so? No, but there is a nature of these things, and there is good and evil, and evil is the perversion of the good.

   One saying of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas is most helpful in the Christian reading of Nietzsche, because the diabolical has the forms of the spiritual though these are inverted, so that the spiritual reader sees the forms, and, not understanding the diabolical turning, strephein or tropos, as we call it- the fallen angel is also an angel- they think Nietzsche is some fine fellow. Many clergymen cannot see this. But the saying from Thomas is:

#7 Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.

   In both, the lion becomes man. Both refer to a spiritual transformation, the first the natural form and the second the diabolic opposite. It is because of the possibility of our becoming saints, like John, the equal of angels, that the diabolical can occur, the equal of fallen angels, and since 1917, according to the vision of Fatima, Hell gapes and souls fall in, as in Twentieth Century Totalitarianism. It is possible for humans to not allow these terrible things to occur, but the last men are too busy clucking, and making for Zarathustra a gift of the overman, as though there were nothing better to do.

Russian Methods in Current American Politics

   Russian methods for the control of opinion are being used now in the United States, especially through the internet. The familiar old methods include intimidation and slander, and things we saw once way over there, in Soviet Russia, such as branding political opponents as insane when they were so mad as not to see and believe the Marxist-Lenninist line. Our executive will not inquire into any of this, and should these methods fall short, more genuine crimes may be used, as they are still routinely in Russia. If everything one says is only used against him, a limmed bird will soon be quite stuck. (Birds were once caught with sticky stuff so that the more they struggled, the more they were stuck). Take only one side of any story or action, and the guilt of the one targeted will quickly be established. “If you hit me, I will hit you back,” one might say in self defense, and then the other tells the corrupt executive, “He said he was going to hit me,” conveniently leaving out the context and the conditional sentence. At present, Mr. Putin’s leading political opponent cannot run against him because he was charged with a crime, and none convicted of a crime can run for president.

   One single study is sufficient to demonstrate what has been occurring. The amount of money spent to employ persons to set to work defaming Hillary Clinton, or expanding her negative image, is staggering. I heard the amount reported on the radio news, but have forgotten the exact figure, which was of course in the millions. Pizzagate was one example, where Hillary was supposedly running a child sex ring through a pizza shop. If I remember correctly, a relative of Mr. Flynn was responsible for this. The Americans are unable or unwilling to distinguish between slander and genuine political criticism of an opponent, just as we are unable in law to distinguish between free speech and bribery in campaign contributions. For a disclaimer, I am a centrist, not a supporter of Hillary except by the endorsement of Barack Obama, though she seems eminently capable of being president. We leaned more toward Bernie for the Democrats, and consider what was done to him to be like the tragic flaw of a noble character, one small thing that allowed this tragedy to occur.

   We, the Americans, need obviously to insist on the liberty of communications and political speech especially through the internet, or it may soon be too late. I am developing quite a list personally of things our government will not inquire into, and I believe that my personal internet experience may demonstrate Trumpster-Russian complicity. I would call the FBI, but they are no longer to be trusted as the instrument of free government, at least not so long as one petitions them alone.

   As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Birmingham address, when asked if he was not in too much a hurry to see justice reign in the United States, Society must defend the innocent and prosecute those violating rights. Once government itself is in the hands of tyranny, the control of opinion is relatively easy, as is shown in the slavish nation of Russia, past and present. The dangers of this circumstance in the age of the internet are obvious, or should be, if you, my reader, have the courage to be free. This is not to mention the dawning internet of things, so welcomed by the average suburban American. A woman won a lawsuit because her vibrator was literally spying on her, and then another because the company sold but denied selling the information. We hear these things on the news and blink like Nietzschean “last” men, but we do not insist upon putting a stop to this, and that is all we would have to do. “We are on the brink of nuclear war,” one might tell them, and they blink, staring back as though in an oxy-induced stupor that prevents anything at all of any significance from registering. Then they might ask “Where are my socks,” and “How much money do I have now on my card.” I have heard that Lincoln used to practice his speeches before herds of cows. Apparently, the Americans will as yet not say “no” to the financial interests, and when they do, the strong arm tactics of intimidation are employed, while their fellows watch them be attacked, and from fear leave them alone. “Better not get involved,” said all except the good Samaritan. It is for the few, the college students, to understand and repeat the Bonhoffer saying about how he watched as the Nazis attacked each other kind of person, and he did not stand up because he was not one of that kind, then when they came for him, there was no one left to help him.

