tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20143573577775044422023-11-15T23:08:20.525-08:00GospelofChrist Bringing the Good NewsIn the last days we have to be careful so that we don`t give heed to deceptive doctrines and movements sweeping all over the world, because hard times will come, and many will be deceived.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God is the only one who can give you true repentance, forgiveness and power to overcome the world. John Wesley
2Pe 2:2 The way of truth will be evil spoken of - By those who blend all false and true Christians together.GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-70808168403044871342017-08-08T00:07:00.001-07:002017-08-08T00:07:30.211-07:00The J.C. Ryle Archive : Discerning the True and the False Christian<a href="http://www.jcryle.info/2017/08/discerning-true-and-false-christian.html?spref=bl">The J.C. Ryle Archive : Discerning the True and the False Christian</a>: How should you know who are true Christians, if following Christ was the way to be free from trouble? How should we discern the wheat from...GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-82185345989884501472016-07-17T11:18:00.001-07:002016-07-17T11:18:38.101-07:00Pakistan: Muslims chop off Christian’s arms after he refuses to convert to Islam<a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/07/pakistan-muslims-chop-off-christians-arms-after-he-refuses-to-convert-to-islam">Pakistan: Muslims chop off Christian’s arms after he refuses to convert to Islam</a>GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-78609124840329300272016-02-25T06:33:00.003-08:002016-02-25T06:33:58.118-08:00David Wilkerson TAG ER I AKT FÖR VARGARNA I KYRKAN<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>ATT VAKTA FÅREN: TAG ER I AKT FÖR VARGARNA I KYRKAN</b></div>
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<b>av David Wilkerson </b></div>
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Då Paulus var på väg till Jerusalem i Apostlagärningarna kapitel 20, stannar han i Efesus. Där kallar han samman alla kyrkans ledare till ett särskilt möte. Allvarligt talade han till de troende från Efesus: "Och se, jag vet nu att ni inte mer kommer att se mitt ansikte, alla ni som jag har gått omkring hos och predikat riket för.” Apg.20:25. <br />
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Så gav Paulus sitt sista budskap till efeserna. Han sa till dem: "Jag har varit samman med er tidigare, och ni vet vad jag står för. Jag har tjänat er i ödmjukhet och med tårar. Jag har predikat ordet i er kyrka, och från hus till hus. Jag har gjort det hela under stora prövningar och förföljelse. Och jag har inte hållit tillbaka något för er." Så med tårar gav han dem denna nyktra varning: "Håll er därför vakna och kom ihåg att jag ständigt i tre års tid natt och dag har varnat var och en under tårar.” (Se Apg. 20:31).<br />
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Vad var det Paulus såg komma? Vad fyllde honom med en sådan sorg, att han ville tillbringa tre år med att gråta över denna kyrka? Vilken kommande tragedi hade han varnat dem för så många gånger, både offentligt och privat, i deras kyrka och i deras hem? Vilket problem kunde skaka denna bedjande, heliga man så djupt?<br />
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Paulus bekymmer rörde sig inte om ett utbrott av begär, eller äktenskapsbrott, eller skilsmässa, eller fylleri. Hans varningar var inte om kommande förföljelser från samhället eller regeringens begränsningar på dem. Han varnade dem inte för ett utbrott av fördärv, eller homosexualitet från predikstolen, eller tecken på moraliskt förfall, eller arbetslöshet och fattigdom, eller terrorism och krig.<br />
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Kort sagt, Paulus varningar rörde sig inte om det kaos, som förekom utanför kyrkdörrarna. Nej, Paulus sörjde över, vad han såg skulle komma innanför murarna i Guds hus. Han varnade efesierna för det, han förutsåg vad som skulle komma över prästämbetet, över herdarna i synnerhet. Och dessa varningar var om de ödeläggelser som skulle komma med bedragares händer, och som skulle översvämma kyrkan.<br />
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<b>I sitt sista budskap, var Paulus uppmärksamhet inte riktat på kyrkans tillväxt, eller prästers personliga kamp, eller troendes prövningar och frestelser. Nej, Paulus djupa hjärtesak var, "Ge akt på er själva och på hela den hjord som den helige Ande har satt er som ledare över, till att vara herdar i Guds församling som han har köpt med sitt eget blod." (Apg.20:28). Med andra ord: "Ni tillsynsmän, ni biskopar, ni ledare - ge er hjord föda, för att förbereda dem. Fyll dem med Guds rena ord. …"Jag vet att när jag har lämnat er, skall rovlystna vargar komma in bland er, och de skall inte skona hjorden." "Ja, ur er egen krets skall män träda fram och förvränga sanningen för att dra lärjungarna över på sin sida. Håll er därför vakna… (Apg. 20: 29-31).</b><br />
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Den punkt som Paulus påpekade för dem var, "Just nu är ni en välsignad kyrka. Ni är trofasta, en kraftfullt troende Kristi kropp. Ni har ett starkt fundament." Kristus skulle också senare i Johannes Uppenbarelse säga det här om efesierna: "Jag känner dina gärningar, ditt arbete och din uthållighet, och jag vet att du inte kan tåla onda människor. Du har prövat dem som kallar sig apostlar men inte är det, och du har funnit att de är lögnare." (Upp 2:2).<br />
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Och dock med avseende på Paulus, "Så välsignade ni är, men er kyrka ska inte bli skonad, med mindre ni ger akt på mina varningar. Ni kommer att se ett ogudaktigt, fördärvat prästerskap uppstå och göra denna flock till en handelsvara. Kristus gav efesierna samma varning. I Uppenbarelseboken kap. 2, vers 4: "…du har övergett din första kärlek. Tänk på varifrån du har fallit, och omvänd dig och gör dina första gärningar. Annars, om du inte omvänder dig, skall jag komma över dig och flytta din ljusstake från sin plats."<br />
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Hur kom det sig att dessa troende från Efesus förlorade sin första kärlek? På vilket sätt blir en kyrka död? Det skedde helt klart för att deras präster och ledare inte vaktade fåren. De var inte omsorgsfulla utan lät vargar få tillgång till flocken. Då dessa vargar kom in, uppslukade de fåren, de sparade dem inte.<br />
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Kort sagt infiltrerade ett förvrängt evangelium kyrkan, och fel kom att inläras. Snart blev renhjärtade troende förda vilse genom ett förfärligt bedragande. I åratal hade denna trofasta kyrka varit noggrann med att bedöma vad som var evangelium, och vad som var av köttet. Men nu hade samma troende blivit ledda in i ett lätt evangelium som tillfredsställde köttet, och de blev dragna bort från Kristus.<br />
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I dag är Paulus borta och vargarna och de som fördärvar har kommit in<br />
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<b>Dessa vargar och fördärvare har invaderat Guds hus. Och de bedrar präster och församlingar över hela världen. Överallt där jag reser ser jag förhärdade predikanter splittra hjorden och sprida ut fåren.</b><br />
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Jesus varnade också för deras kommande: "Akta er för de falska profeterna, som kommer till er klädda som får, men i sitt inre är rovlystna vargar.” (Matt. 7:15). Med avseende på Kristus, ska glupska predikanter och lärare komma klädda som Guds får. De ska uppträda som ljusets änglar, och de har kommit för att om möjligt bedra till och med de utvalda. 90 % av vad de säger liknar det sanna evangeliet, men de använder Guds Ord, som en kappa över sitt bedrägeri.<br />
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<b>Profeten Hesekiel talar om dessa vargar, att där är en sammansvärjning av hennes profeter i deras egen mitt: "De profeter som finns där har sammansvurit sig och blivit som rytande, rovgiriga lejon; de slukar människor, de roffar åt sig gods och dyrbarheter och gör många till änkor i landet. Prästerna kränker min lag och vanhelgar mina heliga ting. De skiljer inte mellan heligt och oheligt och undervisar inte om skillnaden mellan rent och orent. De blundar för mina sabbater, och så blir jag vanhelgad mitt ibland dem. Furstarna i mitt folk är som rovgiriga vargar. De utgjuter blod och förgör människor för att skaffa sig orättfärdig vinning. Den nödställde och fattige förtrycker de…" (Hesekiel 22:25-27-28-29).</b><br />
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Visa mig en predikant som aldrig avslöjar synd - som aldrig visar människor skillnaden mellan det heliga och världsliga, som inte talar om omvändelse eller dom, utan i stället säger att Gud önskar att göra dig rik och ge dig framgång -<b> ja, jag vill kalla en sådan man för det han är, han är en varg.</b> Och han har utskiftat korset med kontanter. Låt mig beskriva en sådan modern varg av i dag. Mannen, jag tänker på, är en av de bättre kända framgångspredikanterna i Amerika. För några veckor sedan ljöd hans budskap: "Ni har hört om Jesu kommande. Ni har hört, att han kan vända tillbaka när som helst. Jag säger er, det är omöjligt. Han kan inte komma, förrän ni har framgång - förrän ni har en fin bil, förrän ni har ett hus som ni drömmer om. Han kan helt enkelt inte komma, förrän det sker."<br />
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Nyligen såg jag en video, den var sänd till mig från en framgångskonferens. På den slogs denna teologi fast: "Finn den mest välstående predikant som ni känner till och ge honom pengar. Hans välsignelse ska så flyta in i er."<br />
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En framgångspredikant stod på plattformen och beskrev sina bilar, sin flygmaskin, sitt hus, sina diamanter och en hund som han hade köpt för 15.000 dollars. Han förklarade: "Jag vill bygga ett hus, som Salomo skulle vara stolt över. Och när folk i min stad ser mitt hus och min Rolls Royce, så skall de veta, att där är en Gud i himlen".<br />
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Medan han talade, vandrade folk upp och proppade pengar i hans fickor. Andra gick fram och lade pengar på scenen. Åter andra kastade pengar till honom. Så började en sång, den heter "Spring efter pengar". Några låg slagna till marken, medan andra sprang runt i salen, medan de sjöng "Spring efter pengar".<br />
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Ni älskade, det chockerar och förbluffar mig, hur bibeltroende pastorer och kristna kan bli så bedragna. Även i vår kyrka är där några medlemmar, som har delat ut band med budskap av den varg, som undervisar, att "Jesus inte kan komma förrän ni är rika." Vilken förfärlig hädelse! Jesus sade själv, att vi skulle förvänta och spana efter hans tillkommelse, och att han skulle komma plötsligt som en blixt, när vi minst väntade honom.<br />
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Åh, hur blind kyrkan har blivit! Och vad många herdar är blinda nu. Kyrkor, som en gång trodde på offrandet, självförnekelse och att bära sitt kors har blivit korrumperade av köttet. Deras fokus är nu helt och hållet på sitt ego, på materiella ting, på det goda livet, inte på det heliga livet.<br />
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Profeten Jeremia beskriver vargarna som kommer, att de är "Som en bur full av fåglar, så är deras hus fulla av svek. Därför har de blivit feta och skinande. Deras onda gärningar vet inte av någon gräns, de dömer inte rättvist, de verkar inte för den faderslöses sak och hjälper inte den fattige att få sin rätt. Skulle jag inte straffa dem för sådant? Säger Herren. Skulle inte jag hämnas på ett hednafolk som detta? Förfärliga och fruktansvärda ting sker i landet. Profeterna profeterar lögn, och prästerna styr efter deras råd. Så vill mitt folk ha det. Men vad ska ni göra då slutet på detta kommer?" (Jeremia 5:27-31).<br />
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Enligt Jeremia skapar dessa vargar sina förmögenheter på ryggen av de fattiga och behövande. En prominent, känd evangelist säljer "helande för cancer" för $1.000. För $500 kan vem som helst komma fram och få förbön för vilken som helst sjukdom. Men förbön för cancer kostar $1.000.<br />
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Det är alltsammans en stank i Guds näsborrar. Och han låter mig säga till dig, hur det slutar: Vi tjänar en tålmodig Gud, som inte vill ödelägga eller döma någon, som ovetande har blivit indragen i en fälla. Han vill varna och korrigera sina får. Men den dag kommer, när han ska säga till dessa vargar: "Nu är det nog! Ni skall inte längre utplundra änkor. Ni skall inte längre tillåtas att använda min Sons blod som en intäktskälla för att tillfredsställa ert begär. Ni skall inte längre tillåtas att resa runt i hela världen och predika en materialistisk Kristus. Jag ska göra det således, att ni går i konkurs och varenda varg i fårakläder ska avslöjas. Mycket snart ska de pengar, som nu flyter in till er, fullkomligt torka ut."<br />
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Varenda en av Herrens herdar har blivit pålagda <br />
att vakta hans hjord mot vargar<br />
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Vem går vargarna efter? De går på rov efter de svaga, undernärda fåren. De utsuger dem, de som inte känner sin bibel och som är fångade i ett själviskt evangelium. Det är därför som Paulus varning är så kristallklar: "Pastorer och ledare, var på er vakt! Och vakta hjorden, som ni har blivit kallade till att ha uppsyn över. Ge föda till Guds kyrka." Vi herdar är beordrade till att fylla upp hjorden med Guds rena Ord. Bara då ska de vara i stånd till att skilja på vad som är från den helige Ande, och vad som är från vargen. Jag frågar er: Vad skulle vara varje sann herdes åläggande i denna nation? Det borde inte vara ett eller annat nytt sätt till att locka folk till att komma till kyrkan. NEJ! Prästerna skulle vara överväldigade av det bekymmer, som bröt sönder Paulus' hjärta. Gud lade samma bekymmer på profeten Amos hjärta: Far efter en hungersnöd efter Guds Ord.<br />
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I Amos dagar blev Israel helt upptagna av shekeln, eller pengar och materialism. Under mellantiden blev de fattiga föraktade. Varenda en som inte hade succés blev hånad, så Amos ropade: "Hör detta, ni som står efter de fattigas liv… och skall göra efa-måttet mindre… förfalska vågen… göra slut på de olyckliga i landet… Då skall vi köpa de utblottade för pengar och den fattige för ett par skor… Herren har svurit… Aldrig skall jag glömma någon av deras gärningar. (Amos 8:4-7). <br />
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Hur reagerade Herren på en sådan glupskhet i Israel? Han sade till Amos: "Se, dagar skall komma, säger Herre Herren, då jag skall sända hunger i landet, inte en hunger efter bröd, inte en törst efter vatten, utan efter att höra Herrens Ord. De skall driva omkring från hav till hav och springa hit och dit från norr till öster för att söka efter Herrens ord, men de skall inte finna det. På den dagen skall vackra unga kvinnor och unga män tyna bort av törst. (Amos 8:11-13). Huvudinnehållet i vad Gud sade var: "Fortsätt, gå efter shekeln. Förakta de fattiga, de behövande, änkorna, de gudfruktiga. Men jag ska sända hungersnöd över er och er hjord. Och ni ska hungra efter ett Ord från himlen. Ni ska springa mot norr och öster, och försöka att hitta ett Ord från mig, men där ska inte komma något Ord." Så är det också i dag, Herren ska stänga himlen för varje herde, som går efter shekeln. Varje välsignelse, som har flutit in ska snart torka ut. Och i stora, svåra tider ska de törstiga hjordar, som följer vargarna spridas, när de springer och spanar efter ett Ord från Gud.<br />
