Priests of LMGTFY Culture

Who can get whom to do what with their bodies?

Take

Eat

From all the trees

But not this one

Remember lest ye forget

Indeterminate future manifestations abound

The goal is to discover

We call it mathematics for a reason

Hempel's ravens provide for us a clue

Knowing is a process, not an event

Their eyes were opened and they knew

They were advanced, but not scientific

We think we write our script

They actually do

It's now Us versus Them

Moderns or Primitives

Those of the Present or Past

Science or Tradition

Reason or Revelation

Jet sons or Flint stones

In their dispensation of the printing press

God became a book

In our dispensation of "Secret" in Swahili

Blogs become gods

Non-penetrative

Cyborgic extensions

Habituating their bodies to not know anything without the gods

Even to those long dead

That the Laws of Loving-kindness called Him even to them that had been long dead.

Now the laws of love summoned Him even as far as Death and the dead themselves, so that He might summon the souls of those who were long time dead. And so because He cared for the salvation of all for ages past, and that “He might bring to naught him that hath the power of death,”* as Scripture teaches, here again he underwent the dispensation in His mingled Natures: as Man, he left His Body to the usual burial, while as God He departed from it. For He cried with a loud cry, and said to the Father: “I commend my spirit,”* and departed from the body free, in no wise waiting for death, who was lagging as it were in fear to come to Him; nay, rather, He pursued him from behind and drove him on, trodden under His feet and fleeing, and He burst the eternal gates of his dark realms, and made a road of return back again to life for the dead there bound with the bonds of death. Thus, too, His own body was raised up, and many bodies of the sleeping saints arose, and came together with Him into the holy and real City of Heaven, as rightly is said by the holy words: “Death has prevailed and swallowed men up”; and again: “The Lord God has taken away every tear from every face.”*

And the Saviour of the Universe, our Lord, the Christ of God, called Victor, is represented in the prophetic predictions as reviling death, and releasing the souls that are bound there, by whom He raises the hymn of victory, and He says these words:

“From the hand of Hades I will save them, and from death I will ransom their souls.¹* O Death, where is thy victory?² O Death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.”³

Such was the dispensation that brought Him even unto death, of which one that wishes to seek for the cause, can find not one reason but many. For firstly, the Word teaches by His death that He is Lord both of dead and living; and secondly, that He will wash away our sins, being slain, and becoming a curse for us; thirdly, that a victim of God and a great sacrifice for the whole world might be offered to Almighty God; fourthly, that thus He might work out the destruction of the deceitful powers of the dæmons by unspeakable words; and fifthly also, that shewing the hope of life with God after death to His friends and disciples not by words only by deeds as well, and affording ocular proof of His message, He might make them of good courage and more eager to preach both to Greeks and Barbarians the holy polity which He had established. And so at once He filled with His own divine power those very friends and followers, whom He had selected for Himself on account of their surpassing all, and had chosen as His apostles and disciples,⁴ that they might teach all races of men His message of the knowledge of God, and lay down one way of religion for all the Greeks and Barbarians; a way which announced the defeat and rout of the dæmons, and the check of polytheistic error, and the true knowledge of the one Almighty God, and which promised forgiveness of sins before committed, if men no longer continued therein, and one hope of salvation to all by the all-wise and all-good polity that He had instituted.5

* Heb. 2:14.

* Luke 23:46.

* Isa. 25:8.

¹ LXX: αὐτούς..

* Hos. 13:14; 1 Cor 15:55.

² ἡ δίκη σου.

³ “Eusebius prophetam in parte, et in parte aposlolum sequitur.”—Gaisford.

⁴ θιασώτας: so for “disciple” in Lucian: Fugit. 4; Themist. 33 c.

5 Everything posted above is taken from: Eusebius of Cæsarea. (1920). The Proof of the Gospel: Being the Demonstratio  Evangelica of Eusebius of Caesarea. (W. J. Sparrow-Simpson & W. K. L. Clarke, Eds., W. J. Ferrar, Trans.) (Vol. 1, Bk. IV, Ch. 12, pp. 186–187). London; New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; The Macmillan Company.

Pathways to Immaturity

One man writes a story

The surrounding tribe rises to the occasion

To drill into

To warn others about

They must save the world

As guardians of the galaxy

Prophets commissioned to bear the good news

That their story is the only true story

And they aren’t alone

They have a whole tradition that reaches way, way back

A whole five hundred years

Or slightly more

Even more important 

Is their book

God is there

God is everywhere

But especially there

As guardians of the good news

They protect God from all opposition

Tearing down every stronghold

And every philosophy

And empty deceit

As guardians of God

One word says one thing

But they know their great scary book has more words than one

To pick out and shove into the conversation

Or better yet

To shove in front of the conversation

So as to protect all the innocents

From all unapproved conversation

Misleading them into darkness

Sliding them down the backward path of human tradition

They know the one in whom the fulness of deity dwells bodily

They know the circumcision of Christ

As guardians of the head of all rule and authority

They must bind their nobles with fetters of iron

To freely instruct the blind

To graciously feed the hungry

The whole clan must not become divided 

Or else one mans story will prevail

Psalmos 10•3

How dare you

Perpetuate ignorance 

Denying Science 

Elevating your ego 

Above the heavens 

Religion is a poison 

In a hundred years 

Its death is inevitable 

Progress is the real antidote

For our ancestral disease 

Can’t you see the problem? 