   Is there any investigation at present, for example, into foreign control of Twitter? Why, when I receive death threats over the internet, and these then of course disappear as easily as they were made to appear, will no executive agency even inquire into the matter? It is quite possible that Twitter, based as is Gorbachev, in San Francisco rather than Moscow, is nonetheless Russian. Access or the visibility of certain writers is controlled, much as on WordPress, in a targeted if not a general manner, and this is highly illegal in the united States, and quite unconstitutional. But to return to the death threats: The evidence preserved by the destruction of privacy in America cannot be used to demonstrate genuine crimes? I received, for example, a long tweet string returning many things I had said that angered the Russians, on about February 4th of this year, and this included medical information obtained not from the internet, but most likely from my own drugstore, which sells our information because the Americans are too unimaginative to see the reasons for privacy and too slavish to care. Our political enemies will use our private information against us in now countless ways, and so the end of privacy means literally the end of political liberty. If we do not fix this issue regarding privacy and the internet, marketing, foreign hacking and our own government, we will literally never have another free election. Am I still, though, the only one writing that the spy-marketing system was the key to the Russian control of the 2016 U.S., Philippine and perhaps British and French elections? Shhh! Don’t say Kaspersky! He of course may himself be a swell guy, helping us with ISIS and all, but may himself be hacked, as his company sits there in a bit of a rough neighborhood. At the same time, I received a phone message to “Stop doing what you are now doing” (to paraphrase), then offering me 10, 000$, as though it were some telemarketing scam. The offer was up from a mere 900 which I had received previously, they apparently easily knowing that I am extremely poor, especially at this time of the year. Whether it was intended or not, the internet intimidation, together with the death threats, interfered with my attempts to work on Supreme Court case #16-907, and I may well have written an Amicus brief had I not been occupied with other things as a result of the intimidation. Eventually, this very work, or my saying that I was doing it, was used along with perjury and slander as part of an accusation which earned me a nice 20 day stay in a modern vacation resort, complete with the offer of free toxic and addictive drugs to help me stop thinking. I was indeed drugged, though, at the University of Michigan, given Atavan and a nice piss and blood test, which made me quite ill into the next day- this for asking repeatedly for a lawyer and saying repeatedly that I had done nothing wrong, said or done nothing I did not have a perfect right to say or do, said nothing false, was seized for mere speech. Any lawyers want to make a buck on commission? I cannot dink even small amounts of alcohol without getting quite sick, there being some unknown something wrong probably with the liver, so that their toxic and addictive drugs might be toxic literally and quickly- they do not care. But do the Americans care if the Trumpsters interfere with the courts? I did not know and had not been shown the accusation against me, which is itself illegal- the officer lied and tried to get me to agree in the back of the car that I had seen this. The accusation was known false but sworn to be true “under penalty of perjury.” The fact that it is an intentional lie can easily be demonstrated from phone text message conversations, unless these are scrubbed, though I have them recorded anyway. It was barely reported on the radio when threats were received by a federal judge, and then the reports suddenly disappeared. Apparently, we are now going to allow the executive, through minions and cronies, to interfere even with the courts. As I say too often now, I have presented plenty of reason to inquire into these and other things, and hypotheses need not be held to be certainties in order to inquire. But if a man steps out of a forest talking excitedly to his fellows and pointing, it does indeed matter whether there really was a leopard in that forest. Let us then not look, and teat him with our certainty that there are no such things as leopards in that forest. A Limmed bird.

