On the Breakage of the Holy Catholic Church, Part II, correspondence with Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

2/18/06 On the Breakage of the Catholic Church, part II, correspondence with Wm. F. Buckley Jr.
Copyright © 1996-2006 Mel West. All rights reserved

On The Breakage of
the Holy Catholic Church
(Continued)

by Mel West

The subjection of Kings – Ambrose and the Trinity

Ambrose was born about 339 A.D., after the Council of Nicaea under Contantine had resolved the God-head into the shape it is seen now: as the Holy Trinity: father, son, and Holy Ghost. Just before this moment, and reaching its heights during Ambrose's time, there was strong opposition to this doctrine which was led by Arius, who argued that God, the Father, and Jesus, the son, are two substances and the son is not a god (as there is but one God, say the Holy Scriptures). Eusebius of Caesarea, the bishop who was the first Church Historian of whom we have already discussed; was excommunicated with Arius and others over the Arian doctrine. Later Eusebius was redeemed, by mincing words a little, and the Two Substances, Arian, issue of God prevailed for awhile. This doctrine was reversed, however, because of considerable pressure from the deacon Anthanasias who, through procedures which are best described as foul play-wrestled the bishop's seat of Alexandria from Mileteus. Jealous rivalries played a part in the ensuing saga, where Anthanasias was able to convince the Emperor Constantine to outlaw not only the Arians but bishop Eusebius of Caesarea as well. This presented a problem to Constantine, since his attitude was to leave matters of doctrine up to the bishops but yet sympathized, for the moment at least, with the concept that the Christ is a man. His esteem for Bishop Eusebius was well known, and is illustrated by the fact that he had ordered 50 copies of Eusebius's new translation of the Bible for his New City, Constantinople. Anthanasias, perhaps jealous over Eusebius's position (Eusebius also sympathized with Mileteus), finally swung Constantine back against the Two Substance doctrine. Anthanasias complained in his Easter Letters that the Arians divided the robe of Christ which his executioners had left intact [re: John 19-23-24]. Then, after much haggling the doctrine was restored to the One Substance of God (Monophysite) position, being of three parts called the Holy Trinity. Check this out for a clear statement on salvation: one would be excommunicated who said that there was when he was not, which suggested that God existed when The Word of God, the Christ did not exist; or before being born he was not, which suggests that Christ was born of the Father but did not exist with him from the beginning of Creation; or he came into existence out of nothing, or who said that the Son was of another essence or substance from the Father, or was created, changeable, or mutable.

Arius was not alone in the argument against the Nicene Creed. The Dual Essences of God and the Christ, called the Arian Controversy, dragged some popular bishops onto its side besides Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. Censoring all the Arians, in 325 A.D. Constantine issued a letter announcing specifically the deposition of Eusebius of Nicomedia, because of his Arian beliefs. The following is an extract of that letter:

In spite of his compelling arguments to maintain Unity, when Constantine died in 337 A.D. the eastern church was more bitterly divided than ever before. And this division was occasioned by the dragging on of all the heresies which had gone before including, but not limited to, the Encratites during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A.D.), who rejected Acts and the Pauline Epistles; the Montanists, the Novatianists, who advocated harsher treatment for apostates (because of the Decian persecutions mentioned earlier) -more than what the bishops thought prudent; the Sabellian Heresy which stressed the identity of God the Father with God the Son and argued that the two descriptions applied merely to different aspects of a single divine being – which is what Eusebius of Caesarea gravitated towards and is similar to what Constantine wrote above – ; then also there were the Valentinian sects and Manichaeans and others who have dropped in and out of history. In any event we can see in Constantine's letter that the debate on the nature of God and God the Son was plentiful, varied, and quite vitriolic-not becoming of a Christian Body. And this sets the scene for Ambrose who was a lawyer by trade, later governor of Aemilia-Liguria in northern Italy, and was suddenly elected by divine acclamation, so it is said, to replace the Arian Bishop of Milan whose name is Auxentius. Arianism was the preferred sect of the Christianized Gauls.

Ambrose was not baptized at the time he was elected bishop! This means that the apostolic succession had not been delivered to him, for the succession and anointing of Christ was passed from the Apostles to the Presbyters and down to the bishops through the laying on of hands through baptism. In simple terms, by modern standards, the new bishop of Milan was not "saved" when he was ordained as bishop of Milan on the 1st of December, 373 A.D.

This same argument of being ordained a bishop without baptism involved the denunciation of Mileteus, bishop of Alexandria, some time before, who had not been anointed through the [accepted] apostolic succession, as it was alleged. Suddenly Ambrose became a point of hypocrisy which was soon washed away.

Picking up from where Cyprian left off, and being a Trinitarian, Ambrose made the point that the church is ultimately responsible to God for the consciences and souls of her children. Therefore, to maintain the purity of conscience, the Church may often need to tell the faithful whether or not to obey the state. Before, under Constantine, the High Priest and Emperor were one. Ambrose would change the rules, and he led to St. Augustine's City of God and other writings. You may recognize the phrase, City of God, from the psalms and some of the fathers above. There is nothing new under the sun.

In a letter documenting the decisions of the Council of Aquileia in A.D. 381, which excommunicated two leading Arian bishops, Ambrose took up the torch against Arianism and said:

A good Conscience

Both Cyprian and St. Ambrose emphasize the point that the purpose of the church is to see that every man [in the Church] is instilled with a good conscience, after that of Christ. We must pause on this, Sir, because this is the very same argument we posed with you, to wit: faith without works is death. A Good Conscience must equate to a Good Faith in God. There is no fact more evident than that which leads to the conclusion that a Good Conscience is meaningless without good works following it.

This argument comes out of the plight of the Confessors, who were the martyrs we mentioned earlier, as opposed to those who were put to trial in the Christian Persecutions and, as it were, went over to the other side. Those who went over to the other side we can see clearly that Tertullian, Cyprian and St. Ambrose condemned in their arguments, Against Heresies.

Drawing a line in the sand

You have to draw the line somewhere, as it is said, a line shall be drawn over Jerusalem, which follows the request Moses made to Korah and his apostates; and Moses, drawing a line in the sand, said He who is with God step towards me [Numbers 16]. This line has been drawn over and over again, through Tertullian and others, as it is also shown here.

So:

How wonderful! Here is a man who knows that he has inalienable rights in the worship of God, in which there is a doctrine of Good Conscience; and whilst one might threaten his body with death, he will not suffer his virtues to die also.

In a movie on Lawrence of Arabia, an Arab leader dressed in a beautiful black robe (the actor Anthony Quinn) leaned over to Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole) whilst he was standing by the horse and asked, "Isn't there anything in your life which you are willing to die for?" This is the same question the Church Fathers were asking, and they maintained that the gospel – their source of Good Conscience – required them to be willing to sacrifice their body to defend the doctrine. Thus:

Here we see the Catholic Church beginning to flex its muscle over the kings of the earth. The emperor is told that he may wield his rod and move the timid, but one thing he cannot do is inspire faith. The next argument, one should then perceive, is that the kingdom can only be held together through Faith.

In as much as Ambrose is concerned with heresies, he carries on the traditional view that the Jews are heretics, as seen before:

St. Ambrose agrees with us concerning the point of view we suggested in Against Leviathan relative to the Watchman:

As we admire much of what St. Ambrose says, we nevertheless cannot overlook the fact in this letter he defends the burning of a synagogue in Syria by permission of the residing bishop. St. Ambrose then claims that though he did not order setting fire to the synagogue he would have and certainly the restitution of the synagogue should not be paid for out of Christian pockets (who burned it). His argument is the old one:

When we said that the source of Martin Luther's remarks came from Paul, now perhaps you can see how it emerged and the form it already had sixteen hundred years ago!

In a letter to his sister, Ambrose reveals a bit more of his theology, as the responsibility of a watchman, which applies to a Bishop or any Christian leader. He points out that some times the message one must carry is bitter. We recall the Angel's small book which was bitter.

This goes both ways, doesn't it? If the priest's injunctions are good they last as a testimony of virtue; if they are not good, as those dealing with the Jews, they last as a testimony of evil. Ambrose and the others before him assumed, of course, that Christ come again will be elated over the six million of the last holocaust and the millions before it. In truth, He must do as we have done, review both the good and the evil advise. We have here more good advise:

The Incentive to Virtue has to do with the mission of the Church to instill in its members a good conscience. Comparing Christ's Grace as liberating one from a bad debt he says:

Touching the poor is the same as touching God

St. Ambrose used the name Christ. When we put it to you, of the need to help the poor, and how touching them is the same as helping God, we expressed it as Catholics have always understood it. Look!:

Their heart is far from me

This is how I see Christianity today-far from our heart, that is, and certainly far from the original heart of Christianity. For we can add:

This again weighs back on the argument of Truth, of doing, that faith without works is death. For those who do not walk with God [sic.] and step forward to the line, shall die. For, as it is said with regard to those who think they can hide from God:

Whilst St. Ambrose used this argument to defend his position with regard to the emperor's designs, the same argument is true with all men, as it is said, Ye are justified in your own lips, which we quoted earlier, and which can be seen to be relative to some of the points we have made here. But expressing one's conscience is better than not doing, so he says:

Here again St. Ambrose has confirmed our position, that one is responsible for what one knows [sic. and it is the duty of the Church – Christ in the issue at hand – to make sure that you know]. If you know of something, as in the case of Sandhu's Revenge or the issue in Against Leviathan, you have a duty to say something, particularly when lives are at stake, and if you are in a position to save lives with your actions, you must save them. Thus he says:

The author of Salvation

Ambrose, we have seen, has given good criteria towards salvation through doing righteous acts out of good conscience. In this way we mimic Christ:

On Judgment

St. Ambrose believed that the Jews will one day be redeemed through the Church:

On governing

All things of Christ are easily revealed: as Ambrose said, ending the above letter, quoting Paul: We are made a spectacle unto this world, and to angels [I Cor. 4.9]. He compared the life of the clergy who were seen openly and could not hide their acts, as opposed to the monastic life which is secret and hidden. There is virtue in both; nevertheless, the Lord searches the hearts of all men, whether in the open or in hiding. Whoever steps onto the stage must perform.