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Ni älskade, er himmelske Faders enda stora åliggande är, att inget "annat evangelium" får leda oss bort från korset. Jag känner många kristna, vars tro har lidit skeppsbrott, för att de hade fått ett smickrande ord för en del år tillbaka: "Du ska få en stor församling. Du ska komma att vinna tusenden av själar för Herren." Inget av dessa ord gick i uppfyllelse. Och nu är dessa får fullständigt modlösa och deras tro är som en hink aska. Om du skall motta ett Ord från Herren, så låt det vara från Skriften. Låt det vara under den dyrbara tiden i kammaren med Jesus. Låt dina närmaste gudfruktiga vänner pröva Ordet med dig för att bekräfta det. Annars ska du, om du tillåter vad som helst att komma i vägen för det sanna evangeliet, sluta i hungersnöd. <br />
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Amos såg vargar gå på rov hos änkorna och de fattiga, när de tog deras silver eller vad som gavs av dem. Och han ropade: "Ni tar skorna av änkorna. Ni rövar från de fattiga." Jag ser samma ting ske i dag. En varg - en konsulent i en församling - sa till våra revisorer: "Om någon sänder er församling en gåva, sänd dem då strax en uppfordring till att ge." Med andra ord: "Det är likgiltigt vem som sänder in pengarna. Låt änkor och äldre, som stöttar dig ge ännu mer, om de väljer det. Försök få största möjliga gåvor, som ni kan." Nej, det ska aldrig bli så! I dag är den rådgivarens församling nära sammanbrott. <br />
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<b>Paulus varnar för ett ännu farligare angrepp på Kristi kyrka</b><br />
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<b>Paulus sa till efeserna, ”Ja, ur er egen krets skall män träda fram och förvränga sanningen för att dra lärjungarna över på sin sida” (Apg. 20:30). Det grekiska ordet för ”pervers” betyder här ”egensinnig, hårdnackad, för att främja en villfarelse”. </b><br />
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Paulus varnade, ”några av er, som har myndighet ska frambära ett förvanskat evangelium. Ni ska presentera en förfalskning av det rena, sanna evangeliet.” Vad talade Paulus om? Hur kunde detta överhuvudtaget ske mellan ledarna i denna kyrka? Lägg märke till att nu talade inte Paulus om vargar eller om de som rövade från änkorna. Han pekade inte på dem, som föraktade de fattiga. Nej, Paulus hänvisade till präster, som går samman och drar sig tillbaka och som inte predikar Guds fulla evangelium. Han talade om dem som presenterade ett urvattnat evangelium, ett halvt evangelium, nämligen bara en del av Guds ord. Paulus förklarade för dessa män: ”Därför betygar jag idag för er att jag inte är skyldig till någons blod” (Apg. 20:26). Med andra ord: ”Jag är oskyldig inför Herren, för jag har inte hållit tillbaka något, när jag predikade Guds ords hela sanning för er.” Så vad är ”Guds fulla råd” som Paulus refererar till här? Kort sagt, Guds fulla råd omfattar Skriftens svåra ämnen, inte bara välsignelserna. Det omfattar predikningar om syndens betydelse. Det betyder att predika om helvetet, om Kristi kommande, om domens dag, som kommer. Det betyder att predika ett budskap om Guds sorg över synden, om ånger och omvändelse, om att försaka synden. Det är att predika ett offensivt evangelium om Kristi blod. Det är ett budskap om att ta upp korset, ett budskap om självförnekelse, om uppoffrande, om att dö med Kristus. Det är ett evangelium om helgelse och avskiljande från världen. <br />
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Vissa prästämbeten idag är vigda till att främja, ett vad de kallar ”vänligt” evangelium, vilket betyder ett som inte väcker anstöt. Ordboken definierar ”vänligt” som varmt, tröstande, något som inte förvirrar. Självklart tror jag, att Jesu Kristi evangelium är tröstande och helande. Det är de goda nyheterna – sannerligen de mest storslagna som människan någonsin kan få höra. Och som evangeliets budbärare skall vi predika uppmuntran, hopp och tro. <br />
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Men om vi ger akt på Paulus varning, så är vi kallade till att predika hela evangeliet, och ”hela evangeliet” innefattar ett anstötligt budskap, ett ord som är provocerande och som fäller domar över varje syndigt hjärta. Det gäller så väl troende som icke troende. Med hänvisning till Petrus är Jesu Kristi evangelium ”en stötesten och en klippa till fall. De stöter emot den därför att de inte lyder ordet.” (1 Petr. 2:8). Men det ”vänliga” evangeliet, som presenteras idag, avvisar att göra det. Sådana predikanter leder sällan människor till den punkt då den helige Ande överbevisar om synd. Kan ni föreställa er Paulus förkunna ett budskap som utesluter kallet att förneka sig själv? Aldrig! Det ”vänliga” evangeliet är inte annat än ett urvattnat budskap, ett ljumt, som skall tilltala största möjliga skaror. <br />
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Det är tragiskt, att man aldrig konfronterar problemet, som driver människor till korset: synden! I stället gömmer man sanningen, den enda sanningen, som är given för att sätta människor i frihet. <br />
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När jag läser Paulus varning skälver jag för vad jag ser, <br />
det som kommer att ske i vår tid<br />
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Jag är fast besluten att predika hela Guds råd till den dag jag går hem för att vara med Herren. Och det vill jag göra på grund av Guds varning till alla predikanter i Hesekiel 33: "HERRENS ord kom till mig. Han sade: "Du människobarn, tala till dina landsmän och säg till dem: När jag låter svärdet drabba ett land och folket i det landet utser en man bland sig och gör honom till sin väktare, och han ser svärdet komma över landet och blåser i hornet och varnar folket, men den som får höra ljudet från hornet ändå inte låter varna sig, utan svärdet kommer och tar bort honom, då kommer hans blod över hans eget huvud. Han hörde ljudet från hornet men lät inte varna sig. Därför kommer hans blod över honom själv. Om han hade låtit varna sig, hade han räddat sitt liv. Men om väktaren ser svärdet komma och inte blåser i hornet för att varna folket, och svärdet kommer och tar bort någon bland dem, då dör denne genom sin egen missgärning, men hans blod skall jag utkräva av väktarens hand. Du människobarn, jag har satt dig till väktare för Israels hus för att du på mitt uppdrag skall varna dem, när du hör ett ord från min mun. När jag säger till den ogudaktige: Du ogudaktige, du måste dö!, och du då inte varnar honom för den väg han går, så skall den ogudaktige dö genom sin missgärning, men hans blod skall jag utkräva av din hand. Men om du varnar den ogudaktige för den väg han går, för att han skall vända om ifrån den, och han ändå inte vänder om ifrån sin väg, då skall han dö genom sin missgärning, men du själv har räddat ditt liv (Hesekiel 33:1-9).<br />
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Som en predikant av Guds Ord, skall jag varna de onda, eller Herren ska hålla mig ansvarig för deras blod. Det är inte märkligt, att Paulus säger till efesierna "…att jag inte är skyldig i någons blod." Han kände till Guds varning till predikanter i Hesekiel 33. Jag predikar i en kyrka där människor kommer från alla slags livsförhållanden: transvestiter som lever i ett personligt helvete, skådespelare som dränker sin förtvivlan i alkohol och droger, desperata affärsmän på randen till självmord. När jag ser på dessa lidande syndares ansikten, hur kan jag då bli rädd för att ge dem sanningen? Hur skulle jag kunna hålla något av Guds Ord tillbaka från dem, när jag vet, att den enda sanningen, som ska tala till dem, är Jesu Kristi blod och Kristi kors?<br />
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Mitt budskap ska i alla tider stödja syndarna och dem, som går på kompromiss. Men jag vill inte ha någons blod på mina händer på domens dag. Ni ska kanske tänka: "Allt, som du frambär, är från Gamla Testamentet. Det gäller inte för denna nådens dag." Om det är sant, så tog Jesus fel, då han citerade Jesaja och de andra profeterna. Och detsamma gäller för Johannes Döparen och aposteln Paulus. Petrus skriver: "Om honom vittnar alla profeterna"… (Apg. 10:43).<br />
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Här är Jesu egna Ord om ämnet: "Jag är den gode herden. Den gode herden ger sitt liv för fåren. Den som är lejd och inte är en herde med egna får, han överger fåren och flyr, när han ser vargen komma. Och vargen skingrar dem och överger hjorden" (Joh. 10:11-12).<br />
<br />
Jesus säger, att den gode herden lägger ner sitt liv för fåren. Vad betyder det noggrant för en Herrens tjänare i dag? Det betyder att lägga ner all stolthet, all människofruktan, och detta att försöka gömma sig för att slippa predika Guds fulla råd. Det är ett villkor till varje herde, som är kallad till att ge hjorden föda. Låt mig nu ge er några goda nyheter.<br />
<br />
J<b>ag ser Gud resa upp en rest av heliga goda herdar</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Dessa herdar söker Gud med frisk iver. De är hängivna präster, unga och gamla, som inte vill tillåta någon varg att röra deras hjord. </b>När dessa herdar ser sig om och ser på kyrkan i dag, så är de sjuka och trötta av allt det överdrivna som de ser. De gråter när de ser fåren bli utspridda till höger och vänster, för de har inte någon sann herde. <b>Dessa gudfruktiga herdar har ett åliggande: De är beslutna att ge föda till sin hjord, Guds rena Ord. De nekar till att bygga sina egna drömmar på ryggen av fattiga eller svaga får. I stället kommer de till predikostolen med ett friskt Ord fyllt med den helige Andes eld. De vet, att det är det enda, som bevarar deras hjord i de svåra dagar, som kommer.</b><br />
<br />
Min son Gary och jag möter dessa hängivna herdar över hela världen, när vi håller prästkonferenser. De är kört trötta på människoskapade koncept och diffusa saker. Allt de önskar är att höra från Gud. De vet, att denna världen hastar mot dom, så de vill predika med den helige Andes eld. De konkurrerar inte mot varandra, eller försöker att bli religiösa stjärnor. De önskar inte att bli funna på jakt efter fåniga drömmar, när Gud skakar allt som kan skakas.<br />
<br />
Jag tror att snart, på en enda dag - en terrorns och panikens dag - ska Gud omstörta alla falska, förvrängda evangelier. Han ska stänga alla kyrkor, som lever för köttet. Uppenbarelseboken säger, att på en timme ska Babylon falla. Då är det som jag ska få se Gud ödelägga alla dessa "vargförsamlingar". <br />
<br />
I deras ställe ska där uppstå en kropp av övervinnare. Dessa Guds tjänare ska vara utan fruktan, heliga, fullt beredda för de var fullt varnade. Då är det som vi ska se Guds härlighet vända tillbaka till hans kyrka. Halleluja! <br />
<br />
Översättning av Sigrid Forslin <br />
<br />
Prosperity Gospel on Skid Row. Christianity Today 090115.<br />
<br />
Schullers livsverk på väg att kollapsa. Dagen 090206.<br />
<br />
J. Lee Grady: The Deadly Virus of Celebrity Christianity. Charisma 070727.<br />
<br />
J. Lee Grady: Fler ”framgångskyrkor” får problem, bland andra Kenneth Copeland. Dagen 090206.<br />
<br />
J. Lee Grady: Reclaiming Genuine Apostolic Anointing. Charisma 090304.<br />
<br />
www.tidenstecken.se<br />
<br />GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-28487013139086905422016-02-25T06:27:00.001-08:002016-02-25T06:27:37.497-08:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section III<br />
The Child in Greece</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus much for Egypt. Coming into Greece, not only do we find evidence there
to the same effect, but increase of that evidence. The god worshipped as a
child in the arms of the great Mother in Greece, under the names of Dionysus,
or Bacchus, or Iacchus, is, by ancient inquirers, expressly identified with the
Egyptian Osiris. This is the case with Herodotus, who had prosecuted his inquiries
in Egypt itself, who ever speaks of Osiris as Bacchus. To the same purpose is
the testimony of Diodorus Siculus. ”Orpheus,” says he, ”introduced from Egypt
the greatest part of the mystical ceremonies, the orgies that celebrate the
wanderings of Ceres, and the whole fable of the shades below. The rites of
Osiris and Bacchus are the same; those of Isis and Ceres exactly resemble each
other, except in name.” Now, as if to identify Bacchus with Nimrod, ”the
Leopard-tamer,” leopards were employed to draw his car; he himself was
represented as clothed with a leopard’s skin; his priests were attired in the
same manner, or when a leopard’s skin was dispensed with, the spotted skin of a
fawn was used as a priestly robe in its stead. This very custom of wearing the
spotted fawn-skin seems to have been imported into Greece originally from
Assyria, where a spotted fawn was a sacred emblem, as we learn from the Nineveh
sculptures; for there we find a divinity bearing a spotted fawn or spotted
fallow-deer, in his arm, as a symbol of some mysterious import. The origin of
the importance attached to the spotted fawn and its skin had evidently come
thus: When Nimrod, as ”the Leopard-tamer,” began to be clothed in the
leopard-skin, as the trophy of his skill, his spotted dress and appearance must
have impressed the imaginations of those who saw him; and he came to be called
not only the ”Subduer of the Spotted one” (for such is the precise meaning of
Nimr–the name of the leopard), but to be called ”The spotted one” himself. We
have distinct evidence to this effect borne by Damascius, who tells us that the
Babylonians called ”the only son” of the great goddess-mother ”Momis, or
Moumis.” Now, Momis, or Moumis, in Chaldee, like Nimr, signified ”The spotted
one.” Thus, then, it became easy to represent Nimrod by the symbol of the
”spotted fawn,” and especially in Greece, and wherever a pronunciation akin to
that of Greece prevailed. The name of Nimrod, as known to the Greeks, was
Nebrod. * The name of the fawn, as ”the spotted one,” in Greece was Nebros; **
and thus nothing could be more natural than that Nebros, the ”spotted fawn,”
should become a synonym for Nebrod himself. When, therefore, the Bacchus of
Greece was symbolised by the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” as we shall find he was
symbolised, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with
Nimrod?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the name of Nimrod is
”Nebrod.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Nebros, the name of the fawn, signifies ”the spotted one.” Nmr, in
Egypt, would also become Nbr; for Bunsen shows that m and b in that land were
often convertible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We have evidence that this god, whose emblem was the Nebros, was known as
having the very lineage of Nimrod. From Anacreon, we find that a title of
Bacchus was Aithiopais–i.e., ”the son of Aethiops.” But who was Aethiops? As
the Aethiopians were Cushites, so Aethiops was Cush. ”Chus,” says Eusebius,
”was he from whom came the Aethiopians.” The testimony of Josephus is to the
same effect. As the father of the Aethiopians, Cush was Aethiops, by way of
eminence. Therefore Epiphanius, referring to the extraction of Nimrod, thus
speaks: ”Nimrod, the son of Cush, the Aethiop.” Now, as Bacchus was the son of
Aethiops, or Cush, so to the eye he was represented in that character. As Nin ”the
Son,” he was portrayed as a youth or child; and that youth or child was
generally depicted with a cup in his hand. That cup, to the multitude,
exhibited him as the god of drunken revelry; and of such revelry in his orgies,
no doubt there was abundance; but yet, after all, the cup was mainly a
hieroglyphic, and that of the name of the god. The name of a cup, in the sacred
language, was khus, and thus the cup in the hand of the youthful Bacchus, the
son of Aethiops, showed that he was the young Chus, or the son of Chus. In a