   To look on the bright side, if there is one, the attraction of death threats and bizarre, irrational interference demonstrates that one is indeed on the right track. And there is the old Jitsu adage, “when you grab me, I have hold of you.” Half the nation still does not believe the “Conspiracy theory” of Russian complicity in the 2016 elections, as though conspiracies of any kind were to be dismissed with the presumption of certainty, leaving us prey to any and every conspiracy. And what are the intelligence committees of both houses of congress now considering? But everyone knows that, while they hacked the DNC, it is completely impossible that they used the spy-marketing system our FBI still wants to use with their assistance, or that they have the capacity to do targeted interference. In my second death threat, I was commenting on a letter being written to President Obama, by Dr ____, and Russian whores came on the screen, up under the page I was working on, and then a scary face with maybe four words including “Assassin” and/or “assassinate.” (The Russians have always liked to use women, and if possible love, to really get into the soul of person, say, a politics student who told them something they think he could not have possibly known and which was true). And once one gets the message they are not going to leave the evidence lying around. The police took a report, but declined to look on the computer even to see where this came in or if it was still there. Selective prosecution, and I am indeed a limmed bird, just like my father when the detective slandered him (See previous blog). But we are to feel that we can trust these police, even if influenced by local mob connections, because you know, one just has to trust the police, even after reading Serpico and Five Families. Will they protect one who spoke to expose the auto seizure or the Oxy-heroin scams? To this day, no one investigating has asked me a single question to demonstrate these threats. When I tried to show and explain one to a librarian, after asking to speak with a trusted FBI agent August 2nd, someone told her to stop talking to me, and when my father called to ask her about it, she said- with assurance of one just told by an authority- that I was “schizophrenic,” which my gullible father now believes, since I told him I had shown the librarian what I took to be a directed threat, and he called her up and asked her. It is of course illegal to diagnose a person without examining them (as we have learned from the assertion that Trump is a “narcissist”- they do not have a category in the DSM for tyrant, nor for patsy.) But someone, the very ones I have written and spoke to Senator Stabenow and to the Senate Intelligence Committee about- does have an interest in my being considered insane, so that no one will listen to me nor inquire into the things I saw occur throughout the course of my education and following.