A lesson on Humility – St.Jerome

Jerome lived from 347 to about 420 A.D., and he was a contemporary of St. Augustine, who was somewhat at odds with Jerome on several issues and in particular the dissimulation between Saint Peter and Paul, mentioned in Galatians, which had to do with Paul's chastisement of Peter's Circumcised Church. This refers to an incident of a man who had come from Saint James to eat with the Gentiles but then withdrew himself when Saint Peter and the others arrived. Here Jerome inquired into the issue in which we inquired.

Saint Peter and Saint James were highly opposed to Paul's unorthodox teachings. Paul's epistle to the Galatians, who were dissimulating towards the Circumcised Church, reflects this argument, which we have discussed in detail elsewhere but can show here in part:

Separate Tables but United?

Here we can see the thrust of Paul's gospel, that it is not the same as the gospel Saint Peter and the other apostles were teaching. Paul alleges his gospel was received by direct revelation from Christ as Paul was on the road to Damascus. This may explain why the content of his teachings relies little upon Jesus' teachings – the basis of the Petrine Gospel. Rather than focusing on Jesus' Teachings, he claimed the revelation that the Law of Moses is abolished: replaced with a New Law which is that of Paul's Gospel. We continue:

Saint Peter and Saint James and the other apostles of the church sent someone into that meeting to confirm the unorthodox goings on that had already come to their ears. Titus, Paul's son, says Paul, had been received by the Circumcised Church even though he was not circumcised-which is what happened also with Cornelius with Saint Peter before.

Paranoid over spys? When Paul refers to the spys of the Circumcised Church it is evident that not all was well between him and Saint Peter; and Paul was on the verge of being thrown out of the Church. In any event Paul persuaded the spys that everything was okay, and Saint Peter approved of his gospel:

There is something terribly wrong in this story – to friends of Saint Peter – , isn't there? It has no continuity. There are some missing parts to it which the Galatians, who had fallen away from Paul and back to the Circumcised, Petrine Gospel, apparently knew. Someone with a sharp pen has applied surgery to it.

In the beginning of his gospel, Paul asserts that his gospel is the true gospel, and anyone carrying another must be cursed, that his gospel came directly from Christ. He discussed his Gospel with Saint Peter, but fourteen years later Saint Peter sent spys to search out his gospel; and then, referring to the incident of a circumcised man eating with the Gentile and then removing himself when Saint Peter arrived, taking Barnabas and other Jews with them, he accuses Saint Peter [and the others, but Saint Peter is to blame] of hypocrisy. Later Paul says, in Antioch, he withstood Peter face to face, because Peter was to be blamed. For what was Saint Peter to be blamed?

From the evidence of the Jews [Circumcised Church] removing themselves from the table of the Gentile Church, it is apparent that the Church Doctrine required Gentile and Jew to eat at separate tables: i.e., to maintain the separate status of the Jews. But this is not the real issue, for Paul's Gospel taught that the Law is abolished, a teaching Saint Peter and the others could never accept, which is evident in their actions.

Jesus sat at dinner with a Publican, allowing the precedence for Saint Peter to set at dinner with Cornelius. If Kosher food were served there would be no problem here. But at the suppers of Paul there were no doubt non-kosher foods, in particular pork, which were set on the table. There may have been some confusion here as to what the proper procedure should be in such a case. Since the Apostles set doctrine through a council, no doubt after the example of the Sanhedrin, it would appear that the majority and in particular led by Saint James, might have required two separate tables where non-kosher foods were present. It is possible Saint Peter took a more permissive position, saying not to eat the non-kosher food but to sit at table with them, following the presumption that one should not exalt oneself above others. Whatever happened, it is apparent that Paul had not received-and probably did not seek-a distinct ruling on this accord, since he spurned the Circumcised Doctrine anyway. But speaking to the "backsliding Galatians" somehow this story had relevance, and I still have not figured out its relationship, except that Paul was using it – and obviously the missing texts of it – to verify that the pillars of the Circumcised Church are hypocrites and not to be followed. In this conflict it is also evident that the Galatians had come down upon Paul for his uncircumcised lips, and he retorted that he had been received with his son Titus, who is uncircumcised, etc., that James, Cephas [Saint Peter] and the others were hypocrites, and the Galatians should stop listening to them and come back to Paul. We are speaking here of a power struggle in the church.

Paul continued his persuasion, following the fragmented argument just mentioned:

This is the argument in Matthew 1.21 mentioned earlier, that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit to save his people from their sins. Here Paul refers to redeeming them. The Latter Day Messiah, the Redeemer of the Children of Israel, would reestablish them to the Holy Land and place God's Sanctuary in the midst of them, as described earlier. Paul's Gospel said that since Jesus has already come, the redemption of the Jews is come. Following this, then, is the need for a New Gospel or Covenant since Jesus, claims Paul, abolished the Old Covenant; which is a lie, verifiable not only by the teachings of Jesus but also the conflict between Saint Peter and Saint James's Circumcised Church (which first heard and passed on Jesus's teachings) and Paul's apostate Church. Now there is another way to measure liars: their teachings generally result in robbery, mayhem and murder.

If we were to suppose the comparison of the dissimulation at the supper caused by Saints Peter and James, et al., to the Galatians who also had dissimulated from His gospel, I still have trouble understanding the problem behind the dissimilation. What was it over? food, circumcision, the threat of damnation (which Paul used against Saint Peter's Church); what was the problem which was common to the Galatians and that dinner dissimilated by Saint Peter?

Try to put on Saint Peter's hat for a moment.Paul is not only railing against the Jews and the Law but he is putting himself across as Christ. He believes he is as Christ – in Christ's stead – because he says in a vision Christ gave him the Pauline Gospel and told him to preach it to the nations. Hitler also had a vision (most of which came from Paul).

The words we reviewed here are not the words of humility; and it is certain that Paul believed that the words he was then speaking were those of an Angel of God, even Christ Jesus. This is a very different perception than the idea of being led by the Holy Spirit. The term Antichrist comes to mind here, for in the Greek it means a phony imitation of Christ – as reflected in Revelation – ; not against Christ as perceived in English. A measure of this againstness can be seen in your own will, Sir, where you allowed me to quote you as long as I quoted you in context. If I were to quote you out of context such that your words meant something you had never intended, then you could say that I had been against you by misrepresenting you. This, if you will give it a fair inquiry, is what Paul did to Jesus.

That ye all may be Christs

The true intention of Paul is to pass what is in Him, which is His Gospel, on to the Galatians et al. that they also would be Christs (this is basic Christian doctrine and fine here except he left out of his epistles the teachings of Jesus):

This discussion Jerome understood. As mentioned before, Paul need not have tried to dissimulate those under Saint Peter, who desired to maintain the Law. His Gospel of Condemnation has nothing to do with Christ's Gospel.

In the same letter suddenly Paul shifts from a Gospel of temperance and humility back into the Gospel of Intemperance: comparing all who circumcise as being the same as those who crucified Christ!

Can you not sympathize with Saint Peter and Saint James who now are being described as being the same as those who crucified Christ? His Gospel does not end here; this is where it begins, for along with it is the teaching that Saint Peter and the others were nothing but ignoramuses and cowards-still being taught today. Now we must remind you that Saint Peter and Saint James were more than friends to Jesus; and, knowing that you are a rational man, we know that Jesus might have a sympathetic reaction on behalf of Peter, against what your Pauline Church has been saying about him and the others. If you were Jesus how would you look upon these things? We say this not in a spirit of presumption, but rather in allowance for the fact that the intention of Christianity is to give you the Spirit of Jesus; so we believe we are not being unfair in asking you to judge what we have reviewed (and shall yet continue) as if you were in Jesus' stead.

The translator and creator of the Vulgate Bible, Jerome, no doubt had some of the same concerns as we when he translated these passages and many others reflecting the very vitriolic attitude Paul had towards Saints Peter and James and their Circumcised Church in Jerusalem. He must have tapped his pen on his desk a few times.

Whilst Jerome picked up on many of the issues, Against Heresies (he wrote against another heresy called the Pelagian) we have already discussed, he was a leading scholar of the Church and after the order of Origen (185-250 A.D. – who lived during the time of the Decian Persecutions mentioned earlier). Origen we shall discuss following our examination of Jerome's contributions to the thesis which we carried to you.