woodcut, the cup in the right hand of Bacchus is held up in so significant a
way, as naturally to suggest that it must be a symbol; and as to the branch in
the other hand, we have express testimony that it is a symbol. But it is worthy
of notice that the branch has no leaves to determine what precise kind of a
branch it is. It must, therefore, be a generic emblem for a branch, or a symbol
of a branch in general; and, consequently, it needs the cup as its complement,
to determine specifically what sort of a branch it is. The two symbols, then,
must be read together, and read thus, they are just equivalent to–the ”Branch
of Chus”–i.e., ”the scion or son of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Everyone knows that Homer’s odzos Areos, or ”Branch of Mars,” is the same
as a ”Son of Mars.” The hieroglyphic above was evidently formed on the same
principle. That the cup alone in the hand of the youthful Bacchus was intended
to designate him ”as the young Chus,” or ”the boy Chus,” we may fairly conclude
from a statement of Pausanias, in which he represents ”the boy Kuathos” as
acting the part of a cup-bearer, and presenting a cup to Hercules (PAUSANIAS
Corinthiaca) Kuathos is the Greek for a ”cup,” and is evidently derived from
the Hebrew Khus, ”a cup,” which, in one of its Chaldee forms, becomes Khuth or
Khuath. Now, it is well known that the name of Cush is often found in the form
of Cuth, and that name, in certain dialects, would be Cuath. The ”boy Kuathos,”
then, is just the Greek form of the ”boy Cush,” or ”the young Cush.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is another hieroglyphic connected with Bacchus that goes not a little
to confirm this–that is, the Ivy branch. No emblem was more distinctive of the
worship of Bacchus than this. Wherever the rites of Bacchus were performed,
wherever his orgies were celebrated, the Ivy branch was sure to appear. Ivy, in
some form or other, was essential to these celebrations. The votaries carried
it in their hands, bound it around their heads, or had the Ivy leaf even
indelibly stamped upon their persons. What could be the use, what could be the
meaning of this? A few words will suffice to show it. In the first place, then,
we have evidence that Kissos, the Greek name for Ivy, was one of the names of
Bacchus; and further, that though the name of Cush, in its proper form, was
known to the priests in the Mysteries, yet that the established way in which
the name of his descendants, the Cushites, was ordinarily pronounced in Greece,
was not after the Oriental fashion, but as ”Kissaioi,” or ”Kissioi.” Thus,
Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of Susa, who were the people of Chusistan,
or the ancient land of Cush, says: ”The Susians are called Kissioi,” * –that is
beyond all question, Cushites.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* STRABO. In Hesychius, the name is Kissaioi. The epithet applied to the
land of Cush in Aeschylus is Kissinos. The above accounts for one of the
unexplained titles of Apollo. ”Kisseus Apollon” is plainly ”The Cushite
Apollo.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if Kissioi be Cushites, then Kissos is Cush. Then, further, the branch
of Ivy that occupied so conspicuous a place in all Bacchanalian celebrations
was an express symbol of Bacchus himself; for Hesychius assures us that
Bacchus, as represented by his priest, was known in the Mysteries as ”The
branch.” From this, then, it appears how Kissos, the Greek name of Ivy, became
the name of Bacchus. As the son of Cush, and as identified with him, he was
sometimes called by his father’s name–Kissos. His actual relation, however, to
his father was specifically brought out by the Ivy branch, for ”the branch of
Kissos,” which to the profane vulgar was only ”the branch of Ivy,” was to the
initiated ”The branch of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The chaplet, or head-band of Ivy, had evidently a similar hieroglyphical
meaning to the above, for the Greek ”Zeira Kissou” is either a ”band or circlet
of Ivy,” or ”The seed of Cush.” The formation of the Greek ”Zeira,” a zone or
enclosing band, from the Chaldee Zer, to encompass, shows that Zero ”the seed,”
which was also pronounced Zeraa, would, in like manner, in some Greek dialects,
become Zeira. Kissos, ”Ivy,” in Greek, retains the radical idea of the Chaldee
Khesha or Khesa, ”to cover or hide,” from which there is reason to believe the
name of Cush is derived, for Ivy is characteristically ”The coverer or hider.”
In connection with this, it may be stated that the second person of the
Phoenician trinity was Chursorus (WILKINSON), which evidently is Chus-zoro,
”The seed of Cush.” We have already seen that the Phoenicians derived their
mythology from Assyria.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this god, who was recognised as ”the scion of Cush,” was worshipped
under a name, which, while appropriate to him in his vulgar character as the
god of the vintage, did also describe him as the great Fortifier. That name was
Bassareus, which, in its two-fold meaning, signified at once ”The houser of
grapes, or the vintage gatherer,” and ”The Encompasser with a wall,” * in this
latter sense identifying the Grecian god with the Egyptian Osiris, ”the strong
chief of the buildings,” and with the Assyrian ”Belus, who encompassed Babylon
with a wall.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Bassareus is evidently from the Chaldee Batzar, to which both Gesenius
and Parkhurst give the two-fold meaning of ”gathering in grapes,” and
”fortifying.” Batzar is softened into Bazzar in the very same way as
Nebuchadnetzar is pronounced Nebuchadnezzar. In the sense of ”rendering a
defence inaccessible,” Gesenius adduces Jeremiah 51:53, ”Though Babylon should
mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify (tabatzar) the height of her
strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord.” Here is
evident reference to the two great elements in Babylon’s strength, first her
tower; secondly, her massive fortifications, or encompassing walls. In making
the meaning of Batzar to be, ”to render inaccessible,” Gesenius seems to have
missed the proper generic meaning of the term. Batzar is a compound verb, from
Ba, ”in,” and Tzar, ”to compass,” exactly equivalent to our English word
”en-compass.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming
evidence, all conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshipped in the arms
of the goddess-mother in all these countries in the very character of Ninus or
Nin, ”The Son,” was Nimrod, the son of Cush. A feature here, or an incident
there, may have been borrowed from some succeeding hero; but it seems
impossible to doubt, that of that child Nimrod was the prototype, the grand
original.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The amazing extent of the worship of this man indicates something very
extraordinary in his character; and there is ample reason to believe, that in his
own day he was an object of high popularity. Though by setting up as king,
Nimrod invaded the patriarchal system, and abridged the liberties of mankind,
yet he was held by many to have conferred benefits upon them, that amply
indemnified them for the loss of their liberties, and covered him with glory
and renown. By the time that he appeared, the wild beasts of the forest
multiplying more rapidly than the human race, must have committed great
depredations on the scattered and straggling populations of the earth, and must
have inspired great terror into the minds of men. The danger arising to the
lives of men from such a source as this, when population is scanty, is implied
in the reason given by God Himself for not driving out the doomed Canaanites
before Israel at once, though the measure of their iniquity was full (Exo
23:29,30): ”I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the
land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By
little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be
increased.” The exploits of Nimrod, therefore, in hunting down the wild beasts
of the field, and ridding the world of monsters, must have gained for him the
character of a pre-eminent benefactor of his race. By this means, not less than
by the bands he trained, was his power acquired, when he first began to be
mighty upon the earth; and in the same way, no doubt, was that power
consolidated. Then, over and above, as the first great city-builder after the
flood, by gathering men together in masses, and surrounding them with walls, he
did still more to enable them to pass their days in security, free from the
alarms to which they had been exposed in their scattered life, when no one
could tell but that at any moment he might be called to engage in deadly
conflict with prowling wild beasts, in defence of his own life and of those who
were dear to him. Within the battlements of a fortified city no such danger
from savage animals was to be dreaded; and for the security afforded in this
way, men no doubt looked upon themselves as greatly indebted to Nimrod. No
wonder, therefore, that the name of the ”mighty hunter,” who was at the same
time the prototype of ”the god of fortifications,” should have become a name of
renown. Had Nimrod gained renown only thus, it had been well. But not content
with delivering men from the fear of wild beasts, he set to work also to
emancipate them from that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom,
and in which alone true happiness can be found. For this very thing, he seems
to have gained, as one of the titles by which men delighted to honour him, the
title of the ”Emancipator,” or ”Deliverer.” The reader may remember a name that
has already come under his notice. That name is the name of Phoroneus. The era
of Phoroneus is exactly the era of Nimrod. He lived about the time when men had
used one speech, when the confusion of tongues began, and when mankind was
scattered abroad. He is said to have been the first that gathered mankind into
communities, the first of mortals that reigned, and the first that offered
idolatrous sacrifices. This character can agree with none but that of Nimrod.
Now the name given to him in connection with his ”gathering men together,” and
offering idolatrous sacrifice, is very significant. Phoroneus, in one of its
meanings, and that one of the most natural, signifies the ”Apostate.” * That
name had very likely been given him by the uninfected portion of the sons of
Noah. But that name had also another meaning, that is, ”to set free”; and
therefore his own adherents adopted it, and glorified the great ”Apostate” from
the primeval faith, though he was the first that abridged the liberties of
mankind, as the grand ”Emancipator!” ** And hence, in one form or other, this
title was handed down to this deified successors as a title of honour. ***</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Pharo, also pronounced Pharang, or Pharong, ”to cast off, to make
naked, to apostatise, to set free.” These meanings are not commonly given in
this order, but as the sense of ”casting off” explains all the other meanings,
that warrants the conclusion that ”to cast off” is the generic sense of the
word. Now ”apostacy” is very near akin to this sense, and therefore is one of
the most natural.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** The Sabine goddess Feronia had evidently a relation to Phoroneus, as the
”Emancipator.” She was believed to be the ”goddess of liberty,” because at
Terracina (or Anuxur) slaves were emancipated in her temple (Servius, in
Aeneid), and because the freedmen of Rome are recorded on one occasion to have
collected a sum of money for the purpose of offering it in her temple. (SMITH’S
Classical Dictionary, ”Feronia”)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">*** Thus we read of ”Zeus Aphesio” (PAUSANIAS, Attica), that is ”Jupiter
Liberator” and of ”Dionysus Eleuthereus” (PAUSANIAS), or ”Bacchus the
Deliverer.” The name of Theseus seems to have had the same origin, from nthes
”to loosen,” and so to set free (the n being omissible). ”The temple of
Theseus” [at Athens] says POTTER ”…was allowed the privilege of being a
Sanctuary for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fled from the
persecution of men in power, in memory that Theseus, while he lived, was an
assister and protector of the distressed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostacy of
Nimrod, and to his success in leading men away from the patriarchal faith, and
delivering their minds from that awe of God and fear of the judgments of heaven
that must have rested on them while yet the memory of the flood was recent. And
according to all the principles of depraved human nature, this too, no doubt,
was one grand element in his fame; for men will readily rally around any one
who can give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine which will
teach that they can be assured of happiness and heaven at last, though their
hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they live without God in the
world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How great was the boon conferred by Nimrod on the human race, in the
estimation of ungodly men, by emancipating them from the impressions of true
religion, and putting the authority of heaven to a distance from them, we find
most vividly described in a Polynesian tradition, that carries its own evidence
with it. John Williams, the well known missionary, tells us that, according to
one of the ancient traditions of the islanders of the South Seas, ”the heavens
were originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were
compelled to crawl” under them. ”This was found a very serious evil; but at
length an individual conceived the sublime idea of elevating the heavens to a
more convenient height. For this purpose he put forth his utmost energy, and by
the first effort raised them to the top of a tender plant called teve, about
four feet high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed, when, by a second
effort, he lifted them to the height of a tree called Kauariki, which is as
large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he carried them to the summits of
the mountains; and after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious
effort, he elevated them to their present situation.” For this, as a mighty
benefactor of mankind, ”this individual was deified; and up to the moment that
Christianity was embraced, the deluded inhabitants worshipped him as the
‘Elevator of the heavens.’” Now, what could more graphically describe the
position of mankind soon after the flood, and the proceedings of Nimrod as
Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” * than this Polynesian fable?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The bearing of this name, Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” will be seen in
Chapter III, Section I, ”Christmas,” where it is shown that slaves had a
temporary emancipation at his birthday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While the awful catastrophe by which God had showed His avenging justice on
the sinners of the old world was yet fresh in the minds of men, and so long as
Noah, and the upright among his descendants, sought with all earnestness to
impress upon all under their control the lessons which that solemn event was so
well fitted to teach, ”heaven,” that is, God, must have seemed very near to
earth. To maintain the union between heaven and earth, and to keep it as close
as possible, must have been the grand aim of all who loved God and the best
interests of the human race. But this implied the restraining and
discountenancing of all vice and all those ”pleasures of sin,” after which the
natural mind, unrenewed and unsanctified, continually pants. This must have
been secretly felt by every unholy mind as a state of insufferable bondage.