   But to demonstrate my sanity, if any readers would like “help” me, they might invest between 900 and 3000$ dollars to publish my book on the Revelation, I will offer to double your money. You can send the $$ straight to the publisher, who might then send you the fee and then 50% till your money is doubled, or something. The amount depends upon how much editing etc. the work will be given by West Bow press, my publisher of choice, as it is connected with Zondervan, and despite not being able to understand a philosophical rather than theological approach to this enigmatic text, their work is quite good, and they work in relative liberty. My first book did not lose money, and is in many libraries including the University of Michigan, though the brilliant publisher offers the e-book for 60$, trying literally to sell zero (rather than for example 10$ for the same investment, and actually selling some). Most of the book, on Shakespeare’s King Lear, is available, pirated, on the internet anyway. The first chapter of the book on the Revelation is available for free through the Philosophy section of the menu at the top of this website. I had the rest published through an e-Junkie account hooked to my WordPress website, but, as explained on my about page here, my access is controlled, apparently awaiting an extortion fee, and congress has been paid to do nothing about it. The whole book is copyrighted and in the library of Congress, though there are still some errors, especially with capitalization (Beast and beast for example). The internet has of course destroyed the possibility of making a living for any writer who does not whore their services, as if thinkers and writers did not have a hard enough time in the old world. This book contains seven years of my labor, and I am faulted too for being extremely impoverished, beyond belief in fact. I have made the same offer to relatives, to invest and double their money for helping to publish the book, even to one who is a millionaire and owns a small investment company, and whose wife paid me quite well for yard work, but they chose rather to “help” me instead by having me committed for 20 days by means of slander and perjury. The slander was apparently related to my saying that we will send our sons and grandsons out in brownshirts and receive them home in boxes if we followed the plan that Putin had in mind for us, to start a war against all Islam while he rolled over Europe. I offered to let this Trumpster relative invest instead in a coffin company, since this too would be a bull market soon- assuming that we have the means for proper burials. One must, after all, hold the proper priorities. Sarcasm does not come across well in text messaging. He forwarded my text messages out of context to my siblings, encouraging them to have to have me put away, and I would like to ask him, just to check, if he was not in contact with other Trumpsters, such as Charles Radovich and Jade Mitchell, who indeed threatened me on Twitter January 28th, and technically with a death threat (His knowledge if his guilt is evidenced by his removing this tweet only after I accused him openly on Twitter), though I have said I would forgive them if they apologize. This threat, though, is documented- and so it is the one I am least worried about, though I asked this same uncle to inquire into and witness it. He returned saying my stuff was a “bunch of crap,” missed seeing the death threat of his cohorts, but instead focused on other things to demonstrate my insanity. I was “saying things I cannot prove,” since everyone knows that when for example the mob sends a death threat they also send a copy to the police, the press and ones slick uncle, so that these things can be demonstrated (sarcasm). It may well be that no one can prove a single mob death threat, yet no one doubts that these occur, and indeed, with a little thought, one might realize the extent to which such things are directing our world. But his question was rather about a person who wrote to me on my contact page, and if he has bothered this man, he may indeed be sued. This relative is a Trumpster first, and an uncle and American second, though I overestimated both his intelligence and his virtue. If my sister told me she had three horses in her barn and I thought she was delusional, I would not go to the wrong barn, without my sister walking me through it, and conclude that she had no horses but was delusional, then forward the information to relatives to do her harm by having her seized for treatment by our barbaric psychiatric science, you know, the “professionals” who take kickbacks from drug companies, who everyone, having never considered the human soul or the condition of the modern study, trusts. I have a B.S. in Psych, and with my PhD in politics, some standing to suggest that this is so, that our trust in these “professionals” is quite misplaced. They do not know that psychiatrists do not care about words at all, but rather, drugs and the opportunity to drug people, while our psychology is severely limited by having ignored the reading of the great minds on the soul of man, in favor of lesser studies, at best Maslow, Erikson and Jung, but at worst, things like B.F. Skinner and statistics, which have taken over academic psychology. I have read more Jung than anyone I know. But I also have not ignored Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle Jesus and Lao Tzu, making for a more solid study of psychology than anyone I know, to this day. My own writings on psychology- and the first chapter of a book- are available for free though the menu at the top of this screen, though not a single one has read them. But without my having done a single thing wrong nor even said a single thing that is false, our courts allowed my Trumpster relatives to have me “treated” by our modern “psychiatry,” for 20 days before a few “psychologists” actually talked to me, rather than following the brilliant diagnosis of my drunken sister, who just knows I need “help,” and my ace brother, a craftsman who knows I am mad because I think the tech instruments are spying on us. (Even the FBI director reportedly puts tape over the camera eye at the center top of his computer screen. One cannot buy tech instruments that do not spy full bore camera and microphone, recording- Surprise!). What was once madness is now common sense, and it is apparently a flaw to admit that one realizes this. (And again, the old world schizophrenic delusion that one is being watched or followed demonstrates what is wrong with our tech being allowed to do this, and with our utterly unforesighted and slavish acquiescence). Indeed, everyone involved may be on either Oxy or antidepressants, excepting myself and perhaps one other- which may be why it is so hard to explain the simplest things to these people. But the perjurous accusation has different details, which I may go through in court and in a future blog. I am surprised they did not fault me for my spelling errors! But a Judge then determined that 20 days prior there was no reason to seize me, and so we will just call it even, for the lawyerless poor. Perjury- which is true, demonstrable and necessary to prosecute in this circumstance- has been reported to the county police and to the court, but they will likely do nothing: That mysterious Teflon again. God forbid anyone say anything they “cannot prove,” like Mark is just “a step away from doing something really scary,” yeah, like writing a horror film or starting up a coffin making company. And if I believe I am under a death threat which includes a threat of torture, and tell a thieving relative this is not the time to be sneaking around this property at night, this is not the foresight Hamlet should have had, but rather a threat, requiring “help.” This and the second of three death threats were reported to police, who literally will not even look onto the matter on the internet, but just know there is no such thing as internet death threats. As I told my sister, if you said you had three horses down in your barn, and I thought you were deluded, before I tried to have you evicted or committed, why, I’d just take a walk with you down to the barn and have a look! And if I did not have time or was unable, I would just believe you and leave you alone. Trumpsters, though, know ahead of time that Trumpsters and Russians are not making death threats on the internet (At least the Trump supporters who are fools, as distinct from those prostituting their wares or enslaving their labors to those who do not know that murder is wrong, let alone know why murder is wrong (Genesis 9:6; 1:26). [Yeah, why do we say murder is wrong? Ever thought about it? No one can give a sufficient answer, because it depends upon the distinction between men and animals, which modern philosophy rejects. But it is the root of the law among men, regarding both the things of anger and the things of love, the same root. Note too that I am one of very few who know this, the root of the law, or care to inquire into the matters everyone else assumes or does not assume, from having either a good heart or a bad one]). Perjury, however, was once a serious crime, and the use of the “danger to oneself and others” criteria for ulterior motives too was once taken seriously, back when America had a Bill of Rights that actually was in effect. If one had not violated the rights of another, government was required to leave them alone. The purpose of government was once “…to secure these rights,” rights taking precedence over duties because human government is too ignorant to determine for everyone what happiness is. Now one is required to have ones priorities judged and to justify ones sanity before every Trumpster and moron. Socrates, famously, described his trial as that of a medical doctor by a pastry chef before a jury of children (Plato, Gorgias). It may be worse, though, if the accusers were educated, such as the people at Trump University, those pursuing degrees in education toward the end of money-making, or the constitutional scholars at Hillsdale College, who are going to visit the Russians this very summer, since they are “nationalists,” not “globalists” or the flatterers of tyrants like Putin, and lovers of “America First” (Sarcasm). Meanwhile, Supreme Court case # 16-907 was denied, without any reason being given.