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Jerome's understanding of the Gospel went beyond that of Paul's; and picking up on the theme, what is idolatry, discussed foremost by Tertullian and later others, Jerome gravitated to the thesis that the best emulation of Christ is through giving up all the things of this world. Jerome argued for complete chastity to Christ, which to him is best expressed in a monastic life. He went a step further than others before him, as he castrated himself. Apparently others following Jerome's example were in sufficient numbers that the Church finally outlawed the horrible practice of self castration (being as Paul claimed to be, an eunuch of the Lord).

Marriage to God

When we hear the praises of those who claim to be married to God, in one form or another, we can't help but examine their intentions. For Paul was correct, when he tried to express the cause of creating One Spirit in Christ, through marriage of your soul through Christ, with God. Just what should be a perfect model of Christ has been of considerable controversy ever since. In a letter to his friend, whom he attempted to persuade to follow him into the monastic life in Syria, Jerome explains that marriage to God, following the example of Christ, begins with an assumption of poverty.

My word, Sir, did we not say that all of the terrifying persecutions we saw in the Inquisition : of those terrible bone crushing demands of Torquemada and other priests, and then what finally happened in the recent Holocaust of six million Jews-have we not confirmed now that they came from Paul? For here we show Jerome quoting him and St. Augustine applying that principle further that it should be a normal Christian duty to destroy all heretics. The doctrine of Paul has been tested in time and, as we have seen, as there is no secret beyond the eyes of heaven, Paul's Gospel had little to do with the gospel of which Christ spoke.

Under the Old Law, continues Jerome, he who disobeyed the priests was put outside the camp and stoned by the people, or else he was beheaded and expiated his contempt with his blood [Deut. 17.5,12]. But now the disobedient person is cut down with the spiritual sword, or he is expelled from the Church and torn to pieces by ravening demons. Just when these demons came to be possessed of the robes of priests has yet to be discerned. Sir, as for our own day, can there be much difference between a diffident priest of the Holocaust or even one in our own streets who is oblivious to the terror around him-of the poverty of the Homeless, among the least of whom we speak-and Torquemada? We continue:

My word! Sir, we can show by this example the truth to the saying that the reviling of a brother is counted as the sin of murder. Here we apply the lesson to Paul. He reviled his Circumcised brethren and what has happened is that which we have complained about in the Holocaust, among other things: murder. If you can continue walking with us, we hope to show you how to stop this murder. Jerome, we regret to say, continued the tradition of Jew baiting and deriding the authority of Saint Peter. But then, because of the senseless feuding around him, he appealed to the authority of the Chair of Peter to restore Unity to the Church:

The Arian controversy was still on-going, among other heresies; and thus he asked the Pope to support his view:

My word, how truth varies from generation to generation! The heresy of Sebellas is now back in vogue: that God is One Person in three substances or aspects; rather than the opposite, that the three substances of the Holy Trinity each, though God, can be worshipped. But in the Council of Constantinople 381 A.D. the three hypostases of the Holy Spirit, against which Jerome argued, were accepted and continue to this day. Thus, one can pray in, and to, the name of God, the Father; one can pray in the name of and to the Son of God, Jesus Christ; and one may pray to God the Holy Spirit ( no name to pray to here, except Messiah, Comforter).

Wisdom is the Eternal Essence of God

Jerome didn't exactly say this but, if we can agree that Wisdom is the Glory of God (rather than intelligence, as Jacob Neusner supposed), then we can build on the eternal essence, or ousia, of God as Wisdom. This comes from:

What a mouthful! How wonderful! Jerome used Abishag to explain the virtue of Wisdom, how it never ages or decays, then, proceeding with his advise to the ministry to the criteria of separation of the ministry from this world to fulfill Paul's doctrine on living in the Spirit of the law, and then concludes that the gold which glitters in the churches shows itself hypocritical to its [Paul's] own doctrine and the Church must either give up the gold or accept the Jews.

Sir, we know it has been a long walk together, but if you can keep up with us-and perhaps bring your presbyter with you (We speak in the original context), we expect to show you the merits in this, how the Catholic Church may keep its precious gold, even though –

– whilst bringing redemption to them by embracing into its wings the Jews. We speak of bringing Saint Peter and other Circumcised servants of God (who live by the Law of Moses) into St. Peter's Cathedral. We speak only for the Cathedra of Saint Peter; what the other churches of the Catholics do here is not our immediate concern. This time was appointed long ago and is now due, and surely you will agree, that Jerome is behind us on the proposal we here may yet reveal.

How the lack of Wisdom – or forgetting the First Principles – brings death.

Jerome reminds his peers and us these timeless words, (which go with the precept we have mentioned from Lao Tzu-how the plowman plows over the temples of the dead):

This, we can say, applies to many Catholic churches. Whilst Jerome may have been exaggerating in his time, of the condition of the Pagan temples following Theodosius's legislation against pagan worship, mentioned earlier, it quite appropriately describes the state of the Catholic Church in these times: the Church is aging and decaying; vacant chapels now are adorned with cobwebs, their ceilings with bats. Why?

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We hope to propose to you that the decay in the Church – we should not exclude the plague of Protestantism which helped it – came from the very snares it set for others. Again, we must say, the spores of confusion from Paul which dealt death to the Law had a lot to do with it, for:

This, Sir, is where Paul deviated from the gospel. He assumed because Adam and Eve had sinned, that we are all sinners and therefore have nothing to rely upon for redemption except God's Grace. This, I think, is what you had alluded to in your statement noted below, referring to burdens which cannot be removed without the grace of God: sic. which are so far out of scale that nobody can repay them:

The burdens of which Paul wrote, and the thesis upon which you rest your head, was engendered without knowledge of God's Will: Paul claims that we (because of Adam's sin) have all sinned; and therefore no man is perfect and falls short of the Glory of God. Sir, because the Glory of God does include His Wisdom, it is the Will of God to pour His Wisdom into us who will receive it. The salve against sin is Wisdom [sic. that you may know]; and the burden of Wisdom is rather light. The gift of Wisdom is not only easily carried but easily recompensed. All you need do, having drunk of these waters of Wisdom, which are everlasting, is to order your conversation and works aright. Have you not heard?:

Answering the call to Salvation is a light thing indeed

How, then, can you believe Paul against this great prophet, who corrects Paul, that you should know we each are judged by our own works and not our father's?

Everything is possible with me, with regard to Salvation; and I know that the Spirit which guides me affirms – following the pursuit of Wisdom – that through wisdom comes the grace of God. We connect Wisdom to Conscience, and good works out of good conscience earn God's Grace. Hence through Abraham's Wisdom to obey God and do Good Works his seed have been promised the unqualified, undecaying, redemption of God; and, to show you how Wisdom works we can demonstrate, should you wish to continue walking with us, that the Wisdom given to Abraham is Truth, and you can count on the saying, The Truth will set you free. Knowing this we can perceive that those who rest their salvation on lies are in chains. When a man dies, for instance, what he has done is disclosed [Wisdom 11.27], something which men of pride fear the most. We can learn from the same scripture that the Mercy of God has always been a gift to all men, contrary to what Paul would have us believe:

Cup of Poison

Where Paul went wrong is that he attempted to put honey on a doctrine which would be bitter to Gentiles (because of both the laws and the prophesies which lay a curse on the Gentiles). The Law of Moses was written for the Jews, so to separate them unto God. This is probably Saint Peter's point of view. Whilst the Law of Moses cannot be void, because it represents Wisdom and Wisdom is eternal, it follows that the Gentile should be invited to embrace it; but since the Gentile are treated separately in the Law and the prophets – even a separate covenant is made with them through the Light of the Gentile according to Ezekiel – there is no reason for men to condemn the one just to introduce God to the other. Knowing Jesus as you do, surely you will agree with this first principle of our argument. Looking back upon the Pauline faults, which produced in these last days the Holocaust, we can reflect upon this truth:

Let's confess the truth: Paul served us all a mixture which had a bit of poison in it; in teaching virtue he taught contempt for the Law and the Jews and other heretics. Our objective is to remove the poison from the cup; otherwise we shall all be dead; for as we show herein, by one standard or another adopted by the Church fathers we are all condemned. Remember:

Then speaking to a situation relating to our allegory in Sandhu's Revenge he says:

Those who are not charitable – according to the demands placed upon them, relative to what they know, as in the case of the Good Samaritan – are like the tares in the field. They raise their heads on high and are easily seen, since they pretend that they are charitable and imitate the wheat, who are following the Spirit of the law. As they each attempt to raise their heads above each other in their envy to achieve the best place for the light, or glory, from above, they become the most vulnerable. Having history with us as well as the troop who confirm us, we show you, Sir, how easy it is to demonstrate the way lightening strikes those seeking comfort in their own high places. Jerome, quoting Paul, reminds us that humility is best seen among those who:

Here we end that portion devoted to Saint Jerome, the scholar who thought to bring the Church back into the embrace of the poor, which, by our other comments, means into the embrace of God.

Sir, mightn't you let your bishop and presbyters know that there is one with a large troop, including not only Jesus but a host of Saints, who do not find the modern Church blameless? We mention this not to elicit consternation but to draw out virtue, that by confessing what is revealed we will bring forth more Wisdom; and with Wisdom is the Spirit of God. To walk with that Wisdom, let us stroll through the first principles from which Christians depart.