”The carnal mind is enmity against God,” is ”not subject to His law,” neither
indeed is ”able to be” so. It says to the Almighty, ”Depart from us, for we
desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” So long as the influence of the great
father of the new world was in the ascendant, while his maxims were regarded,
and a holy atmosphere surrounded the world, no wonder that those who were
alienated from God and godliness, felt heaven and its influence and authority
to be intolerably near, and that in such circumstances they ”could not walk,”
but only ”crawl,”–that is, that they had no freedom to ”walk after the sight of
their own eyes and the imaginations of their own hearts.” From this bondage
Nimrod emancipated them. By the apostacy he introduced, by the free life he
developed among those who rallied around him, and by separating them from the
holy influences that had previously less or more controlled them, he helped
them to put God and the strict spirituality of His law at a distance, and thus
he became the ”Elevator of the heavens,” making men feel and act as if heaven
were afar off from earth, and as if either the God of heaven ”could not see
through the dark cloud,” or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of His
laws. Then all such would feel that they could breathe freely, and that now
they could walk at liberty. For this, such men could not but regard Nimrod as a
high benefactor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, who could have imagined that a tradition from Tahiti would have
illuminated the story of Atlas? But yet, when Atlas, bearing the heavens on his
shoulders, is brought into juxtaposition with the deified hero of the South
Seas, who blessed the world by heaving up the superincumbent heavens that
pressed so heavily upon it, who does not see that the one story bears a
relation to the other? *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Polynesian story the heavens and earth are said to have been
”bound together with cords,” and the ”severing” of these cords is said to have
been effected by myriads of ”dragon-flies,” which, with their ”wings,” bore an
important share in the great work. (WILLIAMS) Is there not here a reference to
Nimrod’s `63 ”mighties” or ”winged ones”? The deified ”mighty ones” were often
represented as winged serpents. See WILKINSON, vol. iv. p. 232, where the god
Agathodaemon is represented as a ”winged asp.” Among a rude people the memory
of such a representation might very naturally be kept up in connection with the
”dragon-fly”; and as all the mighty or winged ones of Nimrod’s age, the real
golden age of paganism, when ”dead, became daemons” (HESIOD, Works and Days),
they would of course all alike be symbolised in the same way. If any be
stumbled at the thought of such a connection between the mythology of Tahiti
and of Babel, let it not be overlooked that the name of the Tahitian god of war
was Oro (WILLIAMS), while ”Horus (or Orus),” as Wilkinson calls the son of
Osiris, in Egypt, which unquestionably borrowed its system from Babylon,
appeared in that very character. (WILKINSON) Then what could the severing of
the ”cords” that bound heaven and earth together be, but just the breaking of
the bands of the covenant by which God bound the earth to Himself, when on
smelling a sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice, He renewed His covenant with him
as head of the human race. This covenant did not merely respect the promise to
the earth securing it against another universal deluge, but contained in its
bosom a promise of all spiritual blessings to those who adhere to it. The
smelling of the sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice had respect to his faith in
Christ. When, therefore, in consequence of smelling that sweet savour, ”God
blessed Noah and his sons” (Gen 9:1), that had reference not merely to temporal
but to spiritual and eternal blessings. Every one, therefore, of the sons of
Noah, who had Noah’s faith, and who walked as Noah walked, was divinely assured
of an interest in ”the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”
Blessed were those bands by which God bound the believing children of men to
Himself–by which heaven and earth were so closely joined together. Those, on
the other hand, who joined in the apostacy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in
casting off the authority of God, did in effect say, ”Let us break His bands
asunder, and cast His cords from us.” To this very act of severing the covenant
connection between earth and heaven there is very distinct allusion, though
veiled, in the Babylonian history of Berosus. There Belus, that is Nimrod,
after having dispelled the primeval darkness, is said to have separated heaven
and earth from one another, and to have orderly arranged the world. (BEROSUS,
in BUNSEN) These words were intended to represent Belus as the ”Former of the
world.” But then it is a new world that he forms; for there are creatures in
existence before his Demiurgic power is exerted. The new world that Belus or
Nimrod formed, was just the new order of things which he introduced when,
setting at nought all Divine appointments, he rebelled against Heaven. The
rebellion of the Giants is represented as peculiarly a rebellion against
Heaven. To this ancient quarrel between the Babylonian potentates and Heaven,
there is plainly an allusion in the words of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, when
announcing that sovereign’s humiliation and subsequent restoration, he says
(Dan 4:26), ”Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou hast known that the
HEAVENS do rule.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, then, it appears that Atlas, with the heavens resting on his broad
shoulders, refers to no mere distinction in astronomical knowledge, however
great, as some have supposed, but to a quite different thing, even to that
great apostacy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven, and in which
apostacy Nimrod, ”the mighty one,” * as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a
pre-eminent place. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the term ”mighty” as
applied in Genesis 10:8, to Nimrod, is rendered the ordinary name for a
”Giant.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** IVAN and KALLERY, in their account of Japan, show that a similar story
to that of Atlas was known there, for they say that once a day the Emperor
”sits on his throne upholding the world and the empire.” Now something like
this came to be added to the story of Atlas, for PAUSANIAS shows that Atlas
also was represented as upholding both earth and heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in
introducing, men were led to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was
unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated
by mere external means. Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian
orgies, which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it
is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment,
and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of
the wrath of a holy God. In his various expeditions he was always accompanied
by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and
everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the
good graces of mankind.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section IV<br />
The Death of the Child</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How Nimrod died, Scripture is entirely silent. There was an ancient
tradition that he came to a violent end. The circumstances of that end,
however, as antiquity represents them, are clouded with fable. It is said that
tempests of wind sent by God against the Tower of Babel overthrew it, and that
Nimrod perished in its ruins. This could not be true, for we have sufficient
evidence that the Tower of Babel stood long after Nimrod’s day. Then, in regard
to the death of Ninus, profane history speaks darkly and mysteriously, although
one account tells of his having met with a violent death similar to that of Pentheus,
Lycurgus, * and Orpheus, who were said to have been torn in pieces. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Lycurgus, who is commonly made the enemy of Bacchus, was, by the
Thracians and Phrygians, identified with Bacchus, who it is well known, was
torn in pieces.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** LUDOVICUS VIVES, Commentary on Augustine. Ninus as referred to by Vives
is called ”King of India.” The word ”India” in classical writers, though not
always, yet commonly means Ethiopia, or the land of Cush. Thus the Choaspes in
the land of the eastern Cushites is called an ”Indian River” (DIONYSIUS AFER.
Periergesis); and the Nile is said by Virgil to come from the ”coloured
Indians” (Georg)–i.e., from the Cushites, or Ethiopians of Africa. Osiris also
is by Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca), called ”an Indian by extraction.” There
can be no doubt, then, that ”Ninus, king of India,” is the Cushite or Ethiopian
Ninus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The identity of Nimrod, however, and the Egyptian Osiris, having been
established, we have thereby light as to Nimrod’s death. Osiris met with a
violent death, and that violent death of Osiris was the central theme of the
whole idolatry of Egypt. If Osiris was Nimrod, as we have seen, that violent
death which the Egyptians so pathetically deplored in their annual festivals
was just the death of Nimrod. The accounts in regard to the death of the god
worshipped in the several mysteries of the different countries are all to the
same effect. A statement of Plato seems to show, that in his day the Egyptian
Osiris was regarded as identical with Tammuz; * and Tammuz is well known to
have been the same as Adonis, the famous HUNTSMAN, for whose death Venus is
fabled to have made such bitter lamentations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* See WILKINSON’S Egyptians. The statement of Plato amounts to this, that
the famous Thoth was a counsellor of Thamus, king of Egypt. Now Thoth is
universally known as the ”counsellor” of Osiris. Hence it may be concluded that
Thamus and Osiris are the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As the women of Egypt wept for Osiris, as the Phoenician and Assyrian women
wept for Tammuz, so in Greece and Rome the women wept for Bacchus, whose name,
as we have seen, means ”The bewailed,” or ”Lamented one.” And now, in
connection with the Bacchanal lamentations, the importance of the relation
established between Nebros, ”The spotted fawn,” and Nebrod, ”The mighty hunter,”
will appear. The Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was the symbol of Bacchus, as
representing Nebrod or Nimrod himself. Now, on certain occasions, in the
mystical celebrations, the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was torn in pieces,
expressly, as we learn from Photius, as a commemoration of what happened to
Bacchus, * whom that fawn represented.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Photius, under the head ”Nebridzion” quotes Demosthenes as saying that
”spotted fawns (or nebroi) were torn in pieces for a certain mystic or
mysterious reason”; and he himself tells us that ”the tearing in pieces of the
nebroi (or spotted fawns) was in imitation of the suffering in the case of
Dionysus” or Bacchus. (PHOTIUS, Lexicon)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The tearing in pieces of Nebros, ”the spotted one,” goes to confirm the
conclusion, that the death of Bacchus, even as the death of Osiris, represented
the death of Nebrod, whom, under the very name of ”The Spotted one,” the
Babylonians worshipped. Though we do not find any account of Mysteries observed
in Greece in memory of Orion, the giant and mighty hunter celebrated by Homer,
under that name, yet he was represented symbolically as having died in a
similar way to that in which Osiris died, and as having then been translated to
heaven. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* See OVID’S Fasti. Ovid represents Orion as so puffed up with pride on
account of his great strength, as vain-gloriously to boast that no creature on
earth could cope with him, whereupon a scorpion appeared, ”and,” says the poet,
”he was added to the stars.” The name of a scorpion in Chaldee is Akrab; but
Ak-rab, thus divided, signifies ”THE GREAT OPPRESSOR,” and this is the hidden
meaning of the Scorpion as represented in the Zodiac. That sign typifies him
who cut off the Babylonian god, and suppressed the system he set up. It was
while the sun was in Scorpio that Osiris in Egypt ”disappeared” (WILKINSON),
and great lamentations were made for his disappearance. Another subject was
mixed up with the death of the Egyptian god; but it is specially to be noticed
that, as it was in consequence of a conflict with a scorpion that Orion was
”added to the stars,” so it was when the scorpion was in the ascendant that
Osiris ”disappeared.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">From Persian records we are expressly assured that it was Nimrod who was
deified after his death by the name of Orion, and placed among the stars. Here,
then, we have large and consenting evidence, all leading to one conclusion,
that the death of Nimrod, the child worshipped in the arms of the
goddess-mother of Babylon, was a death of violence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, when this mighty hero, in the midst of his career of glory, was
suddenly cut off by a violent death, great seems to have been the shock that
the catastrophe occasioned. When the news spread abroad, the devotees of
pleasure felt as if the best benefactor of mankind were gone, and the gaiety of
nations eclipsed. Loud was the wail that everywhere ascended to heaven among
the apostates from the primeval faith for so dire a catastrophe. Then began
those weepings for Tammuz, in the guilt of which the daughters of Israel
allowed themselves to be implicated, and the existence of which can be traced
not merely in the annals of classical antiquity, but in the literature of the
world from Ultima Thule to Japan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of the prevalence of such weepings in China, thus speaks the Rev. W.
Gillespie: ”The dragon-boat festival happens in midsummer, and is a season of
great excitement. About 2000 years ago there lived a young Chinese Mandarin,
Wat-yune, highly respected and beloved by the people. To the grief of all, he
was suddenly drowned in the river. Many boats immediately rushed out in search
of him, but his body was never found. Ever since that time, on the same day of
the month, the dragon-boats go out in search of him.” ”It is something,” adds
the author, ”like the bewailing of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz mentioned
in Scripture.” As the great god Buddh is generally represented in China as a
Negro, that may serve to identify the beloved Mandarin whose loss is thus
annually bewailed. The religious system of Japan largely coincides with that of
China. In Iceland, and throughout Scandinavia, there were similar lamentations
for the loss of the god Balder. Balder, through the treachery of the god Loki,
the spirit of evil, according as had been written in the book of destiny, ”was
slain, although the empire of heaven depended on his life.” His father Odin had
”learned the terrible secret from the book of destiny, having conjured one of
the Volar from her infernal abode. All the gods trembled at the knowledge of
this event. Then Frigga [the wife of Odin] called on every object, animate and
inanimate, to take an oath not to destroy or furnish arms against Balder. Fire,
water, rocks, and vegetables were bound by this solemn obligation. One plant
only, the mistletoe, was overlooked. Loki discovered the omission, and made
that contemptible shrub the fatal weapon. Among the warlike pastimes of
Valhalla [the assembly of the gods] one was to throw darts at the invulnerable
deity, who felt a pleasure in presenting his charmed breast to their weapons.