If you teach contrary to Science

Entire generations will devolve

Civilization as we know it will regress

Must we return to the middle-ages?

Your beliefs are the real threat

If the foundations of facts are destroyed

What can the righteous do? 

You can’t possibly remain so illogical

In light of all the progress we’ve made

How dare you

Above the heavens

Elevating your ego

Denying Science 

Perpetuate ignorance 

Origen on 'the patience of God'

Continuing, as my busy life permits, in a research project that I started many years ago, I stumbled across some fascinating comments by Origen of Alexandria about the so-called 'Olivet Discourse'. Commenting on Matthew chapter twenty-three, he offers a number of striking comments with regard to Jesus' prophecies about the future. Most noteworthy, however, is that many of his comments are not about our future (that is, not prophecies to be fulfilled in our future), but rather about the first century Judaean context and its fulfillment in that generation, which he calls the "literal" sense. This comports well with much of my other research on this topic. And so, without further ado, here is what Origen wanted to tell the Christian world of his day about Matthew chapter twenty-three:

'Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the sepulchers of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and you say that if we had lived in the days of our fathers we would not be there allies in the blood of the prophets. Therefore, you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you escape from the judgment of Gehenna? Behold, therefore, I am sending you prophets, wise men, and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and will persecute from city to city, that all the righteous blood might come upon you that has been shed on the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah the son of Barachiah whom you killed between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you that all these things will come upon this generation.'

...The blood of Christ did not satisfy them, but they further killed and crucified those 'prophets' or 'scribes' who had been sent by Christ, and scourged them in their 'synagogues', and persecuted them 'from city to city'. It was just that for all the murderous things they committed they suffer the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people, since the patience of God no longer tolerates the magnitude and multitude of their crimes.1

 ***

It must be said further on this text that the 'generation' of sinners was not punished as soon as the sin had been committed, but when a subsequent 'generation' needing to atone for the sin of its fathers against itself added, in addition, worse sins to the sins of their fathers; and so, if many generations should sin against some nation or city, the nation is punished or the city is destroyed. So then, the Jewish nation, although inflicting many evils on the prophets, was not to be punished immediately when the homicide against the prophets began but later, in the patience of God, when they added the blood of Christ over and above that of the prophets, and filled up the 'measure' of their 'fathers', then they were punished more deservingly. It was not, therefore, the sin that Cain committed when he killed his brother, or the sin of those who killed 'the prophets' which 'this generation' of Jews who lived in the time of Christ took up. It was necessary, rather, that the patience of God which was with the nation of the Jews be completed to its capacities, so that after many outpourings of the blood of the prophets and just men, Jerusalem and Judaea not having been abandoned previously, suffered this later with the blood of Christ, since God was acting magnanimously so that the 'scribes and Pharisees', with the people in agreement, might take upon themselves the blood of the prophets of Christ and, according to the Gospel, that of his wise men and scribes, whom they killed and crucified and scourged 'in their synagogues' and persecuted 'from city to city'. Consequently, when all had been cast out of Judaea, the place was desolate, emptied of all the saints, and it suffered whatever they suffered from Vespasian and Titus.2

Commenting on Jesus' questions in the beginning of Matthew chapter twenty-four (which, as I also pointed out in my series about the Olivet discourse, many Church Fathers interpreted with first century fulfillment), Origen continues:

'And Jesus went out of the temple and departed; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But Jesus answered and said to them:  Do you see all these things? Truly I say to you, a stone will not be left here on a stone which is not destroyed.' 

After Christ had predicted everything that was to come on Jerusalem...

...Since Christ prophesied above of its future destruction and thus threatened its desertion in the words, 'Behold now your house is left to you deserted,' when the disciples hear this they are amazed that such a great 'building of the temple' should be reduced to nothing. ...They want, of course, to persuade him to show mercy on that place, and not do what he had threatened to do.3

***

But now let us explain the text of the Gospel. We said that the 'abomination of desolation' standing 'in the holy place' is the prince who surrounded Jerusalem with an army. And so, because such terrible things happened to those who were in Judea at that time, therefore the Lord, prophesying these future events, says to the people, 'Let those who are in Judea at that time flee to the mountains.' And the things that happened at that time were so bad that we say that the person who was 'on the roof of the house' would not have had time to descend and 'take anything from his house', and the one 'who was in the field' would not have been able to return to the city and 'take his garment.' And there was no time then for mercy, not even for the pregnant, nursing mothers, or their infants. Therefore, he says (I mean so far as the literal sense goes): 'Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days'. And as if speaking to Jews who thought it not lawful on the Sabbath to be active or walk more than a Sabbath day's journey, he says: 'And pray that your flight not occur in winter or on the Sabbath,' for it was extremely difficult to seek safety by flight not only on 'the Sabbath,' but also in 'winter'. 