First Principles – Origen

We now step back in time to the period of Cyprian. Origen lived from about 185 A.D. to 253 A.D., and, at the age of seventeen he narrowly escaped the persecution of Severus, under which his Christian father Leonides was martyred. Later, because of his scholastic excellence, he was called to Alexandria to serve under Demetrius, the Bishop of Alexandria. After about 15 years of service, in which Origen produced volumes of works, including On First Principles, where he attempted to formulate a cohesive Church Doctrine, he fell out of grace with his bishop and for some reason was excommunicated. Origen moved to Caesarea where he taught under the church led by Theoctistus, and from this time, about 231 A.D., he spent the rest of his life in Caesarea as an honored teacher and scholar. Perhaps more than any other scholar of the Bible, Origen had the ability to pause on every idea he came upon and examine it, as one picking up a stone from a creek and turning it over and over, wondering how it got so smooth.

The Soul of God

We can't leave this observation alone as it is, because the Son's of Zadok in the Dead Sea Scrolls used the metaphor of smooth stones to describe those who walked away from the soul of the LORD God and turned to wickedness, as Adam and Eve were disposed, knowing shame, at the moment they heard God's voice in the Garden of Eden:

Origen concluded that the LORD God is a substance, a mind who spoke to Adam and Eve in the Garden and from whom they hid. Picking up from there he says:

The entire thesis of the Church Body is to become of one mind in the Spirit of Christ. From the Mind of God issues His Spirit, it would follow, since Adam and Eve were fashioned after the image of God and we know that the only form in which God was known in the Garden was as a presence which had a voice and eyes, who formed a likeness described by Origen as a Mind which fell and became soul. And the Soul is something which can be furnished with virtues: in fact, the soul is a vessel of Virtue.

Strife and Debate

Here Origen is touching an area which we have been shouting your way, of satisfying God's Afflicted Soul, which comes from the following proof text:

This seems to echo the strife we found in most of the epistles of the presbyters of the Church, beginning with Peter and James' letters, to Paul's letters [who was producing strife but still had to fight to maintain unity within his gentile church], to Clement's letters, Ignatius's letters, and many more after them, including those wonderful men whom we have quoted herein. The church was always suffering from fragmentation over various issues of the Bible and most certainly over the fact that one coalition would try to raise itself above another. So ye strife and debate. What can be done about it? We continue:

Jesus – our Afflicted Soul; read Isaiah 61, concluding with the remark, and to proclaim the acceptable day of the LORD.

Filling the Vessel with Righteousness, or Good

We passed this cup to you, Sir, the terms of asserting the Truth, when the Truth will save lives, particularly of the poor and the afflicted among us, and satisfying the afflicted soul in general, who, in our case, cannot survive on bread alone.

Judging the Poor

We compared the judgment of the poor, of good, to that of a clock. This relates to Origen's view:

There are many proof texts which illustrate how God allows men's jealous and evil natures to serve his interests. We speak of the case of Nebuchednezzar, here again, who was then punished, even though, as Jeremiah shows, God delivered the Children of Israel into the hands of Nebuchednezzar, to be taken into captivity to Babylon for seventy years. God does say that he is capable of both good and evil, the proof texts of which we showed earlier.

Offsetting the evil nature in man is the Spirit of Christ, which Origen has just identified as the Soul of God, which is later described as the Word of God. Following this Origen says:

We conclude from the above that filling the vessels of man [sic. their souls] with the Spirit of Christ is the same as filling them with the Spirit of God to which end all men shall one day be One in Christ and thereby One with God – except those, of course, who do not drink of the Spirit of Christ, who then are judged and separated from God to receive the death of their soul (This is called the Second Death, according to Revelation 20.14). After this manner all men will be judged by the Spirit of Christ and here we can find in Revelation that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Prophesy. You will be judged according to what the prophets told you. This follows the precept earlier expressed, that you may know, which establishes the baseline of conscience upon which you are judged, after the manner of Genesis 3.8 mentioned earlier. You will see your nakedness and be ashamed. Whosoever repents is saved. Thus:

Here, here! This is what we have been saying, that to those who will not hear the Word of the LORD but fabricate their own opinions and beliefs, God says, Come, let us reason together – the proof texts we have already listed – ; and sometimes, to get your attention, He must apply the rod.

The proof of the rod is the confirmation of the Judgment of Israel, through the Spirit of Burning, described by Origen above, which has occurred. Few today will mistake the Holocaust [meaning, burnt offering in Hebrew], for anything other than the fulfillment of this process of refining the Children of Israel as one refines silver and gold.

Following this judgment, Origen lapsed into the Pauline Mind-set of anti-Semitism; here we extract a little:

From Judgment to Redemption

Origen complained about the Judaizers of whom Paul and Ignatius spoke. Following his pogrom against Jews, Origen returns to our thesis, of feeding the soul with wisdom:

What Origen – whom I love except for his continuation of the antiSemitic theme to justify Paul's theory of Types and Shadows, etc., as we can perceive from the above – has discounted is the contradiction between Matt. 4.4 and the conclusion that the Judaizers are wrong in believing that God will fulfill His Promises to the Jews and restore things [sic. The Tabernacle and its Law and Temple, and the Kingdom of David] as at the beginning. The phrase, By every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God – meaning the prophets – cannot exclude the literal achievement of the Word they proclaimed. Otherwise we could assume that the Messiah, The Word, has no more bearing upon us than the Promise to restore with Him [sic. the Latter Day Redeemer, the Branch] the Temple. Why should Immanuel and his mother, the Virgin, the Sign of God mentioned in Isaiah 7.14, be God's Proof of His love for man while, according to Paul and you, The Branch,who builds the Temple of the LORD in Zechariah 6.13, or even His Tabernacle of Amos 9.11, is not God's Proof? Must we deny this also?:

Sir, our feet are on Heaven's Ladder. Paul never looked this high, this we know, since he condemned the place where we now tread. Paul spoke of lifting veils to see Truth, but knew not the steps where light dwells.

Sir, being a reasonable man – tell us, how is it that Paul can get away with corrupting the verses of the veil over the nations and swallowing death in victory to denounce the Jews, when the place in which it was laid was the opposite?: to the glory of the Jews and the lifting of that veil put over the nations, of which we now remove. Have you not heard?:

Holy, Holy, Holy – all are Holy – except those described in Revelation 11.18. Please look again at chapter four of Isaiah. The other thing which Origen has overlooked here, together with the other disciples of Paul, is the fact that the Latter Day Promise and Judgment has not to do with the issue of those heretics against us Christians, such as Christians against Jew and Moslems, but rather the Glorification of God and the fact that both the Gentile and the Jews share in that Glory! Hogging the glory for oneself – perverting scripture even – is sheer nonsense, as displayed by the following proof text, previously quoted.

Here, here, we say! Origen then goes on to speak on the confirmation of prophetic vision, where he picks up on Paul's thesis in I Corinthians 12.12, seen through a glass darkly and yet truly seen in part, they:

The cure, of course, has nothing to do with the veil Paul said was put over the Jew's eyes [by God?] (and thus, says Paul, they are damned), but follows this manner:

Those who are not read to walk with the Lord are viewed as thorns and thistles, as seen in Christ's parable of the Vineyard:

The cause of Israel's Diaspora

What Origen here cited is a good advertisement for the cause of scattering the Children of Israel off the land: because they did not allow the land to rest; they did not answer when he called [Isaiah 65.12], becase they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst [Isaiah 5.13]; because many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot [Jeremiah 12.10]; because ye walk everyone after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me [Jerem. 16.12]; so:

The Trope turned on the Gentile

As noted before, Isaiah explains the parable of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5 and again in 7.14-24, how the Children of Israel shall pass again under the rod as they did in Egypt (and again in Babylon). We call into remembrance that with the Curse was a Blessing: that after the Children of Israel had passed under the rod they would be gathered from all the nations whither they had been scattered and redeemed to their land [Isaiah 1.26-27 and 2], as it seen today and featured in our last letter. The parable here, which Jesus drew upon, also applies to the Gentile – those who forget God and, as discussed in John 6.66, who no longer walk with Him. Since the parable also applies to placement of the same curse of Egypt and Israel upon the Gentile, when the Children of Israel are restored to the land, and since this nation is the Head of the Gentile, it is apparent that any Curses held in reserve for this moment should now be released, on the proviso that:

Softening Hardened Hearts

Remember Leviathan, the King of the Children of Pride ? Is it not true that he is consumed by Wisdom [Truth]? Thus:

It is impossible to cherry-pick the Word of God and presume that one is spotless before Him who can see from heaven. Those who cast away God's bands and cords should be interpreted to include who toss away the bands and cords of the Tabernacle, a Tent held together with bands and cords which contained the Ark of the Covenant, as well as The Testimony of God. For we have clearly shown that the Tabernacle is a sign of the Glory [Wisdom!] of God in the Last Days, when the Children of Israel are restored to the Holy Land. Just as the Curse against Israel had a provision which said they would one day loathe themselves for their past wickedness (and thus repent), so too can we apply the same message to this nation who, by comparison to the Jews during Jesus' time, make those men appear as angels. Reverend Billy Graham is said to have complained that our nation is so evil God should apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps this is why Mr. Graham spent much of his ministry focusing in other parts of the world, as he may have given up on the redemption of this nation, the subject of which is taken up in Against Leviathan. Shortly we should hear this nation howling, causing us to reflect on the men of sin, for whom Origen has a reminder:

Seeing, however, that in this day and age there are few who have appreciation for one who communicates with them in Scripture-and realizing at once that there is no virtue left here which would provoke them to do good – I saw it appropriate to go ahead and throw what pearls I could carry on me to the pigs ( We speak in reference to Revelation 11.8, as you no doubt by now should suppose), knowing that someone should one day find them. The foundation for this exercise I found in the Oral Torah who offered the case that one thing about a Pearl is that no matter what filth it may be found in, it may be taken to the fountain and washed, and therefore always holds its beauty and value . As I mentioned before, was I surprised after all these years when someone strolling through the pig-pen – I speak of you, kind Sir – answered our Pearl!