At a tournament of this kind, the evil genius putting a sprig of the mistletoe
into the hands of the blind Hoder, and directing his aim, the dreaded
prediction was accomplished by an unintentional fratricide. The spectators were
struck with speechless wonder; and their misfortune was the greater, that no
one, out of respect to the sacredness of the place, dared to avenge it. With
tears of lamentation they carried the lifeless body to the shore, and laid it
upon a ship, as a funeral pile, with that of Nanna his lovely bride, who had
died of a broken heart. His horse and arms were burnt at the same time, as was
customary at the obsequies of the ancient heroes of the north.” Then Frigga,
his mother, was overwhelmed with distress. ”Inconsolable for the loss of her
beautiful son,” says Dr. Crichton, ”she despatched Hermod (the swift) to the
abode of Hela [the goddess of Hell, or the infernal regions], to offer a ransom
for his release. The gloomy goddess promised that he should be restored,
provided everything on earth were found to weep for him. Then were messengers
sent over the whole world, to see that the order was obeyed, and the effect of
the general sorrow was ‘as when there is a universal thaw.’” There are
considerable variations from the original story in these two legends; but at
bottom the essence of the stories is the same, indicating that they must have
flowed from one fountain.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section V<br />
The Deification of the Child</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If there was one who was more deeply concerned in the tragic death of
Nimrod than another, it was his wife Semiramis, who, from an originally humble
position, had been raised to share with him the throne of Babylon. What, in
this emergency shall she do? Shall she quietly forego the pomp and pride to
which she has been raised! No. Though the death of her husband has given a rude
shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in nowise
checked. On the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her
husband had been honoured as a hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a
god, yea, as the woman’s promised Seed, ”Zero-ashta,” * who was destined to
bruise the serpent’s head, and who, in doing so, was to have his own heel
bruised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Zero–in Chaldee, ”the seed”–though we have seen reason to conclude that
in Greek it sometimes appeared as Zeira, quite naturally passed also into Zoro,
as may be seen from the change of Zerubbabel in the Greek Septuagint to
Zoro-babel; and hence Zuro-ashta, ”the seed of the woman” became Zoroaster, the
well known name of the head of the fire-worshippers. Zoroaster’s name is also
found as Zeroastes (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis). The reader who consults
the able and very learned work of Dr. Wilson of Bombay, on the Parsi Religion,
will find that there was a Zoroaster long before that Zoroaster who lived in
the reign of Darius Hystaspes. In general history, the Zoroaster of Bactria is
most frequently referred to; but the voice of antiquity is clear and distinct
to the effect that the first and great Zoroaster was an Assyrian or Chaldean
(SUIDAS), and that he was the founder of the idolatrous system of Babylon, and
therefore Nimrod. It is equally clear also in stating that he perished by a
violent death, even as was the case with Nimrod, Tammuz, or Bacchus. The
identity of Bacchus and Zoroaster is still further proved by the epithet
Pyrisporus, bestowed on Bacchus in the Orphic Hymns. When the primeval promise
of Eden began to be forgotten, the meaning of the name Zero-ashta was lost to
all who knew only the exoteric doctrine of Paganism; and as ”ashta” signified
”fire” in Chaldee, as well as ”the woman,” and the rites of Bacchus had much to
do with fire-worship, ”Zero-ashta” came to be rendered ”the seed of fire”; and
hence the epithet Pyrisporus, or Ignigena, ”fire-born,” as applied to Bacchus.
From this misunderstanding of the meaning of the name Zero-ashta, or rather
from its wilful perversion by the priests, who wished to establish one doctrine
for the initiated, and another for the profane vulgar, came the whole story
about the unborn infant Bacchus having been rescued from the flames that
consumed his mother Semele, when Jupiter came in his glory to visit her. (Note
to OVID’S Metam.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There was another name by which Zoroaster was known, and which is not a
little instructive, and that is Zar-adas, ”The only seed.” (JOHANNES CLERICUS,
De Chaldoeis) In WILSON’S Parsi Religion the name is given either Zoroadus, or
Zarades. The ancient Pagans, while they recognised supremely one only God, knew
also that there was one only seed, on whom the hopes of the world were founded.
In almost all nations, not only was a great god known under the name of Zero or
Zer, ”the seed,” and a great goddess under the name of Ashta or Isha, ”the
woman”; but the great god Zero is frequently characterised by some epithet
which implies that he is ”The only One.” Now what can account for such names or
epithets? Genesis 3:15 can account for them; nothing else can. The name
Zar-ades, or Zoro-adus, also strikingly illustrates the saying of Paul: ”He
saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is
Christ.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is worthy of notice, that the modern system of Parseeism, which dates
from the reform of the old fire-worship in the time of Darius Hystaspes, having
rejected the worship of the goddess-mother, cast out also from the name of
their Zoroaster the name of the ”woman”; and therefore in the Zend, the sacred
language of the Parsees, the name of their great reformer is Zarathustra–i.e.,
”The Delivering Seed,” the last member of the name coming from Thusht (the root
being–Chaldee–nthsh, which drops the initial n), ”to loosen or set loose,” and
so to free. Thusht is the infinitive, and ra appended to it is, in Sanscrit,
with which the Zend has much affinity, the well known sign of the doer of an
action, just as er is in English. The Zend Zarathushtra, then, seems just the
equivalent of Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The patriarchs, and the ancient world in general, were perfectly acquainted
with the grand primeval promise of Eden, and they knew right well that the
bruising of the heel of the promised seed implied his death, and that the curse
could be removed from the world only by the death of the grand Deliverer. If
the promise about the bruising of the serpent’s head, recorded in Genesis, as
made to our first parents, was actually made, and if all mankind were descended
from them, then it might be expected that some trace of this promise would be
found in all nations. And such is the fact. There is hardly a people or kindred
on earth in whose mythology it is not shadowed forth. The Greeks represented
their great god Apollo as slaying the serpent Pytho, and Hercules as strangling
serpents while yet in his cradle. In Egypt, in India, in Scandinavia, in
Mexico, we find clear allusions to the same great truth. ”The evil genius,”
says Wilkinson, ”of the adversaries of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently
figured under the form of a snake, whose head he is seen piercing with a spear.
The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant serpent
Calyia is slain by Vishnu, in his avatar of Crishna; and the Scandinavian deity
Thor was said to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace.”
”The origin of this,” he adds, ”may be readily traced to the Bible.” In
reference to a similar belief among the Mexicans, we find Humboldt saying, that
”The serpent crushed by the great spirit Teotl, when he takes the form of one
of the subaltern deities, is the genius of evil–a real Kakodaemon.” Now, in
almost all cases, when the subject is examined to the bottom, it turns out that
the serpent destroying god is represented as enduring hardships and sufferings
that end in his death. Thus the god Thor, while succeeding at last in
destroying the great serpent, is represented as, in the very moment of victory,
perishing from the venomous effluvia of his breath. The same would seem to be
the way in which the Babylonians represented their great serpent-destroyer
among the figures of their ancient sphere. His mysterious suffering is thus
described by the Greek poet Aratus, whose language shows that when he wrote,
the meaning of the representation had been generally lost, although, when
viewed in this light of Scripture, it is surely deeply significant:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”A human figure, ‘whelmed with
toil, appears;<br />
Yet still with name uncertain he remains;<br />
Nor known the labour that he thus sustains;<br />
But since upon his knees he seems to fall,<br />
Him ignorant mortals Engonasis call;<br />
And while sublime his awful hands are spread,<br />
Beneath him rolls the dragon’s horrid head,<br />
And his right foot unmoved appears to rest,<br />
Fixed on the writhing monster’s burnished crest.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The constellation thus represented is commonly known by the name of ”The
Kneeler,” from this very description of the Greek poet; but it is plain that,
as ”Eugonasis” came from the Babylonians, it must be interpreted, not in a
Greek, but in a Chaldee sense, and so interpreted, as the action of the figure
itself implies, the title of the mysterious sufferer is just ”The
Serpent-crusher.” Sometimes, however the actual crushing of the serpent was
represented as a much more easy process; yet, even then, death was the ultimate
result; and that death of the serpent-destroyer is so described as to leave no
doubt whence the fable was borrowed. This is particularly the case with the
Indian god Crishna, to whom Wilkinson alludes in the extract already given. In
the legend that concerns him, the whole of the primeval promise in Eden is very
strikingly embodied. First, he is represented in pictures and images with his
foot on the great serpent’s head, and then, after destroying it, he is fabled
to have died in consequence of being shot by an arrow in the foot; and, as in
the case of Tammuz, great lamentations are annually made for his death. Even in
Greece, also, in the classic story of Paris and Achilles, we have a very plain
allusion to that part of the primeval promise, which referred to the bruising
of the conqueror’s ”heel.” Achilles, the only son of a goddess, was
invulnerable in all points except the heel, but there a wound was deadly. At
that his adversary took aim, and death was the result.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if there be such evidence still, that even Pagans knew that it was by
dying that the promised Messiah was to destroy death and him that has the power
of death, that is the Devil, how much more vivid must have been the impression
of mankind in general in regard to this vital truth in the early days of
Semiramis, when they were so much nearer the fountain-head of all Divine
tradition. When, therefore, the name Zoroaster, ”the seed of the woman,” was
given to him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false
worship and apostacy, there can be no doubt of the meaning which that name was
intended to convey. And the fact of the violent death of the hero, who, in the
esteem of his partisans, had done so much to bless mankind, to make life happy,
and to deliver them from the fear of the wrath to come, instead of being fatal
to the bestowal of such a title upon him, favoured rather than otherwise the
daring design. All that was needed to countenance the scheme on the part of
those who wished an excuse for continued apostacy from the true God, was just
to give out that, though the great patron of the apostacy had fallen a prey to
the malice of men, he had freely offered himself for the good of mankind. Now,
this was what was actually done. The Chaldean version of the story of the great
Zoroaster is that he prayed to the supreme God of heaven to take away his life;
that his prayer was heard, and that he expired, assuring his followers that, if
they cherished due regard for his memory, the empire would never depart from
the Babylonians. What Berosus, the Babylonian historian, says of the cutting
off of the head of the great god Belus, is plainly to the same effect. Belus,
says Berosus, commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, that from the
blood thus shed by his own command and with his own consent, when mingled with
the earth, new creatures might be formed, the first creation being represented
as a sort of a failure. Thus the death of Belus, who was Nimrod, like that
attributed to Zoroaster, was represented as entirely voluntary, and as
submitted to for the benefit of the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It seems to have been now only when the dead hero was to be deified, that
the secret Mysteries were set up. The previous form of apostacy during the life
of Nimrod appears to have been open and public. Now, it was evidently felt that
publicity was out of the question. The death of the great ringleader of the
apostacy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of judicial
rigour, solemnly inflicted. This is well established by the accounts of the
deaths of both Tammuz and Osiris. The following is the account of Tammuz, given
by the celebrated Maimonides, deeply read in all the learning of the Chaldeans:
”When the false prophet named Thammuz preached to a certain king that he should
worship the seven stars and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, that king ordered
him to be put to a terrible death. On the night of his death all the images
assembled from the ends of the earth into the temple of Babylon, to the great
golden image of the Sun, which was suspended between heaven and earth. That
image prostrated itself in the midst of the temple, and so did all the images
around it, while it related to them all that had happened to Thammuz. The images
wept and lamented all the night long, and then in the morning they flew away,
each to his own temple again, to the ends of the earth. And hence arose the
custom every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and to weep
for Thammuz.” There is here, of course, all the extravagance of idolatry, as
found in the Chaldean sacred books that Maimonides had consulted; but there is
no reason to doubt the fact stated either as to the manner or the cause of the
death of Tammuz. In this Chaldean legend, it is stated that it was by the
command of a ”certain king” that this ringleader in apostacy was put to death.
Who could this king be, who was so determinedly opposed to the worship of the
host of heaven? From what is related of the Egyptian Hercules, we get very
valuable light on this subject. It is admitted by Wilkinson that the most
ancient Hercules, and truly primitive one, was he who was known in Egypt as
having, ”by the power of the gods” * (i.e., by the SPIRIT) fought against and
overcome the Giants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The name of the true God (Elohim) is plural. Therefore, ”the power of the
gods,” and ”of God,” is expressed by the same term.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by
the Pagans to him whom they worshipped as the grand deliverer or Messiah, just
as the adversaries of the Pagan divinities came to be stigmatised as the
”Giants” who rebelled against Heaven. But let the reader only reflect who were
the real Giants that rebelled against Heaven. They were Nimrod and his party; for
the ”Giants” were just the ”Mighty ones,” of whom Nimrod was the leader. Who,
then, was most likely to head the opposition to the apostacy from the primitive
worship? If Shem was at that time alive, as beyond question he was, who so
likely as he? In exact accordance with this deduction, we find that one of the
names of the primitive Hercules in Egypt was ”Sem.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If ”Sem,” then, was the primitive Hercules, who overcame the Giants, and
that not by mere physical force, but by ”the power of God,” or the influence of
the Holy Spirit, that entirely agrees with his character; and more than that,
it remarkably agrees with the Egyptian account of the death of Osiris. The
Egyptians say, that the grand enemy of their god overcame him, not by open
violence, but that, having entered into a conspiracy with seventy-two of the
leading men of Egypt, he got him into his power, put him to death, and then cut
his dead body into pieces, and sent the different parts to so many different
cities throughout the country. The real meaning of this statement will appear,
if we glance at the judicial institutions of Egypt. Seventy-two was just the
number of the judges, both civil and sacred, who, according to Egyptian law,
were required to determine what was to be the punishment of one guilty of so
high an offence as that of Osiris, supposing this to have become a matter of
judicial inquiry. In determining such a case, there were necessarily two
tribunals concerned. First, there were the ordinary judges, who had power of
life and death, and who amounted to thirty, then there was, over and above, a
tribunal consisting of forty-two judges, who, if Osiris was condemned to die,
had to determine whether his body should be buried or no, for, before burial,
every one after death had to pass the ordeal of this tribunal. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* DIODORUS. The words of Diodorus, as printed in the ordinary editions,
make the number of the judges simply ”more than forty,” without specifying how
many more. In the Codex Coislianus, the number is stated to be ”two more than forty.”