“Syria” Threatens Repercussions on Israel

    Why would Russia not read the Revelation, and just not try to attack Israel? The answer there is that if they could read, there would not be the problem to begin. They cannot read because they do not believe that St. John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, simple as that. One might check the teaching of Van Impe on this point regarding the start of the conflict.

 So, yeah, I translated the Revelation from Greek, making my own interlinear copy, and then wrote a whole commentary. Zondervan will not publish it, and none of my rich relatives believe that it will even bring in 1 k to cover the bare minimum printing, and I have no credit due to school loans. That hokey “Left behind” series made some 32 million. If one tenth of those readers wanted to do a genuine study, well, that would be 3.2 million, one one hundredth would be 320,000$, and I would likely not be dying of poverty, but would have a Salem Academy. Instead, we have Trump University, which I’ll bet is still in business, if our gullible seniors have any money left. But mine is one of the best commentaries, and the only one to join the Protestant teaching with the Catholic mysteries and the early Catholic commentaries, Victorinus, Hippolytus, and Augustine. But Mr.Aune, and that British fellow, Mr. Bauckham, are quite worth reading, to say the least, as are parts of Van Impe, Scofield and Eardman. Hal Lindsay too, of course, made a killing on the book, but he is mistaken from the start about the four horsemen. There is no literal Rapture in St. John’s Revelation at all, but that is in St. Paul, so the Baptists stick it in at 4:1 (rather than, for example, when the same word (“Come up hither”) occurs as the two witnesses ascend, the two being “two lamps” and “two olive trees,” quite possibly symbolizing the Catholic and Greek Orthodox. The Protestant churches are all broken off from the western or “Catholic” church. But one sees how the assumptions prevent each from reading the Book. (St. John is pretty rough on his 7 Churches there, writing about 92-93 A.D., and does not even acknowledge a Church of Rome, let alone consider the Eastern Church subordinate. Some things are obvious.) My book is copy-righted, though, and a copy is in the Library of Congress, with the first chapter on WordPress, the second item in the Philosophy section of the menu at the top of the page. There, I try not to be stunning, but I also have printed the Preface and contents. I set up an e-junkie account for five dollars a month, but ran out of money last year when no one would buy it (and then pay pal- who had forced me to give them my checking account number- started cranking the 5$ on an empty bank account, costing 31$ each time. That destroyed even my checking account, and now I cannot pay bills without about 50$ worth of effort, or a good half day.) But as a result, even the e-book is “out of print,” though the first chapter is right there in the menu at the top of this website- no one ever reads it, and you will notice there are no comments. My search term traffic is blocked, so yeah, I was scammed by wordpress and Mr. Mellon wedge, too.