The City within us

Origen began his treatise by expressing his intent to find the pearl, which no doubt alludes to the Parable of the Pearl in the Odes of Solomon, and other references to Wisdom as being pearls, as in Ecclesiasticus: the Wisdom of Sirach. With the Wisdom of God being equated to the Messiah, and the idea that the Body of Christ is as a building, and even a City of God. This leads to Revelation 21.21 where we behold the City of God built with Pearly Gates; and from this we can see how casting Pearls of Wisdom builds the Gates of Righteousness which can be seen as the Pearly Gates, the main entrance of which is where Saint Peter sits. Origen builds a foundation (upon the one Paul laid: I Cor. 3.9,10) which is later built upon in the Shepherd of Hermes. In the Shepherd of Hermes the body of Christ is seen as a White Building (the stones of which relate to the allegory of Virgins in white, dressed for their wedding); and in the Shepherd of Hermes there are two kinds of stones used. Keep in mind that the subject of that story was to show the faithful what the relationships of the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and the Son are to each other, that they all represent the act of building a House of Virtue out of mankind, which is what Origen was leading to in his First Principles. The carved stones, which fit easily in place, are those whose works are found to be worthy of the building. But those stones which were smooth all over were rejected and put into a pile until the building was near completion. Then the Lord's angels would sort through the smooth stones to see if there were any in the pile which could be squared and fit into the building. In this action, referring to that parable in the Shepherd of Hermes , and in consideration of the options discussed relative to Against Leviathan, one could be of a mind to conclude that there is not much sense even sorting through the pile of smooth stones, the bulk of which are the people of this nation. Our position, of course, is to continue sorting. Origen would agree:

The Word of God keeps rebuilding

What a wonderful mind Origen has. Again he confirms our position: that God does not abandon His Creation. As Origen noted earlier – and his remark was beautiful – God is long suffering and allows those who are like Pharaoh, of hardened heart, to be weighed down by their sins. Eventually they will get tired of being wicked, and this follows God's thesis of being long suffering, to which extent the advise of the Lord relative to redemption is: Blessed are those who wait upon the LORD, etc. This is an issue which I have trouble with, myself; as being a witness of the holocaust, I shouted up to heaven a thunderous cry (as there were also multitudes shouting with me), How could you have allowed this ?

The message in the Holocaust, which Origen and others seemed to believe in an allegorical sense, is that the Spirit of Burning keeps God's Word: in the light that it will bring forth the Spirit of Repentance.

Origen discounted the replicative nature of prophesy, doing in the future as it was in the days of the Solemn Sacrifice, etc., but the fact is this is the structure of prophesy and the proof of God, that you may know by the examples you have already witnessed.

We all wonder how the Germans – let's be candid, how the Western World – could have turned their faces from the persecutions of the Jews this century. This carries a lesson in it, for the prophesy of burning was joined to a place in the north called the place of the dragon, where the Jews would be served judgment. Looking at the matter altogether shows us the true nature of that beast: that he can strike again and easy it will be. And knowing this, how much this nation resembles that dragon and was, after a manner of speaking even one of its many heads, we can easily see the curse against the Gentile falling on that thing. As mentioned, at the head of the Heathen and the present heir of Rome, is this nation.

Preexisting Conditions and works

As I grieved over My People, so too do I grieve over this nation: for the Spirit of Judgment and the Spirit of Burning. And to coin Origen's phrase and applying it to our particular City, which we earlier compared to the Titanic, we warn without equivocation. But let us keep on with our direction, for Origen can lead us with regard to saving our City and Ship of State, how our works will save us:

So also in the journey of our life it is we who must expend labor and zeal and supply diligent toil, but the salvation which is the fruit of our labor we must look to receive from God. Otherwise, if God demands none of our work, the commandments will certainly appear to be superfluous; and it is in vain when Paul himself blames some who have fallen away from the truth and praises others for standing fast in the faith, and to no purpose when he also delivers certain precepts and directions to the churches; in vain, too, that we ourselves either will or run towards the good. But it is certain that these things do not happen in vain, and it is certain that the apostles do not deliver precepts in vain, nor does the Lord give laws to no purpose. It remains then for us to declare that the vanity lies rather with the heretics, when they give a false meaning to these good words.

The truth of this matter – of redemption based upon pre-existing conditions – is found in Genesis 27:

Then the scripture says Esau (who is also called Edom) hated Jacob because of the blessing which-let's not mince words-Jacob stole from him. But seeing as the prophesy of Esau would put him to trial first before all other children of Isaac, it follows that there must be some point in which they would be redeemed, having been purified, as it were, in their trial. The answer comes, When you hold the dominion, then you shall break the yoke of Jacob from off of your neck. The dominion--we speak of the dominion of God's Sanctuary which is Zion--has been occupied by Edomites and other Palestinians and, supposing that Edom should be redeemed at the same time as Jacob is redeemed, we treated those who hold the Temple Mount as Holy to God and entreated them to lead in the building of that House of Prayer for all men, which is the Temple. Let's be realistic: the prophets placed the Glory of God in the last days midst the Nations; and then declared that because of it all nations would come to worship in the Temple-that other House of Prayer. In Philistia Triumph Thou because of me we build upon this theme, of reconciling the Moslems and the Jews through the rebuilding of the House of Prayer for all people [Temple]. To do this, however, we need the cooperation of that other house of prayer in Rome which is called Saint Peter's Cathedral.

Now you may well feel at this point that you are being drug this way and that, in one direction and then another, when a conflict of thoughts arises in our heart and certain images are suggested to us which incline us now this way and now that and by which we stand at one time reproved and at another time self-approved [Origen, ibid III.4..4; see also Rom. 2.15]. If you feel this way, know that this is called Struggling with the Flesh .

The Flesh wars against the Spirit [ibid III.4.4 ] says Origen as he continues to build upon Paul's structure [Gal. 5.17], recognizing that we need some doctrine-which is what he endeavors to supply-which can keep us from being tempted so to retain our virtuous course, drawing upon the saying, The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God [Rom.8.7].

The Perfection of the Flesh is with the Wisdom [Glory] of God.You must humble yourself to receive God's Wisdom. When you do this you will witness shame, as Adam and Eve before you in the Garden.

Staying with the lesson in the Garden, recognizing the implications of Revelation 11.18, which defines the wicked in terms of those who desolate the earth, we realize that the concept of original sin upon which Paul justified his argument of faith versus works is now a mute point. That we are all sinners [from the womb] and fall short of the Glory of God because of Adam's fall begs the issue of God's Wisdom.

Origen also whittles away at this thesis:

The concept, friendship with the world is enmity with God, comes from the prophets through Jesus to Saint James:

Where it implies that the flesh is at enmity with God, it refers to God's Promises to Noah: that the LORD GOD will no longer curse the ground for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I smite any more everything living, as I have done [Gen. 8.21]. Because man's heart is evil, God must either reform man into His likeness! or destroy him. The likeness taught to man that he should imitiate includes: truthfulness, charity, mercy, and humility. A man humbled from the heights of pride to a lowly state is more often than not quick to adopt these principles. To this end the prophets lived, among whom we have Elijah, who taught us the precept that God provides for them who wait upon him. If you fast and debate on your salvation, you miss the point. You must wait upon Him, as in the Recreation of Heaven, God in His Wisdom supplies what you need. Often He sends your needs in the form of Messengers (Angels), as the one who wrestled with Jacob or the one of whom Moses wrote; and also, for those who scorn His Wisdom, the Two Angels whom He sent to Sodom: who witnessed that what God had heard as to the goings on in that place were true [Gen. 18.20-33]. It is no surprise that in Revelation 11.1-7 we see again the same Two Witnesses. We say they are the same because they carry the same Spirit of God, of judgment. In both judgments the people refuse to hear the Angels, and, despising what they say, attempt to kill them. In the case of Sodom, Lot, the nephew of Abraham, was there to protect them; in the vision of Revelation, there is no man to defend them. And thus we have argued our case of these times following that scenario, whereas we complained that there is no man....

Man likes to read scripture but few are willing to be kneaded by it. Jerome quotes Origen here, pointing out that the promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth would incorporate the original Promise*, following the thesis of Ecclesiastes:

The preacher's message in Ecclesiastes begins with these words and he then says:

Who hath not another to help Him

This brings us back to the complaint we brought up in Against Leviathan, that in this day and age it is every man for himself; woe unto this nation, for when anyone falls there is no man to help another back up. Even in the case of a sinking ship of state, mind you, there is not one to be found who will warn the passengers! And this is in spite of the fact that the Messiah had come and done what Origen says:

Persuasion by the Word of God can be done through his Holy Scriptures or Holy men of God; we believe that one should leave the application of the rod up to God and not think, as the false shepherds of the past, to apply it for him. For there is much vanity under the sun, of which we have testified.