The earthly judges, who tried the question of burial, are admitted both by
WILKINSON and BUNSEN, to have corresponded in number to the judges of the
infernal regions. Now, these judges, over and above their president, are proved
from the monuments to have been just forty-two. The earthly judges at funerals,
therefore, must equally have been forty-two. In reference to this number as
applying equally to the judges of this world and the world of spirits, Bunsen,
speaking of the judgment on a deceased person in the world unseen, uses these
words in the passage above referred to: ”Forty-two gods (the number composing
the earthly tribunal of the dead) occupy the judgment-seat.” Diodorus himself,
whether he actually wrote ”two more than forty,” or simply ”more than forty,”
gives reason to believe that forty-two was the number he had present to his
mind; for he says, that ”the whole of the fable of the shades below,” as
brought by Orpheus from Egypt, was ”copied from the ceremonies of the Egyptian
funerals,” which he had witnessed at the judgment before the burial of the
dead. If, therefore, there were just forty-two judges in ”the shades below,”
that even, on the showing of Diodorus, whatever reading of his words be
preferred, proves that the number of the judges in the earthly judgment must
have been the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As burial was refused him, both tribunals would necessarily be concerned;
and thus there would be exactly seventy-two persons, under Typho the president,
to condemn Osiris to die and to be cut in pieces. What, then, does the
statement account to, in regard to the conspiracy, but just to this, that the
great opponent of the idolatrous system which Osiris introduced, had so
convinced these judges of the enormity of the offence which he had committed,
that they gave up the offender to an awful death, and to ignominy after it, as
a terror to any who might afterwards tread in his steps. The cutting of the
dead body in pieces, and sending the dismembered parts among the different
cities, is paralleled, and its object explained, by what we read in the Bible
of the cutting of the dead body of the Levite’s concubine in pieces (Judges
19:29), and sending one of the parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel;
and the similar step taken by Saul, when he hewed the two yoke of oxen asunder,
and sent them throughout all the coasts of his kingdom (1 Sam 11:7). It is
admitted by commentators that both the Levite and Saul acted on a patriarchal
custom, according to which summary vengeance would be dealt to those who failed
to come to the gathering that in this solemn way was summoned. This was
declared in so many words by Saul, when the parts of the slaughtered oxen were
sent among the tribes: ”Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel,
so shall it be done to his oxen.” In like manner, when the dismembered parts of
Osiris were sent among the cities by the seventy-two ”conspirators”–in other
words, by the supreme judges of Egypt, it was equivalent to a solemn
declaration in their name, that ”whosoever should do as Osiris had done, so
should it be done to him; so should he also be cut in pieces.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When irreligion and apostacy again arose into the ascendant, this act, into
which the constituted authorities who had to do with the ringleader of the
apostates were led, for the putting down of the combined system of irreligion
and despotism set up by Osiris or Nimrod, was naturally the object of intense
abhorrence to all his sympathisers; and for his share in it the chief actor was
stigmatised as Typho, or ”The Evil One.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Wilkinson admits that different individuals at different times bore this
hated name in Egypt. One of the most noted names by which Typho, or the Evil
One, was called, was Seth (EPIPHANIUS, Adv. Hoeres). Now Seth and Shem are
synonymous, both alike signifying ”The appointed one.” As Shem was a younger
son of Noah, being ”the brother of Japhet the elder” (Gen 10:21), and as the
pre-eminence was divinely destined to him, the name Shem, ”the appointed one,”
had doubtless been given him by Divine direction, either at his birth or
afterwards, to mark him out as Seth had been previously marked out as the
”child of promise.” Shem, however, seems to have been known in Egypt as Typho,
not only under the name of Seth, but under his own name; for Wilkinson tells us
that Typho was characterised by a name that signified ”to destroy and render
desert.” (Egyptians) Now the name of Shem also in one of its meanings signifies
”to desolate” or lay waste. So Shem, the appointed one, was by his enemies made
Shem, the Desolator or Destroyer–i.e., the Devil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The influence that this abhorred Typho wielded over the minds of the
so-called ”conspirators,” considering the physical force with which Nimrod was
upheld, must have been wonderful, and goes to show, that though his deed in regard
to Osiris is veiled, and himself branded by a hateful name, he was indeed none
other than that primitive Hercules who overcame the Giants by ”the power of
God,” by the persuasive might of his Holy Spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In connection with this character of Shem, the myth that makes Adonis, who
is identified with Osiris, perish by the tusks of a wild boar, is easily
unravelled. * The tusk of a wild boar was a symbol. In Scripture, a tusk is
called ”a horn”; among many of the Classic Greeks it was regarded in the very
same light. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In India, a demon with a ”boar’s face” is said to have gained such power
through his devotion, that he oppressed the ”devotees” or worshippers of the
gods, who had to hide themselves. (MOOR’S Pantheon) Even in Japan there seems
to be a similar myth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Pausanian admits that some in his day regarded tusks as teeth; but he
argues strongly, and, I think, conclusively, for their being considered as
”horns.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When once it is known that a tusk is regarded as a ”horn” according to the
symbolism of idolatry, the meaning of the boar’s tusks, by which Adonis
perished, is not far to seek. The bull’s horns that Nimrod wore were the symbol
of physical power. The boar’s tusks were the symbol of spiritual power. As a
”horn” means power, so a tusk, that is, a horn in the mouth, means ”power in
the mouth”; in other words, the power of persuasion; the very power with which
”Sem,” the primitive Hercules, was so signally endowed. Even from the ancient
traditions of the Gael, we get an item of evidence that at once illustrates
this idea of power in the mouth, and connects it with that great son of Noah,
on whom the blessing of the Highest, as recorded in Scripture, did specially
rest. The Celtic Hercules was called Hercules Ogmius, which, in Chaldee, is
”Hercules the Lamenter.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Celtic scholars derive the name Ogmius from the Celtic word Ogum,
which is said to denote ”the secret of writing”; but Ogum is much more likely
to be derived from the name of the god, than the name of the god to be derived
from it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">No name could be more appropriate, none more descriptive of the history of
Shem, than this. Except our first parent, Adam, there was, perhaps, never a
mere man that saw so much grief as he. Not only did he see a vast apostacy,
which, with his righteous feelings, and witness as he had been of the awful
catastrophe of the flood, must have deeply grieved him; but he lived to bury
SEVEN GENERATIONS of his descendants. He lived 502 years after the flood, and
as the lives of men were rapidly shortened after that event, no less than SEVEN
generations of his lineal descendants died before him (Gen 11:10-32). How
appropriate a name Ogmius, ”The Lamenter or Mourner,” for one who had such a
history! Now, how is this ”Mourning” Hercules represented as putting down enormities
and redressing wrongs? Not by his club, like the Hercules of the Greeks, but by
the force of persuasion. Multitudes were represented as following him, drawn by
fine chains of gold and amber inserted into their ears, and which chains
proceeded from his mouth. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Sir W. BETHAM’S Gael and Cymbri. In connection with this Ogmius, one of
the names of ”Sem,” the great Egyptian Hercules who overcame the Giants, is
worthy of notice. That name is Chon. In the Etymologicum Magnum, apud BRYANT,
we thus read: ”They say that in the Egyptian dialect Hercules is called Chon.”
Compare this with WILKINSON, where Chon is called ”Sem.” Now Khon signifies ”to
lament” in Chaldee, and as Shem was Khon–i.e., ”Priest” of the Most High God,
his character and peculiar circumstances as Khon ”the lamenter” would form an
additional reason why he should be distinguished by that name by which the
Egyptian Hercules was known. And it is not to be overlooked, that on the part
of those who seek to turn sinners from the error of their ways, there is an
eloquence in tears that is very impressive. The tears of Whitefield formed one
great part of his power; and, in like manner, the tears of Khon, ”the
lamenting” Hercules, would aid him mightily in overcoming the Giants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is a great difference between the two symbols–the tusks of a boar and
the golden chains issuing from the mouth, that draw willing crowds by the ears;
but both very beautifully illustrate the same idea–the might of that persuasive
power that enabled Shem for a time to withstand the tide of evil that came
rapidly rushing in upon the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now when Shem had so powerfully wrought upon the minds of men as to induce
them to make a terrible example of the great Apostate, and when that Apostate’s
dismembered limbs were sent to the chief cities, where no doubt his system had
been established, it will be readily perceived that, in these circumstances, if
idolatry was to continue–if, above all, it was to take a step in advance, it
was indispensable that it should operate in secret. The terror of an execution,
inflicted on one so mighty as Nimrod, made it needful that, for some time to
come at least, the extreme of caution should be used. In these circumstances,
then, began, there can hardly be a doubt, that system of ”Mystery,” which,
having Babylon for its centre, has spread over the world. In these Mysteries,
under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath, and by means of all the
fertile resources of magic, men were gradually led back to all the idolatry
that had been publicly suppressed, while new features were added to that
idolatry that made it still more blasphemous than before. That magic and
idolatry were twin sisters, and came into the world together, we have abundant
evidence. ”He” (Zoroaster), says Justin the historian, ”was said to be the
first that invented magic arts, and that most diligently studied the motions of
the heavenly bodies.” The Zoroaster spoken of by Justin is the Bactrian
Zoroaster; but this is generally admitted to be a mistake. Stanley, in his
History of Oriental Philosophy, concludes that this mistake had arisen from
similarity of name, and that from this cause that had been attributed to the
Bactrian Zoroaster which properly belonged to the Chaldean, ”since it cannot be
imagined that the Bactrian was the inventor of those arts in which the
Chaldean, who lived contemporary with him, was so much skilled.” Epiphanius had
evidently come to the same substantial conclusion before him. He maintains,
from the evidence open to him in his day, that it was ”Nimrod, that established
the sciences of magic and astronomy, the invention of which was subsequently
attributed to (the Bactrian) Zoroaster.” As we have seen that Nimrod and the
Chaldean Zoroaster are the same, the conclusions of the ancient and the modern inquirers
into Chaldean antiquity entirely harmonise. Now the secret system of the
Mysteries gave vast facilities for imposing on the senses of the initiated by
means of the various tricks and artifices of magic. Notwithstanding all the
care and precautions of those who conducted these initiations, enough has
transpired to give us a very clear insight into their real character.
Everything was so contrived as to wind up the minds of the novices to the
highest pitch of excitement, that, after having surrendered themselves
implicitly to the priests, they might be prepared to receive anything. After
the candidates for initiation had passed through the confessional, and sworn
the required oaths, ”strange and amazing objects,” says Wilkinson, ”presented
themselves. Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake around them;
sometimes it appeared bright and resplendent with light and radiant fire, and
then again covered with black darkness, sometimes thunder and lightning,
sometimes frightful noises and bellowings, sometimes terrible apparitions
astonished the trembling spectators.” Then, at last, the great god, the central
object of their worship, Osiris, Tammuz, Nimrod or Adonis, was revealed to them
in the way most fitted to soothe their feelings and engage their blind
affections. An account of such a manifestation is thus given by an ancient
Pagan, cautiously indeed, but yet in such a way as shows the nature of the
magic secret by which such an apparent miracle was accomplished: ”In a
manifestation which one must not reveal…there is seen on a wall of the temple a
mass of light, which appears at first at a very great distance. It is
transformed, while unfolding itself, into a visage evidently divine and
supernatural, of an aspect severe, but with a touch of sweetness. Following the
teachings of a mysterious religion, the Alexandrians honour it as Osiris or
Adonis.” From this statement, there can hardly be a doubt that the magical art
here employed was none other than that now made use of in the modern
phantasmagoria. Such or similar means were used in the very earliest periods
for presenting to the view of the living, in the secret Mysteries, those who
were dead. We have statements in ancient history referring to the very time of
Semiramis, which imply that magic rites were practised for this very purpose; *
and as the magic lantern, or something akin to it, was manifestly used in later
times for such an end, it is reasonable to conclude that the same means, or
similar, were employed in the most ancient times, when the same effects were
produced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* One of the statements to which I refer is contained in the following
words of Moses of Chorene in his Armenian History, referring to the answer made
by Semiramis to the friends of Araeus, who had been slain in battle by her: ”I
have given commands, says Semiramis, to my gods to lick the wounds of Araeus,
and to raise him from the dead. The gods, says she, have licked Araeus, and
recalled him to life.” If Semiramis had really done what she said she had done,
it would have been a miracle. The effects of magic were sham miracles; and
Justin and Epiphanius show that sham miracles came in at the very birth of
idolatry. Now, unless the sham miracle of raising the dead by magical arts had
already been known to be practised in the days of Semiramis, it is not likely
that she would have given such an answer to those whom she wished to
propitiate; for, on the one hand, how could she ever have thought of such an
answer, and on the other, how could she expect that it would have the intended
effect, if there was no current belief in the practice of necromancy? We find
that in Egypt, about the same age, such magic arts must have been practised, if
Manetho is to be believed. ”Manetho says,” according to Josephus, ”that he [the
elder Horus, evidently spoken of as a human and mortal king] was admitted to
the sight of the gods, and that Amenophis desired the same privilege.” This
pretended admission to the right of the gods evidently implied the use of the
magic art referred to in the text.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of
imposing upon those who were willing to be imposed upon, who were averse to the
holy spiritual religion of the living God, and who still hankered after the
system that was put down. It was easy for those who controlled the Mysteries,
having discovered secrets that were then unknown to the mass of mankind, and
which they carefully preserved in their own exclusive keeping, to give them
what might seem ocular demonstration, that Tammuz, who had been slain, and for
whom such lamentations had been made, was still alive, and encompassed with
divine and heavenly glory. From the lips of one so gloriously revealed, or what
was practically the same, from the lips of some unseen priest, speaking in his
name from behind the scenes, what could be too wonderful or incredible to be
believed? Thus the whole system of the secret Mysteries of Babylon was intended
to glorify a dead man; and when once the worship of one dead man was
established, the worship of many more was sure to follow. This casts light upon
the language of the 106th Psalm, where the Lord, upbraiding Israel for their
apostacy, says: ”They joined themselves to Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of
the dead.” Thus, too, the way was paved for bringing in all the abominations
and crimes of which the Mysteries became the scenes; for, to those who liked
not to retain God in their knowledge, who preferred some visible object of
worship, suited to the sensuous feelings of their carnal minds, nothing could seem
a more cogent reason for faith or practice than to hear with their own ears a
command given forth amid so glorious a manifestation apparently by the very
divinity they adored.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The scheme, thus skilfully formed, took effect. Semiramis gained glory from
her dead and deified husband; and in course of time both of them, under the
names of Rhea and Nin, or ”Goddess-Mother and Son,” were worshipped with an
enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and
adored. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* It would seem that no public idolatry was ventured upon till the reign of
the grandson of Semiramis, Arioch or Arius. (Cedreni Compendium)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wherever the Negro aspect of Nimrod was found an obstacle to his worship,
this was very easily obviated. According to the Chaldean doctrine of the
transmigration of souls, all that was needful was just to teach that Ninus had
reappeared in the person of a posthumous son, of a fair complexion,
supernaturally borne by his widowed wife after the father had gone to glory. As
the licentious and dissolute life of Semiramis gave her many children, for whom
no ostensible father on earth would be alleged, a plea like this would at once
sanctify sin, and enable her to meet the feelings of those who were disaffected
to the true worship of Jehovah, and yet might have not fancy to bow down before
a Negro divinity. From the light reflected on Babylon by Egypt, as well as from
the form of the extant images of the Babylonian child in the arms of the
goddess-mother, we have every reason to believe that this was actually done. In
Egypt the fair Horus, the son of the black Osiris, who was the favourite object
of worship, in the arms of the goddess Isis, was said to have been miraculously
born in consequence of a connection, on the part of that goddess, with Osiris
after his death, and, in point of fact, to have been a new incarnation of that
god, to avenge his death on his murderers. It is wonderful to find in what
widely-severed countries, and amongst what millions of the human race at this
day, who never saw a Negro, a Negro god is worshipped. But yet, as we shall
afterwards see, among the civilised nations of antiquity, Nimrod almost
everywhere fell into disrepute, and was deposed from his original pre-eminence,
expressly ob deformitatem, ”on account of his ugliness.” Even in Babylon
itself, the posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all
his father’s glory, yet possessing more of his mother’s complexion, came to be
the favourite type of the Madonna’s divine son.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This son, thus worshipped in his mother’s arms, was looked upon as invested
with all the attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised
Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The
Lord, so Tammuz was called Adon or Adonis. Under the name of Mithras, he was
worshipped as the ”Mediator.” As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he
was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8:33). In this character
he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the well known
symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or
Saviour of men, though a god, he was worshipped as the great ”Victim-Man,” who
before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered
himself as a sacrifice. The Hindoo sacred writings teach that this mysterious
offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have
ever been offered since. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the exercise of his office as the Remedial god, Vishnu is said to
”extract the thorns of the three worlds.” (MOOR’S Pantheon) ”Thorns” were a
symbol of the curse–Genesis 3:18.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do any marvel at such a statement being found in the sacred books of a
Pagan mythology? Why should they? Since sin entered the world there has been
only one way of salvation, and that through the blood of the everlasting
covenant–a way that all mankind once knew, from the days of righteous Abel
downwards. When Abel, ”by faith,” offered unto God his more excellent sacrifice
than that of Cain, it was his faith ”in the blood of the Lamb slain,” in the
purpose of God ”from the foundation of the world,” and in due time to be
actually offered up on Calvary, that gave all the ”excellence” to his offering.