   Another point is that Israel is ripe to be deceived, since they did not believe the advent, and Jesus has been Alive ever since. The one born of woman, then, in this age, is not who he says he is. Do you see them counting out the twelve tribes, with the omission of Dan? Those are Jewish Christians, apparently spared because they are Jewish by blood, spared, we figure, because they meet the Lord on Mt. Zion there about 14:7. The twelve might be identified by modern genetics, having been lost since 607 B.C. (another reason that this white race stuff among the Japhethites is such a joke. Hitler himself was named, what, Schleezerman or something! Schleermacher (so whatever a schleer is they used to make them.) Race is simply not very significant, especially when one considers Jefferson and Noah!

   Again, Mr. Putin, seriously, just back your steely-eyed ass out real slow, and keep your hands where we can see them,. cause Mr. Trump is under arrest, and it is legal. Christ, If I were Putin, I would get all nice, like Donney when he is being “terrific!”

Obama Danced With 106 Year-Old in the White House

   That was maybe my favorite moment of the Obama presidency, when Barack danced with the 106 year old. He’s so slick, after all that intell. experience Michelle still does not know! It was the culmination of about 350 years of history on this continent. Way slicker than Wild Bill, and even Kennedy, where it becomes clear that Jacqueline was the princess or royal character around here. Maybe, though, Michelle is hip to intell. too, and she’s known all along, but keeps a straight face, more steely than Vlad. As an Obama Republican now for 5 or 6 years, it becomes clear that Barack is one of the greatest presidents ever, even if he does not understand fascism or St. John, and so is still dedicated to a “smooth transition.” A guy on WAMU today, on NPR, read a paragraph from King’s speech from Birmingham Jail, which I would read to my class, back when I had teeth enough to teach. He was not afraid of “tension.” Obama take note.

In What Sense Jesus Is and Is Not God: The Trinity

   A very difficult point of disagreement between the Christians and the non-Christian believers in the God of Abraham is the question of the Trinity, or, in what sense the scriptures teach that Jesus is and is not God. Even the Muslims believe that Mr. Yashua is the Messiah, and is to return in the last day, and the Jews too believe that the reign of the messiah will come through the latter days. We like to say of the Jews that the advent for them will be the second coming for the Christians, and then all will agree. But if Jesus is the messiah that will return, as Islam teaches, then clearly he is now living, has been alive ever since, and is something quite different from every other man.