The highest Good is to become as far as possible like God

This comes from Plato, Theaetetus, and Clement of Alexandria used it in Protrepticus 12 and Stromata 2; and it has been as seen herein a continuing theme of the Body of Christ, following the prayer of John 17.21-24. But here we must walk on the path of Wisdom a bit more to show:

Many men talk of being like God but few are willing to look upon the sorrow; and thus, we illustrate by means of our own conversation the limitations of men, how some are genuine in their love for Wisdom and others play at it after the manner of panderers in the courts of kings. We here recall that Lady in Scarlet Robes mentioned in Revelation 17, who rides over the seven stars of the Church.

After Truth comes Sorrow

Following the idea that with the knowledge of God is sorrow, we can combine this with a point Origen made:

You shall all come to know sorrow. Thus it has been said, This is what ye shall have of my hands: ye shall lay down in sorrow and we witness all Jerusalem in grief [Zechariah 12].

This will occur as men set an example of truth:

Whilst the balance of Origen's Book IV dwells upon the veil of the Old Testament and the theory of types and shadows and how the Jews missed God's concealed treasures [ibid IV.3.11] – to which we take exception as clearly illustrated – he does there bring out the Pearl, after a manner of speaking:

We know that the Pearl is the Messiah, and, being the Word or Wisdom of God, is not a substance, nor, as Origen puts in Book IV.4.2, not confined to any place, but nevertheless, it behooves us to try to walk as he walked [sic.]; see also 1 John 2.6.

The only way to walk as he walked is to obey his commandments, among which is to do the will of the Father, which includes that final day of praise for Jerusalem where the Tabernacle and the House of Prayer for all people are restored to their place. For the Will of God is best seen as a Will of Inheritance, and those who would walk with Him should claim their portion in it, and claiming it, thereby witness the Glory of God. For this cause, then, one should be knowledgeable of that Will [which is the burden of God] and, being informed of it, do it. So we seek those whom Origen--who perceived some of the Wisdom – describes as follows:

Among those whom we know who fill the criteria mentioned by Origen, we know there is the Watchman, whom, and whose purpose, we addressed in considerable detail.
Chief among the Watchmen should be the one who sits atop Saint Peter's Chair; and since he presumes to carry the Keys of the Kingdom, which our troop also shares, we wonder if we might impose upon his good will to bring a simple offering to Jerusalem?-the subject of which we have summarized in Part II of this work and detailed a bit more in Philistia Triumph Thou because of me.

In these steps let's not quibble over the Word of God but rather walk with it. May we prevail upon Saint Peter's Chair to re-order its conversation, so that it no longer contains the spirit of antiSemitism but more the hope and unity described in Clement's Epistles, who did not need to rail against anyone or the Law to promote what is good? In Clement's epistles (we use them by illustration but for the lack of space we would have quoted them) there is a spirit which we can build upon, and through which, by not condemning the Law, we can embrace the Jews and the Moslems in a Unity of One. This, I think, is a fair thing to ask, that the antiSemitism of Paul be removed from the Gospel.

By this presence we hope that you can accept our ladder as a bridge by which many may cross over--as it were--the Jordan. Raising such a bridge can cover a multitude of sins, of which the Catholic Church has brought to its account some murky waters.

We have added to our troop the scholars of the church mentioned herein, trusting that we have justly maintained their context; and, whilst reasoning with you, doing the same with them. To this end, then, we believe we have treated them fairly-though we would have quoted them more were we able to impose more upon your patience-and to this end we hope you will amicably receive this suport of our aims in Against Leviathan .

You must agree that the key to our salvation is in the precept that the Wisdom of God is the Messiah; and that wisdom has an eternal nature to it-as its issue is always the same, to defend the poor and the afflicted among us, to which effort we are needful of your shoulders. You will find in this a divine sense [Prov.2.5]; and by this, the spiritual things we ask you to query (well within your means), are not of bodily senses-to which man frequently succumbs, being prevented by material reasons-but by some other which God calls divine.

I cannot forget my reason (which begets Mercy) to the homeless, nor can we turn from those who suffer from the jealousies of religion and their murderous frenzies-such frenzies will escalate: witness the massacre of the many innocent souls at prayer in the Mosque in Hebron, and then the shooting in New York-souls we might have saved and them that follow...

By this presence, of the need for good works, keeping in mind the leaven, with the Pharaoh's burden, we humbly submit ourself to your mercy-hoping in defense of these matters you will reply-and remain,

Sincerely yours,

M

Part III
An appeal
to Saint Peter's Chair

Pope John Paul II
The Vatican

Dear Pope John Paul II,

We sent this letter by way of Christ's messengers and hope that it finds you in good health. We know we have caught you in your twilight years, and, fearing that when you pass away you may leave some important things undone, we feel here a sense of urgency to reach your Holiness.

Each person who sat in Saint Peter's Chair has dealt with the seasons in a different way. Your person has had the most important seat in the House of God, since it was during your tenure that the Children of Israel were restored to their Promised Land; and you not only witnessed this event but also the burnt offering which preceded it. You also witnessed the greatest period of falling away from the Church: many churches are crumbling from old age, lack of priests, unattendance, then abandoned, leaving many more added to our list of the fatherless.

Just as a person suffers from the decay of old age, so too does the Body of Christ, as explained earlier in this text and our appendixes.

As the body ages and comes to decay-through all kinds of illnesses- so also goes its mind. Jerome said it so well:

Old age bears all, even the mind, away [Jerome, Letter #52 ].

Father of the fatherless

We reflect upon your past good works and current concern over the tribulations which now shake our world (we are like women in travail with our hands on our knees); your stand relative to the tragedy of Bosnia gives hope to all who weep for the poor, the afflicted, and the fatherless growing everywhere among us. Here, in America, most of the children are fatherless, being abandoned through divorce and unwed relationships. Throughout the world, for the same and other reasons, including war, we see more fatherless. So you, papa, have held your tenure during a period which lacked fathers more than any other. I know this well, being a War Baby myself and made fatherless, and am also a father of a little girl who also is fatherless. So hear me, papa , I know the cries of the fatherless.

The world too suffers from the same ills that attend old age: an old world is passing by and, whilst harboring the birth of a New Heavens and a New Earth (confuse not our portion with the New Age claims), it seems that the old world will not itself retire without meeting more bloodshed. We speak of the many bitter feuds inherited from the world past: Moslem against Jew; Christian against Moslem; and Moslems and Christians against Jews. In these conflicts, we can all agree, there has been no Salvation in the earth. Rather than Salvation the conflict of one religion over another has brought damnation to the earth. We speak of desolation and call to your attention the concern of Revelation 11.18 mentioned earlier herein.

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You cannot stop wars of the flesh, though you may inhibit them, but you can mitigate, or even end, the wars over the Holy Spirit which have taken great toll over the centuries. As all of those within our purview call themselves the Children of Abraham, it behooves us to spend a few moments examining ways to get them together, as was promised to the Heirs, which the prophets and their scholars agreed should occur when the Children of Israel are restored to the Holy Land.

Writing from the Heirs

We write from the Heirs' point of view, and we hope you will humor us to the extent that you will respond to this letter's desire: a Unity among men and no less than that Unity Promised to Abraham long ago. We write to you because it was your church who first claimed that Catholic Cause.

If you consider our inheritance promised long ago to Abraham, that it brought a blessing to the earth – not desolation as now so well accommodated by the governors of men – we know that we can bring you to a point of view which facilitates reconciliation of the diverse opinions and beliefs which arm men.

Disarmament

We know you will agree that it has not been the intention of God to arm men but rather to disarm them. If you will give us your Mind and Temperance, we can show you in a few words how work to this end can be more effectively achieved- not through the aged criteria of the past-but that offered in the Bible and described in part here.
A Large Troop behind us

We have included material in our work which explains the views of a large troop of sages, saints, and prophets-Jesus among them--who support our position. For your benefit we added Clement, Ignatius, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Jerome and other Fathers of the Church. Let us begin with a few criteria upon which they all agree.

Doctrines which limit God and also other images carved to imitate Him are idols. All of those who are in my troop confirm that even a doctrine can be like an idol. Idols are distinguished by virtue of the fact that they place a limitation on God, of whom all of the souls in our troop say is ineffable. God is One, they all say: God is all in all. A doctrine which limits God is illustrated in the idea of the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul gave the Holy Scriptures that name, Old Testament. By calling the Witness of God, Old and therefore abolished [II Corinthians 3.13 et al], Paul placed a limitation on God to the effect that He cannot keep His Word. To this extent our troop will confirm that Paul was wrong in many of his presumptions upon God. The Church that followed him is also wrong in having accepted those limitations.

Murders over doctrinal disputes

We witness, for example, the long argued Iconoclastic conflicts in the early days of the church. All of these arguments were over doctrine and quite definitely served more to distract from the ineffable nature of God than to help us commune with Him better. Over this one doctrine millions upon millions of people were – and continue to be – murdered.