And it is related by those who have written a Jewish history about the things that happened at that time, that the people suffered a 'great tribulation such as had never occurred from the beginning of the world up to the time of Christ. But it was not possible that such terrible things as happened to them occur later, because they had dared to lay hands on the true Christ of God whose mystery and name David venerated and said of Saul when he was persecuting and wanting to kill him, 'I will not lift my hands against the Christ of the Lord.' But we understand the future cutting off of those days to be the shortening of those days 'because of the elect' of God who believe in Christ. And at that time when the people were experiencing great calamities and the elect in Judaea were suffering dangers, many deceivers were saying: 'Behold, here is the Christ; behold there.' Jesus, teaching his disciples to watch out for such people, said, 'If at that time someone shall say to you, behold here is the Christ; behold there, do not believe them; for false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great sigs and portents.' And someone can mention Simon Magus who used to claim to be the great power of God, or anyone like him, who wanted 'to deceive, if possible, the elect.' 

We have spoken of these matters in anticipation, not adding in this place any exposition beyond that which is according to the letter for the sake of those who are pleased with the simple narrative in order to speak of those things that seem to be useful for them, because the Lord set forth these future events prophesying as a diviner of the truth.4

1.  Origen of Alexandria, The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of St Matthew, Volume II; Trans. by Ronald E. Heine; [Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2018], pp. 574-575

2.  Ibid. pp. 576-577

3.  Ibid. p. 586

4.  Ibid. p. 606

Cliffnotes

I read it all

Every jot and tittle

It's all or nothing

So I'm told

In the beginning

Adam took notes

Named every creature

Even his wife

Begat in perfect tens

Two sevenths from him were also special

One proclaims the need for justice

The other walks with gods

Who play an important role

Three days of forming

Three days of filling

It was evening

It was morning

Then seventh day had no end

The story prefigures a promised rest

Adam falls like Israel

Failing to enter that rest

Exiled east of the temple

But his children were still welcome to draw near 

Jachin and Boaz with two flaming swords

The younger son draws near according to the Law

The firstborn destroys his brother

Is exiled east of Eden

He receives a city of refuge as his mark 

The deluge parallels the fire of Sodom

And the brimstone of Gomorrah

Offspring of gods are produced

Babelic empires are dispersed

A temple on water is built for rest

War-bows are made to be seen by the Most High

Patriarchs are viewed as princes by all

Giving away their sisters

Not once, but twice

The Canaanite friendly wife takes a look back

As a perpetual witness to a covenant of salt

The seed of Adam remains special and protected

A covenant remains secured

Even the king of peace receives tithes

Eve's daughter grows old and bears a son

The slavegirl and her son are cast out though

Only the freeborn son remains

Only the freeborn is sacrificed on a mountain

Where the temple would be built

To be raised from death

Or receive a lamb to pioneer for him

I read all of this

Every jot and tittle

Must be true

So I'm told

But what if every jot was beside the point

What if each tittle need not be precisely true

But merely to be faithful
To a promise

To a tradition

To a word of God
To a word from God
Who spoke through the prophets
Who prescribed and proscribed how to draw near
And how to be raised from the dead ones

And when that tradition became an empire
Of tribal allegiance with heavy burdens and no rest

Exiled east of the Garden

East of the temple

East of the promised rest

Scribes scrambled to collate and redact
To prescribe and proscribe their tribalism

Yet according to promise
Through a living tradition
When god became vellum

The word became flesh
And tabernacled among them
To rival their gods
And to raise their dead ones

Because the word of God is inspired

The word of God is infallible

The word of God is inerrant

The word of God read it all, too

And his apostles took notes

Myopia

Words clothe God's silence with meaning

Describe a sunrise to the blind

Democracies of ideas aren't enough to comprehend it

Shibboleths of collective identity politics forbid it

Life wastes away because of suffering

A spirit captivates us

Drunk on democracy we cave in

A spirit of consumption

A spirit of cancer

A spirit of addiction

Fear repels us away 

Instead of drawing us closer

Fear is the real suffering

Fear is where the real pain is felt

Fear is also the antidote

Life wastes away because of suffering

You watch me suffer and tell me I don't need to

Being human is not qualification enough for you

Don't allow suffering and pain to go to waste

A word has already clothed God's silence with meaning