 The trinity is a very difficult question. It is an interpretation, and not scripture. But Jesus was killed because they understood what he said to be blasphemy. What he says he is is very difficult. John 10:30-39, in any translation: “I said you are gods, sons of the Most High” Isaiah, cf. 7:14 and 9:1-6). Men are superior to the gods, and surely to the idols they worshiped. To the astonishment of traditional theologians, men too are “begotten not made,” (John 1:12-17; 3:6; Romans 6 explains more). This means that there is something in us higher than the created reason. There is the begotten Nous, translated intellect, the eye of the soul (Plato, Republic VI, Aristotle, Ethics, X). But Jesus is son in a yet higher sense than the reborn are sons, as we are begotten through the only-begotten son. He said, “I and the Father are one,” and then they take up stones. We do not say this of the sons, but only of the Son, and the sons of course should not say that, as the new-agers sometimes do. But John is not to bow to the angel! (Rev. 22:8; 19:10). But God can do that-incarnate his word- if we wants to! (Annunciation in Matt, John 1:9, 14). Go figure- sons through the only-begotten son! In Luke (18:19), Jesus explicitly distinguishes (Italics) himself from the Father: “Why do you call me Good? No one is good but God alone.” Also, there are things known by the Father that Jesus does not know (Matthew 24:36). But I checked, and they do worship him, beginning with Peter, and worship is indeed not proper for any man. The three men who came to visit Abraham (Genesis 18:1-2), and the three, Father, Son and Spirit, are in the scripture (Revelation 1; John 1). That Jesus is “Lord” is said to be only say-able by the Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). Is, was and will be is a name only in the writing of John, contrasted with was, is not, and is to ascend… (Rev.17). “Before Abraham was, I am.” (We think we can demonstrate that John is the writer of both the Gospel of John and the Revelation, whatever our ingenious modern scholars say and think. The Gospel of John, unlike the other three, excludes but leads into an account of the end times.) We do not have three gods, like the gods of polytheism, when we say Holy Spirit, nor when we say His Word. Islam and Israel both distinguish between the Father, His Word, and His Spirit.  Do they then also have other gods before him? If Mohammed were simply right about the trinity, these would be their three gods, since they admit that the scripture both distinguishes and identifies the Father and His Spirit and His Word. And do they idolatrize Mohammed, when they forbid comedy and violently prosecute supposed blasphemies against the prophet, unlike all other mere mortal men? Yeah, “always look on the bright side of life.” But that, three gods, is neither what they, nor what we, mean. Is He His spirit? Is He His Word? Well, yes and no. Melchizedek taught the name God Most High! The sacrament of the bread and wine at Salem enters with Melchizedek, and Jesus is a priest not after Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek. He is also king and prophet, after the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the thee wise guys, the only non-Jews in the whole manger scene. The end of human sacrifice is what occurred on Mount Moriah, when Abraham was to sacrifice the whole thing in sacrificing his son Isaac. We misunderstand this to mean total obedience, but that is not the primary meaning. It is the the end of human sacrifice, replaced by animal sacrifice until the bread and wine! The wolf and lamb will lie together, and perhaps the lions east grass! Jesus replaces the bloody sacrifices at the Last Supper, when he fulfills the meaning of the bead and wine which Melchizedek brought to Abraham, of Abram.
   The Messiah is not a legislator, as is Moses and Mohammed, who are both very violent against the idolaters. It is not from Moses that we ceased killing of women and children in war. The Messiah is redeemer, savior, rather than legislator. We do not get from him some nation separate from Israel or from Islam. Christians who do not belong to either of these laws are quite on their own- hence we have British and American law, which take the legislators as a guide, but, like Jesus, are not bound, for example to sacrifice animals or stone adulteresses. Nor are we bound to legislate and compel that we swear no oaths, never hate our brother, never look upon a woman lustfully, and other things that cannot be legislated, and yet are right for the soul. Right is the basis of the law, but is above the law in this sense, the eternal word or the Torah before Moses was. The law is a trellis, and these the roses. Paul, who writes of “new law,” speaks metaphorically of that according to which Jesus teaches that is right for the soul, as in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7), and as distinct from, above and beyond what can be legislated. Paul is the one to teach us about the limitations of law! (Romans 7-9). So Jesus is not the legislator of a people or nation called Christians separated from Moses and Israel. He is the savior, and so can say that not a jot or iota of the law will be removed.
   We do not know what he is! And that is why the doctrine of the trinity is not scripture but interpretation. Is the Spirit and Word of God a separate “person” from God the Father? Or is He the Spirit of the Father or the Son and Father? And is the Bride of Revelation not a Fourth, and the whole in this re-unified? And do we say the whole trinity is what was made flesh, or only the word? Is Jesus then the embodiment of God, or does God, if he wants have a separate body? Like the question of how Jesus is the descendant of David if he is not the offspring of Joseph, a very old man, the theologians do not like to address these questions of what we mean by the teaching of the trinity, because we do not know what he is, and Socratic ignorance undermines the assumption of the medieval world, unexamined, that Jesus is a legislator.
In him was life, and the life is the light of men!