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Central to the controversy is now the Koran , which took the side of the Iconoclasts and adhering to their doctrine persecuted themselves those who "worshipped idols". From their point of view the Catholic Church still worships idols. While this rather unfortunate dispute brewed, another doctrine, the Nicene Creed, added more heat to the fire, as discussed in part herein. Upon the adoption of the Holy Trinity there were then in the fourth century A.D. as many murders over the Trinity as now.

Whenever a sect goes to war with another in dispute over the image of God--with one forcing the image of God on another--it is murder. For there is no man who can describe the image of God, either through doctrine or a chisel.

Here we agree with Tertullian, the early prophets, and others, who pointed out that doctrines can set up false images which are no less idol worship than the stones in which many of those images are cast.

The Cure: taking a fresh look at God

When a man is dying from those things which take advantage of old age, sometimes he can be given a New Spirit, a breath of New Life, and return to the blessing of life with the same vigor of youth as before. Because God sees all things, and nothing can be hidden from his view-most certainly the perceptions in this work-often His Cures are different from those the Vain Human Mind contemplates. If you will give us your attention we should be able to inspire to this indifferent and murderous world a Cure He long ago contemplated, which, if it would be good for the world, so too would it be good for the Catholic Church; and being good for them, no doubt it would also help to Cure my own nation, America, of its ills. The Cure of which we speak redirects the attention of the world from its petty internecine brawls-mostly caused by politicians-back to the original idea behind the Christian and Holy Catholic Church. For the original idea behind the Christian Church was to spread the teachings of Jesus the Messiah to the ends of the earth-which commission has been accomplished on several occasions; and we learned that the way to spread the Gospel of the Messiah was through loving one another [sic. The Golden Rule].

Honoring the Word

The Word initially perceived by the early Nazarene Church was that they must follow the Teachings of Jesus the Messiah and these reduce down to obeying the Golden Rule. Thus, we are continually reminded of his principal commandment: that you love one another as he loved you; by this way others will know that you are His disciples, that you love one another. Before his crucifixion, His Gospel and Keys to His Kingdom were entrusted to the care of Saint Peter.

Many fought over the Cathedra of St. Peter, too many sects to list but some we discussed here in part. We must also include among all the sects following Saint Peter--who honored the Law of Moses and Jesus the Messiah--the Moslems, based upon the following:

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Koran, The Table 5:44..After those prophets we sent forth Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the Torah already revealed, and gave him the Gospel, in which there is guidance and light, corroborating that which was revealed before it in the Torah, a guide and an admonition to the righteous.

This is a good argument: Jesus confirmed and corroborated the Torah, the Law of Moses, which is the Gospel St. Peter and St. James taught, as evidenced in their epistles.

Jesus is the Messiah in the Koran:

Koran, IMRANS 3:45 The angels said to Mary: "Allah bids you rejoice in a Word from Him. His name is the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary..

Here we have God confirming in the Koran that Jesus is a Word from Him. And that His Name is the Messiah. The only way to read the Messiah is, of course, as The Word of God. The prophesies illustrate His times and members. Except for the prophesies of The Word, we have no image of it.

Not Fighting over images. We can call The Word the Son of God or The Mighty God. But what does this say? What kind of image do you have in your mind concerning this thing? What does God look like? How does the image of God differ from a prophet of God? or David? or Moses? Behold, the Messiah was created as another Moses, even as that prophet of whom Moses spake whom Jesus said He was:

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Deuteronomy 18.15-18.18 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken..and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
18.19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Shocking! Jesus not only claimed this title, He used the epithet, saying, that He speaks only what the father had commanded Him-and this includes what was prophesied of Him: that which He would say and do.
Coupled with Him is the Angel mentioned in the Torah:

Exodus 23.20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
23.21 Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My Name is in Him.

This character has been further defined as The Word of God . We are told that He knows the secrets of men, to which end we now call your attention, for it presumes that men in the Last Days will have many dark secrets they might prefer to hide, and He will expose them. Some of these secrets are easy to expose.

Shocking names

Let's, for the sake of argument, refer to the part of the Koran, what it viewed as the image of The Word of God and how it concluded that the image of God will shock you (as it did Moses). An Arab, when in shock, uses the exclamation, Allah!; and thus the Koran refers to God by this name. A more passive but no less shocking name for it is JHVH, I am that I am. How it got to be that thing is a process which can only be described as ineffable. Yet, it says that in the Latter Days all men will know Him and bow down to Him. How you will come to know Him, all the sages and prophets agree, is through His Wisdom. Now Wisdom teaches us (because Wisdom is pregnant, like leaven, continuously growing "to expose all secrets", as Jesus said) that all those murders which have been going on to put an image on Him have been to no avail, which we hope to persuade you if you will walk with us for awhile.

The True Body of Christ

The Church, being called the Body of Christ, cannot reflect any image which is not already in the Messiah. That is to say, whatever is in the members of the Messiah, the Body of Christ must agree upon and reflect. If, for instance, a member of the Messiah is to make the Law Honorable or rebuild the Temple--which is true, as illustrated herein--then it must support both the desire of making the Law Honorable and the restoration of the Temple--the end of which is our purpose with you. To this end, then, all the murders which were accomplished over doctrine which had nothing to do with training the Body of Christ to support the Messiah's Works with good conscience, in the Last Days was to no avail. They died for vanity's sake and not for God's.

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An Abishag for an Aging Church

I append by reference a group of letters between myself and the honorable William F. Buckley Jr. (a Catholic of world renown) which further examine the argument we express. I thus refer you to those letters and their associated documents for the history behind the presence we set before you now.

History is on our Side

Most governors and their nations think they will live forever. But more often than not in the fullness of time the towers they built to their own vanity become hidden under the furrows of the plowman, and the doctrines which once raised the ruined towers become forgotten.

Doctrines and the towers that are built to defend them suffer the same pains of age as the flesh. After a time they become slow to act and finally witless and easily overcome by attacks from either within or without. So it is that we can say to you that to meet today's needs one must not search for answers in the aged and dying doctrines (no man will contest that the Catholic Church is dying) but rather we must search for other answers.

Disregard for our Heirs

There are, and always have been, old men who refused to let go of the things of this world, even to the end, and bitterly complained all the way to their tomb: not willing to let go of their earthly possessions, hoping even that they would even take them into their tombs. Little good have their gold and silver treasures done them, and soon tomb robbers and the worms take their fill of what is left. David put it so well: once in the tomb you can no longer cry out against evil.

High Towers--or institutions of governments of all kinds--refuse to believe that they can suffer the same end as a corpse. Go to the valley of Kidron and look at the tombs on its sides, on the Mt. of Olives, that have been emptied and are in disarray. The capstones are tossed aside and broken and the only thing in the carefully chiselled sarcophagi are those creatures which live in the soil of the earth. And those who built the tombs and once put flowers over them and grieved over them are long since gone and forgotten.

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A Lesson in the Virgin

Compare the Church to the aging David--whose tomb is also lost--for a moment, and reflect upon Jerome's letter to Nepotianus, where he comments on the relationships we are about to discover, so to encourage you to explore new paths which are yet Old but still relevant in the Holy Scriptures.

As David lay dying, his blood had chilled such that no one could keep him warm. Finally a virgin, named Abishag, the Shunamite, was brought in to him and she kept him warm until he passed away.

Old Age does chill the blood in many more ways than we can express here. But one way in which old age chills is perhaps best expressed in the saying,

The body is strong but the Spirit is weak

Too often we find-even in our youth, mind you!-a coldness come over us, where our Spirit is too weak to do good. This has effected our world, partly due to a dying Catholic and Holy Church, and partly due to the denial of the Virgin of Wisdom [re: Ecclus 6.19.], a field for whom the past had more esteem, and which is now cultivated by the politics of the flesh.

We call Wisdom a Virgin--for she never ages and is always faithful to Truth, which is God--and thus we here intercede on her behalf to show you how she can bring warmth to not only you in your last years but also, should you take her beside you, to the world. For we know that in warming your aging flesh we will warm also a cold, bitter world.

This idea is not a new one. Isaiah 7.14 picked up on it, as it would appear, to announce the Messiah who would be born of a Virgin who, like Abishag, would bring warmth to a chillingly cold world. And it is because of this Sign, whose appearance was prophesied to be at the time Israel is scattered to all the nations of the world (Isaiah 7.14-7.24), that we can now note for edification, and also the direction of our argument, that the time of the Virgin has passed, as Israel has been restored to the map once again, as Promised. It has been two days since the diaspora, as Hosea said it would be, until the scattered remnant of Israel are revived, to wit:

Hosea 6.1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
6.2 After two days will he revive us:

Thus, we know it is time for you to act.

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Surely the Children of Israel were torn and smitten-much through the actions of the Catholic Church we regret to say-but now they have been revived and put back upon the land which was long ago promised them. And this was done even under the marvelous circumstances of having been despised and scattered from one nation to another to all corners of the world. You, Sir, have witnessed this with us.

The Gulf

Between you and me, Sir, is a wide gulf. But I am a book which easily bridges seas; and I know the space between us is bridged when I am taken to heart; then I, as Abishag, shall give warmth to your aching frame.

I mention this gulf between us because you reign from a great height which is difficult for me to touch. Sensing you may wish to leave behind you unresolved the perplexing problems we have discussed, causing more unrest, though they are in your capacity to resolve, we bring these judgments now to your bed:

The dispute between the Koran and the Holy See, you can resolve;
The dispute between the Jews and the Christian Community, you can resolve;
The dispute between the Christian Community and the Jews and the Koran you can, thus, resolve.