If Abel knew of ”the blood of the Lamb,” why should Hindoos not have known of
it? One little word shows that even in Greece the virtue of ”the blood of God”
had once been known, though that virtue, as exhibited in its poets, was utterly
obscured and degraded. That word is Ichor. Every reader of the bards of classic
Greece knows that Ichor is the term peculiarly appropriated to the blood of a
divinity. Thus Homer refers to it:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”From the clear vein the
immortal Ichor flowed,<br />
Such stream as issues from a wounded god,<br />
Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood,<br />
Unlike our gross, diseased terrestrial blood.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, what is the proper meaning of the term Ichor? In Greek it has no
etymological meaning whatever; but, in Chaldee, Ichor signifies ”The precious
thing.” Such a name, applied to the blood of a divinity, could have only one
origin. It bears its evidence on the very face of it, as coming from that grand
patriarchal tradition, that led Abel to look forward to the ”precious blood” of
Christ, the most ”precious” gift that love Divine could give to a guilty world,
and which, while the blood of the only genuine ”Victim-Man,” is at the same
time, in deed and in truth, ”The blood of God” (Acts 20:28). Even in Greece
itself, though the doctrine was utterly perverted, it was not entirely lost. It
was mingled with falsehood and fable, it was hid from the multitude; but yet,
in the secret mystic system it necessarily occupied an important place. As
Servius tells us that the grand purpose of the Bacchic orgies ”was the
purification of souls,” and as in these orgies there was regularly the tearing asunder
and the shedding of the blood of an animal, in memory of the shedding of the
life’s blood of the great divinity commemorated in them, could this symbolical
shedding of the blood of that divinity have no bearing on the ”purification”
from sin, these mystic rites were intended to effect? We have seen that the
sufferings of the Babylonian Zoroaster and Belus were expressly represented as
voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world, and that in
connection with crushing the great serpent’s head, which implied the removal of
sin and the curse. If the Grecian Bacchus was just another form of the
Babylonian divinity, then his sufferings and blood-shedding must have been
represented as having been undergone for the same purpose–viz., for the ”purification
of souls.” From this point of view, let the well known name of Bacchus in
Greece be looked at. The name was Dionysus or Dionusos. What is the meaning of
that name? Hitherto it has defied all interpretation. But deal with it as
belonging to the language of that land from which the god himself originally
came, and the meaning is very plain. D’ion-nuso-s signifies ”THE SIN-BEARER,” *
a name entirely appropriate to the character of him whose sufferings were
represented as so mysterious, and who was looked up to as the great ”purifier
of souls.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The expression used in Exodus 28:38, for ”bearing iniquity” or in a
vicarious manner is ”nsha eon” (the first letter eon being ayn). A synonym for
eon, ”iniquity,” is aon (the first letter being aleph). In Chaldee the first
letter a becomes i, and therefore aon, ”iniquity,” is ion. Then nsha ”to bear,”
in the participle active is ”nusha.” As the Greeks had no sh, that became nusa.
De, or Da, is the demonstrative pronoun signifying ”That” or ”The great.” And thus
”D’ion-nusa” is exactly ”The great sin-bearer.” That the classic Pagans had the
very idea of the imputation of sin, and of vicarious suffering, is proved by
what Ovid says in regard to Olenos. Olenos is said to have taken upon him and
willingly to have borne the blame of guilt of which he was innocent. Under the
load of this imputed guilt, voluntarily taken upon himself, Olenos is
represented as having suffered such horror as to have perished, being petrified
or turned into stone. As the stone into which Olenos was changed was erected on
the holy mountain of Ida, that shows that Olenos must have been regarded as a
sacred person. The real character of Olenos, as the ”sin-bearer,” can be very
fully established. (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect225.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this Babylonian god, known in Greece as ”The sin-bearer,” and in India
as the ”Victim-Man,” among the Buddhists of the East, the original elements of
whose system are clearly Babylonian, was commonly addressed as the ”Saviour of
the world.” It has been all along well enough known that the Greeks
occasionally worshipped the supreme god under the title of ”Zeus the Saviour”;
but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some
suck-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that ”Zeus the Saviour”
was only a title of Dionysus, the ”sin-bearing Bacchus,” his character, as ”The
Saviour,” appears in quite a different light. In Egypt, the Chaldean god was
held up as the great object of love and adoration, as the god through whom
”goodness and truth were revealed to mankind.” He was regarded as the
predestined heir of all things; and, on the day of his birth, it was believed
that a voice was heard to proclaim, ”The Lord of all the earth is born.” In
this character he was styled ”King of kings, and Lord of lords,” it being as a
professed representative of this hero-god that the celebrated Sesostris caused
this very title to be added to his name on the monuments which he erected to
perpetuate the fame of his victories. Not only was he honoured as the great
”World King,” he was regarded as Lord of the invisible world, and ”Judge of the
dead”; and it was taught that, in the world of spirits, all must appear before
his dread tribunal, to have their destiny assigned them. As the true Messiah
was prophesied of under the title of the ”Man whose name was the branch,” he
was celebrated not only as the ”Branch of Cush,” but as the ”Branch of God,”
graciously given to the earth for healing all the ills that flesh is heir to. *
He was worshipped in Babylon under the name of El-Bar, or ”God the Son.” Under
this very name he is introduced by Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as the
second in the list of Babylonian sovereigns. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* This is the esoteric meaning of Virgil’s ”Golden Branch,” and of the
Mistletoe Branch of the Druids. The proof of this must be reserved to the
Apocalypse of the Past. I may remark, however, in passing, on the wide extent
of the worship of a sacred branch. Not only do the Negroes in Africa in the
worship of the Fetiche, on certain occasions, make use of a sacred branch
(HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies), but even in India there are traces of the same
practice. My brother, S. Hislop, Free Church Missionary at Nagpore, informs me
that the late Rajah of Nagpore used every year, on a certain day, to go in
state to worship the branch of a particular species of tree, called Apta, which
had been planted for the occasion, and which, after receiving divine honours,
was plucked up, and its leaves distributed by the native Prince among his
nobles. In the streets of the city numerous boughs of the same kind of tree
were sold, and the leaves presented to friends under the name of sona, or
”gold.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** BEROSUS, in BUNSEN’S Egypt. The name ”El-Bar” is given above in the
Hebrew form, as being more familiar to the common reader of the English Bible.
The Chaldee form of the name is Ala-Bar, which in the Greek of Berosus, is
Ala-Par, with the ordinary Greek termination os affixed to it. The change of Bar
into Par in Greek is just on the same principle as Ab, ”father,” in Greek
becomes Appa, and Bard, the ”spotted one,” becomes Pardos, &c. This name,
Ala-Bar, was probably given by Berosus to Ninyas as the legitimate son and
successor of Nimrod. That Ala-Par-os was really intended to designate the
sovereign referred to, as ”God the Son,” or ”the Son of God,” is confirmed by
another reading of the same name as given in Greek. There the name is
Alasparos. Now Pyrsiporus, as applied to Bacchus, means Ignigena, or the ”Seed
of Fire”; and Ala-sporos, the ”Seed of God,” is just a similar expression
formed in the same way, the name being Grecised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Under this name he has been found in the sculptures of Nineveh by Layard,
the name Bar ”the Son,” having the sign denoting El or ”God” prefixed to it.
Under the same name he has been found by Sir H. Rawlinson, the names ”Beltis”
and the ”Shining Bar” being in immediate juxtaposition. Under the name of Bar
he was worshipped in Egypt in the earliest times, though in later times the god
Bar was degraded in the popular Pantheon, to make way for another more popular
divinity. In Pagan Rome itself, as Ovid testifies, he was worshipped under the
name of the ”Eternal Boy.” * Thus daringly and directly was a mere mortal set
up in Babylon in opposition to the ”Son of the Blessed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* To understand the true meaning of the above expression, reference must be
had to a remarkable form of oath among the Romans. In Rome the most sacred form
of an oath was (as we learn from AULUS GELLIUS), ”By Jupiter the STONE.” This,
as it stands, is nonsense. But translate ”lapidem” [stone] back into the sacred
tongue, or Chaldee, and the oath stands, ”By Jove, the Son,” or ”By the son of
Jove.” Ben, which in Hebrew is Son, in Chaldee becomes Eben, which also
signifies a stone, as may be seen in ”Eben-ezer,” ”The stone of help.” Now as
the most learned inquirers into antiquity have admitted that the Roman Jovis,
which was anciently the nominative, is just a form of the Hebrew Jehovah, it is
evident that the oath had originally been, ”by the son of Jehovah.” This
explains how the most solemn and binding oath had been taken in the form above
referred to; and,it shows, also, what was really meant when Bacchus, ”the son
of Jovis,” was called ”the Eternal Boy.” </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(OVID, Metam.)</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Note</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Olenos, the Sin-Bearer</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In different portions of this work evidence has been brought to show that
Saturn, ”the father of gods and men,” was in one aspect just our first parent
Adam. Now, of Saturn it is said that he devoured all his children. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Sometimes he is said to have devoured only his male children; but see
SMITH’S (Larger) Classical Dictionary, ”Hera,” where it will be found that the
female as well as the male were devoured.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the exoteric story, among those who knew not the actual fact referred
to, this naturally appeared in the myth, in the shape in which we commonly find
it–viz., that he devoured them all as soon as they were born. But that which
was really couched under the statement, in regard to his devouring his
children, was just the Scriptural fact of the Fall–viz., that he destroyed them
by eating–not by eating them, but by eating the forbidden fruit. When this was
the sad and dismal state of matters, the Pagan story goes on to say that the
destruction of the children of the father of gods and men was arrested by means
of his wife, Rhea. Rhea, as we have already seen, had really as much to do with
the devouring of Saturn’s children, as Saturn himself; but, in the progress of
idolatry and apostacy, Rhea, or Eve, came to get glory at Saturn’s expense.
Saturn, or Adam, was represented as a morose divinity; Rhea, or Eve,
exceedingly benignant; and, in her benignity, she presented to her husband a
stone bound in swaddling bands, which he greedily devoured, and henceforth the
children of the cannibal father were safe. The stone bound in swaddling bands
is, in the sacred language, ”Ebn Hatul”; but Ebn-Hat-tul * also signifies ”A
sin-bearing son.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Hata, ”sin,” is found also in Chaldee, Hat. Tul is from Ntl, ”to
support.” If the reader will look at Horus with his swathes (BRYANT); Diana
with the bandages round her legs; the symbolic bull of the Persian swathed in
like manner, and even the shapeless log of the Tahitians, used as a god and
bound about with ropes (WILLIAMS); he will see, I think, that there must be
some important mystery in this swathing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This does not necessarily mean that Eve, or the mother of mankind, herself
actually brought forth the promised seed (although there are many myths also to
that effect), but that, having received the glad tidings herself, and embraced
it, she presented it to her husband, who received it by faith from her, and
that this laid the foundation of his own salvation and that of his posterity.
The devouring on the part of Saturn of the swaddled stone is just the
symbolical expression of the eagerness with which Adam by faith received the
good news of the woman’s seed; for the act of faith, both in the Old Testament
and in the New, is symbolised by eating. Thus Jeremiah says, ”Thy words were
found of me, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing
of my heart” (Jer 15:16). This also is strongly shown by our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, who, while setting before the Jews the indispensable necessity of
eating His flesh, and feeding on Him, did at the same time say: ”It is the
Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). That Adam eagerly
received the good news about the promised seed, and treasured it up in his
heart as the life of his soul, is evident from the name which he gave to his
wife immediately after hearing it: ”And Adam called his wife’s name Eve,
because she was the mother of all living ones” (Gen 3:20).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The story of the swaddled stone does not end with the swallowing of it, and
the arresting of the ruin of the children of Saturn. This swaddled stone was
said to be ”preserved near the temple of Delphi, where care was taken to anoint
it daily with oil, and to cover it with wool” (MAURICE’S Indian Antiquities).