The Cathedra of St. Peter

You, Sir, are seated on the Chair of St. Peter, yet those who have occupied that chair since and including Ignatius have not accepted the precepts of St. Peter. We speak of the argument of faith versus works which Paul introduced to the Jerusalem Church. May it suffice to say that I, as a disciple of St. Peter and St. James, have been, as it were, left out in the cold by your Chair; and I know that if you can satisfy me, you will also feed those others who honor the Law of Moses of whom we have just mentioned: which includes the Jews and the Moslems. This is a good light I would put on you if you will receive it, and should you gaze upon the light from our direction, you will see that opening the doors of the aging Catholic Church to them who share the views held by St. Peter and St. James, and the other apostles of the poor Church of Jerusalem, could heal a lot of wounds.

Though I may be the only living disciple of St. Peter and St. James, who has recently written on this matter, there may be others who sympathize with this need.

A Simple Request

We ask that when the epistles of Paul are taught, they are introduced with a warning label to wit: that they have been the source of the holocaust and many other persecutions too numerous to list here. Furthermore, The Cathedra of St. Peter should offer space within its chambers where followers akin to St. Peter's and St. James' ministry may worship.

Pogroms against the Law prevent access St. Peters Church to those who honor the Law. St. Peter and St. James would never have approved any of the persecutions of the Jews or the Pauline declamations against the Law of Moses. We should also be able to agree (we have many Church Fathers who would agree with us) that the idols which pervade the chambers of St. Peter's Church would be seen as idols by St. Peter and St. James. We know, however, that there is no harm in images so long as they are not worshipped, knowing that the Word of God has no Image, except words.

Restoration

Within the pages of His book is a promise that all men will be reconciled to God one day. We speak of His Wisdom [Glory], including:

The restoration of the Tabernacle
The restoration of the Temple

The Catholic Church is at an unusual crossroad in its aged history, for now it is being faced with the issue whether to support the Promises identified above, of which we note that the Second Coming of Messiah must support, to wit:

The Temple was designed as a House of Prayer for all men . Whilst we thought it could be nice to have a minaret at Saint Peter's Cathedral, where a Mullah could call the faithful to prayer in many tongues, we nevertheless realized that the presence of the artwork within Saint Peters would become a source of distraction to both the Moslems and the Jews.

The Great White Elephant

A Great White Elephant carrying a small engraving, nearby the Church, might dispel any apprehensions of other Iconoclasts:

The LORD GOD is One:
The Parable of the
Great White Elephant

If you would explore satisfying us on these matters aforementioned: 1) of making room for us, who would make the Law honorable, in Saint Peter's, knowing that all those who worship in its Chambers shall be Holy to God; and 2) provide spiritual support to the restoration of the Tabernacle and our Universal House of Prayer (Temple of Jerusalem)-hoping that you might plead those preferences for our House of Prayer outlined here and 3) the exclusion of the portion of the Apostle Paul's antiSemitic teachings from your pulpit, then we believe a New Spirit can be seen in the world from which the Catholic Church would receive new vigor.

By this presence we believe that the Promised House of Prayer for all people may be raised without sacrifice and without the exclusionary representations seen in the other "houses of God."

However you leave this world, you must leave it in good conscience. At the seat of your faith is a chair and a throne upon which the burden of salvation was placed. We think you will agree, that as Paul railed against the Law of Moses (in neglect of the inheritance of that House of Prayer for which we, the Heirs, have been waiting), had he been told that his castigations would lead to the persecution and holocaust of the six million Jews of our time, he should have altered his teaching, how the Jews had been abandoned by God and their Law abolished. We know that the Spirit of the Law would never have told Paul to teach a doctrine which would produce so much suffering and bloodshed...

We also speak in the Spirit of the Law but, unlike Paul, we do not allow that the Law itself should be a burden to any person. God forbid that a man should be condemned because he would try to do his part in honoring the Torah.

You are our Witness

The Gospel Paul taught became a doctrine not of good will but of malice to all those who did not obey it; and sometimes from one eon to another, what was accepted by one council of presbyters was denied by another, and so on through these past eighteen hundred years. Surely, because of the abundance of the contradictions, which continue to this day, you will agree that if the Holy Spirit was guiding the Church it was obviously absent upon occasion. Whilst all laws are created to instill good conscience, doctrines do not always achieve this end, and through age and the revelation of those dark secrets which men think can be hidden, the seat of the doctrine becomes as a city under siege. For, like cities, doctrines are created by men, subject to neglect and corruption; men drink and are merry, allowing their crops to fail, and then horsemen appear on their border. As the men drunk on their own vintages try to defend them, as inebriated soldiers roused from their stupor at the sound of the trumpet, they make a last, desperate attempt to defend their weak and crumbling walls. But this is vanity, and anyone who would come to such a city which is drunk on its own vintage would tell them that what their forefathers took such great care to build they left in jeopardy.

We do not ask you to abandon your faith, but to abandon those things which are in it which pretend to judge for God, as to who should be thrown into the pit and who should not. This is a small thing to ask, and we would hope that those within the sound of our voice will allow God to defend His Judgments. History will bear us out, that the doctrines of which we have complained-who would murder for God-have not led to Salvation but to the pit. Those who were pierced by those doctrines ended up in huge, blood-drenched pits; the pastors who led them now wear robes stained by that blood.

There is a faith in God, of which we spoke, which looks to the fulfillment of a rather lengthy and detailed Promise to both Jew and Gentile. It does not speak of torture and murder so to save Souls for heaven, but rather the resurrection of the flesh to a Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. It does not place the Judgment Seat of God at the head of thieves and murderers, but rather at the head of men who feed the poor and attend to the afflicted among us, who say by their presence in good works that God Reigneth.

Robbery for Burnt Offering

God has stated in Isaiah that he hates robbery for burnt offering. In many ways the church, and other faiths which source themselves from the Holy Scriptures, have wandered from the path, and though they gave up burnt offerings they tried to rob Him of His ability to fulfill His Promise to Israel.

When it is time for Promises to be fulfilled-for as Origen says each has its time-what must Christ think if he sees what we have seen and knows what we have known; or how too can we plead, knowing it time to restore the House of prayer, that we should let another do it?

We come to you as Zerubbabel, in the sense that Zerubbabel justified the return of the Children of Israel from their captivity of seventy years, and restoration of the Temple, by opening before Cyrus the pages of a book.

Sometimes men are confused between the will of the flesh and the will of God. Know that my flesh is in your hand, for those who know me can testify that the Spirit of my flesh exists only in a book. And my spirit is the spirit of many, an enormous troop. How could you be against me?

I fear that I shall not obtain your audience, as your chambers are far from me, but your Chair in time I will reach. And whilst I know that I may not reach you before you are taken to your tomb--where once in it your soul cannot save--I am comforted in knowing that the troop of saints and prophets with me are set in such precision that these writings can easily be recreated. For they are a progression, as a ladder, and each step a beam of light. Behold this marvel, from one age to another, we return again and again. Have not the heart of a fool which is like a broken dish [Ecclus. 21.14]-and accept this Abishag, who courts the aghast stares of aeons, as a mariner does the deep.

We defer to your judgment, the Chair of Saint Peter, knowing that in Saint Peter many may be justified.

We know that what we have asked of you is what Christ Himself--who knows the issues of this book- -would require. Ready to answer any questions and support any effort to this end, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

M

On The Breakage of the Holy Catholic Church (Continued) by Mel West

The subjection of Kings – Ambrose and the Trinity

A good Conscience

Drawing a line in the sand

Touching the poor is the same as touching God

Their heart is far from me

The author of Salvation

On Judgment

On governing

A lesson on Humility – St.Jerome

Separate Tables but United?

That ye all may be Christs

Marriage to God

Wisdom is the Eternal Essence of God

How the lack of Wisdom – or forgetting the First Principles – brings death.

Answering the call to Salvation is a light thing indeed

Cup of Poison

First Principles – Origen

The Soul of God

Strife and Debate

Filling the Vessel with Righteousness, or Good

Judging the Poor

From Judgment to Redemption

The cause of Israel's Diaspora

The Trope turned on the Gentile

Softening Hardened Hearts

The City within us

The Word of God keeps rebuilding

Preexisting Conditions and works

Who hath not another to help Him

The highest Good is to become as far as possible like God

After Truth comes Sorrow

Part III An appeal to Saint Peter's Chair

Part III An appeal to Saint Peter's Chair

Father of the fatherless

Writing from the Heirs

Disarmament

Murders over doctrinal disputes

The Cure: taking a fresh look at God

Honoring the Word

Shocking names

The True Body of Christ

An Abishag for an Aging Church

History is on our Side

Disregard for our Heirs

A Lesson in the Virgin

The Gulf

The Cathedra of St. Peter

A Simple Request

Restoration

The Great White Elephant

The LORD GOD is One: The Parable of the Great White Elephant

You are our Witness

Robbery for Burnt Offering

On The Breakage of
the Holy Catholic Church
(Continued)

by Mel West

Part III
An appeal
to Saint Peter's Chair

Part III
An appeal
to Saint Peter's Chair

The LORD GOD is One:
The Parable of the
Great White Elephant