If this stone symbolised the ”sin-bearing son,” it of course symbolised also
the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, in whose symbolic
covering our first parents were invested when God clothed them in the coats of
skins. Therefore, though represented to the eye as a stone, he must have the
appropriate covering of wool. When represented as a branch, the branch of God,
the branch also was wrapped in wool (POTTER, Religion of Greece). The daily
anointing with oil is very significant. If the stone represented the
”sin-bearing son,” what could the anointing of that ”sin-bearing son” daily
with oil mean, but just to point him out as the ”Lord’s Anointed,” or the
”Messiah,” whom the idolatrous worshipped in opposition to the true Messiah yet
to be revealed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of the names by which this swaddled and anointed stone was called is
very strikingly confirmatory of the above conclusion. That name is Baitulos.
This we find from Priscian, who, speaking of ”that stone which Saturn is said
to have devoured for Jupiter,” adds, whom the Greeks called ”Baitulos.” Now,
”B’hai-tuloh” signifies the ”Life-restoring child.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Tli, Tleh, or Tloh, ”Infans puer” (CLAVIS STOCKII, Chald.), and Hia,
or Haya, ”to live, to restore life.” (GESENIUS) From Hia, ”to live,” with
digamma prefixed, comes the Greek ”life.” That Hia, when adopted into Greek,
was also pronounced Haya, we have evidence in he noun Hiim, ”life,” pronounced
Hayyim, which in Greek is represented by ”blood.” The Mosaic principle, that
”the blood was the life,” is thus proved to have been known by others besides
the Jews. Now Haya, ”to live or restore life,” with the digamma prefixed, becomes
B’haya: and so in Egypt, we find that Bai signified ”soul,” or ”spirit”
(BUNSEN), which is the living principle. B’haitulos, then, is the
”Life-restoring child.” P’haya-n is the same god.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The father of gods and men had destroyed his children by eating; but the
reception of ”the swaddled stone” is said to have ”restored them to life”
(HESIOD, Theogon.). Hence the name Baitulos; and this meaning of the name is
entirely in accordance with what is said in Sanchuniathon about the Baithulia
made by the Phoenician god Ouranos: ”It was the god Ouranos who devised
Baithulia, contriving stones that moved as having life.” If the stone Baitulos
represented the ”life-restoring child,” it was natural that that stone should
be made, if possible, to appear as having ”life” in itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, there is a great analogy between this swaddled stone that represented
the ”sin-bearing son,” and that Olenos mentioned by Ovid, who took on him guilt
not his own, and in consequence was changed into a stone. We have seen already
that Olenos, when changed into a stone, was set up in Phrygia on the holy
mountain of Ida. We have reason to believe that the stone which was fabled to
have done so much for the children of Saturn, and was set up near the temple of
Delphi, was just a representation of this same Olenos. We find that Olen was
the first prophet at Delphi, who founded the first temple there (PAUSA
Phocica). As the prophets and priests generally bore the names of the gods whom
they represented (Hesychius expressly tells us that the priest who represented
the great god under the name of the branch in the mysteries was himself called
by the name of Bacchus), this indicates one of the ancient names of the god of
Delphi. If, then, there was a sacred stone on Mount Ida called the stone of Olenos,
and a sacred stone in the precincts of the temple of Delphi, which Olen
founded, can there be a doubt that the sacred stone of Delphi represented the
same as was represented by the sacred stone of Ida? The swaddled stone set up
at Delphi is expressly called by Priscian, in the place already cited, ”a god.”
This god, then, that in symbol was divinely anointed, and was celebrated as
having restored to life the children of Saturn, father of gods and men, as
identified with the Idaean Olenos, is proved to have been regarded as occupying
the very place of the Messiah, the great Sin-bearer, who came to bear the sins
of men, and took their place and suffered in their room and stead; for Olenos,
as we have seen, voluntarily took on him guilt of which he was personally free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While thus we have seen how much of the patriarchal faith was hid under the
mystical symbols of Paganism, there is yet a circumstance to be noted in regard
to the swaddled stone, that shows how the Mystery of Iniquity in Rome has
contrived to import this swaddled stone of Paganism into what is called
Christian symbolism. The Baitulos, or swaddled stone, was a round or globular
stone. This globular stone is frequently represented swathed and bound,
sometimes with more, sometimes with fewer bandages. In BRYANT, where the
goddess Cybele is represented as ”Spes Divina,” or Divine hope, we see the
foundation of this divine hope held out to the world in the representation of
the swaddled stone at her right hand, bound with four different swathes. In DAVID’S
Antiquites Etrusques, we find a goddess represented with Pandora’s box, the
source of all ill, in her extended hand, and the swaddled globe depending from
it; and in this case that globe has only two bandages, the one crossing the
other. And what is this bandage globe of Paganism but just the counterpart of
that globe, with a band around it, and the mystic Tau, or cross, on the top of
it, that is called ”the type of dominion,” and is frequently represented in the
hands of the profane representations of God the Father. The reader does not now
need to be told that the cross is the chosen sign and mark of that very God
whom the swaddled stone represented; and that when that God was born, it was
said, ”The Lord of all the earth is born” (WILKINSON). As the god symbolised by
the swaddled stone not only restored the children of Saturn to life, but
restored the lordship of the earth to Saturn himself, which by transgression he
had lost, it is not to be wondered at that it is said of ”these consecrated
stones,” that while ”some were dedicated to Jupiter, and others to the sun,”
”they were considered in a more particular manner sacred to Saturn,” the Father
of the gods (MAURICE), and that Rome, in consequence, has put the round stone
into the hand of the image, bearing the profaned name of God the Father
attached to it, and that from his source the bandaged globe, surmounted with
the mark of Tammuz, has become the symbol of dominion throughout all Papal
Europe.</span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter II<br />
Section III<br />
The Mother of the Child</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now while the mother derived her glory in the first instance from the
divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother in the
long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there would
be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express
promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the
Son of God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of
man. But there was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to
lead any one to anticipate that a woman should ever be invested with attributes
that should raise her to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree
improbable, therefore, that when the mother was first exhibited with the child
in her arms, it should be intended to give divine honours to her. She was
doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of the divine Son, and
holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it would be
counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the
promised seed, the world’s only hope. But while this, no doubt, was the design,
it is a plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the
senses must make the most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new
incarnation, when Nimrod was believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was
exhibited merely as a child, without any very particular attraction; while the
mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all the art of painting and
sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty which in reality
belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have
quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among
them; and it is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their
minds by her appearance on that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in
Babylon, representing her in the guise in which she had fascinated them so
much. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Valerius Maximus does not mention anything about the
representation of Semiramis with the child in her arms; but as Semiramis was
deified as Rhea, whose distinguishing character was that of goddess Mother, and
as we have evidence that the name, ”Seed of the Woman,” or Zoroaster, goes back
to the earliest times–viz., her own day (CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis), this implies
that if there was any image-worship in these times, that ”Seed of the Woman”
must have occupied a prominent place in it. As over all the world the Mother
and the child appear in some shape or other, and are found on the early
Egyptian monuments, that shows that this worship must have had its roots in the
primeval ages of the world. If, therefore, the mother was represented in so
fascinating a form when singly represented, we may be sure that the same beauty
for which she was celebrated would be given to her when exhibited with the
child in her arms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This Babylonian queen was not merely in character coincident with the
Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact, the
historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as
the very embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection
of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was
identical with Astarte, and Astarte being interpreted, is none other than ”The
woman that made towers or encompassing walls”–i.e., Semiramis. The Roman Venus,
as is well known, was the Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is
historically proved to have been derived from Babylon. Now, what in these
circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If the child was to
be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the
favourite object of worship. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* How extraordinary, yea, frantic, was the devotion in the minds of the
Babylonians to this goddess queen, is sufficiently proved by the statement of
Herodotus, as to the way in which she required to be propitiated. That a whole
people should ever have consented to such a custom as is there described, shows
the amazing hold her worship must have gained over them. Nonnus, speaking of
the same goddess, calls her ”The hope of the whole world.” (DIONUSIACA in
BRYANT) It was the same goddess, as we have seen, who was worshipped at
Ephesus, whom Demetrius the silversmith characterised as the goddess ”whom all
Asia and the world worshipped” (Acts 19:27). So great was the devotion to this
goddess queen, not of the Babylonians only, but of the ancient world in
general, that the fame of the exploits of Semiramis has, in history, cast the
exploits of her husband Ninus or Nimrod, entirely into the shade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In regard to the identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus, see note<u><span style="color: blue;"></span></u> below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her
son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the
serpent’s head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant
and plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his
mortal life had only begun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman,
as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance
of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation against the serpent thus:
”She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.” The same was held
by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In
the uppermost story of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus
tells us there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one
of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head. Among the Greeks the same
thing was symbolised; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same
as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of
her hands a serpent deprived of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of
Semiramis’ history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be
miraculous: and therefore she was called ”Alma Mater,” * ”the Virgin Mother.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The term Alma is the precise term used by Isaiah in the Hebrew of the Old
Testament, when announcing, 700 years before the event, that Christ should be
born of a Virgin. If the question should be asked, how this Hebrew term Alma
(not in a Roman, but a Hebrew sense) could find its way to Rome, the answer is,
Through Etruria, which had an intimate connection with Assyria. The word
”mater” itself, from which comes our own ”mother,” is originally Hebrew. It
comes from Heb. Msh, ”to draw forth,” in Egyptian Ms, ”to bring forth”
(BUNSEN), which in the Chaldee form becomes Mt, whence the Egyptian Maut,
”mother.” Erh or Er, as in English (and a similar form is found in Sanscrit),
is, ”The doer.” So that Mater or Mother signifies ”The bringer forth.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It may be thought an objection to the above account of the epithet Alma,
that this term is often applied to Venus, who certainly was no virgin. But this
objection is more apparent than real. On the testimony of Augustine, himself an
eye-witness, we know that the rites of Vesta, emphatically ”the virgin goddess
of Rome,” under the name of Terra, were exactly the same as those of Venus, the
goddess of impurity and licentiousness (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate Dei). Augustine
elsewhere says that Vesta, the virgin goddess, ”was by some called Venus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even in the mythology of our own Scandinavian ancestors, we have a
remarkable evidence that Alma Mater, or the Virgin Mother, had been originally
known to them. One of their gods called Heimdal, who is described in the most
exalted terms, as having such quick perceptions as that he could hear the grass
growing on the ground, or the wool on the sheep’s back, and whose trumpet, when
it blew, could be heard through all the worlds, is called by the paradoxical
name, ”the son of nine virgins.” (MALLET) Now this obviously contains an
enigma. Let the language in which the religion of Odin was originally
delivered–viz., the Chaldee, be brought to bear upon it, and the enigma is
solved at once. In Chaldee ”the son of nine virgins” is Ben-Almut-Teshaah. But
in pronunciation this is identical with ”Ben-Almet-Ishaa,” ”the son of the
virgin of salvation.” That son was everywhere known as the ”saviour seed.”
”Zera-hosha” and his virgin mother consequently claimed to be ”the virgin of
salvation.” Even in the very heavens the God of Providence has constrained His
enemies to inscribe a testimony to the great Scriptural truth proclaimed by the
Hebrew prophet, that a ”virgin should bring forth a son, whose name should be
called Immanuel.” The constellation Virgo, as admitted by the most learned
astronomers, was dedicated to Ceres (Dr. JOHN HILL, in his Urania, and Mr. A.
JAMIESON, in his Celestial Atlas), who is the same as the great goddess of
Babylon, for Ceres was worshipped with the babe at her breast (SOPHOCLES,
Antigone), even as the Babylonian goddess was. Virgo was originally the
Assyrian Venus, the mother of Bacchus or Tammuz. Virgo then, was the Virgin
Mother. Isaiah’s prophecy was carried by the Jewish captives to Babylon, and
hence the new title bestowed upon the Babylonian goddess.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely
known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for thousands of
years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin was
to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no
Popish or Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by
the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Thibet and China, and not only
found a mother and a child worshipped as at home, but that mother worshipped
under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna, ”Virgo
Deipara,” ”The Virgin mother of God,” * and that, too, in regions where they
could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus
Christ having ever been known.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* See Sir J. F. DAVIS’S China, and LAFITAN, who says that the accounts sent
home by the Popish missionaries bore that the sacred books of the Chinese spoke
not merely of a Holy Mother, but of a Virgin Mother. For further evidence on
this subject, see note</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect23.htm#noteb"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The primeval promise that the ”seed of the woman should bruise the
serpent’s head,” naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous birth.
Priestcraft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the
fulfilment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the
first to whom that honour was given. The highest titles were accordingly
bestowed upon her. She was called the ”queen of heaven.” (Jer 44:17,18,19,25) *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* When Ashta, or ”the woman,” came to be called the ”queen of heaven,” the
name ”woman” became the highest title of honour applied to a female. This
accounts for what we find so common among the ancient nations of the East, that
queens and the most exalted personages were addressed by the name of ”woman.”
”Woman” is not a complimentary title in our language; but formerly it had been applied
by our ancestors in the very same way as among the Orientals; for our word
”Queen” is derived from Cwino, which in the ancient Gothic just signified a
woman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Egypt she was styled Athor–i.e., ”the Habitation of God,” (BUNSEN) to
signify that in her dwelt all the ”fulness of the Godhead.” To point out the
great goddess-mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at once the Infinite and
Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was engraven upon one of
her temples in Egypt: ”I am all that has been, or that is, or that shall be. No
mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.”
(Ibid.) In Greece she had the name of Hesita, and amongst the Romans, Vesta,
which is just a modification of the same name–a name which, though it has been
commonly understood in a different sense, really meant ”The Dwelling-place.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Hestia, in Greek, signifies ”a house” or ”dwelling.” This is usually
thought to be a secondary meaning of the word, its proper meaning being
believed to be ”fire.” But the statements made in regard to Hestia, show that
the name is derived from Hes or Hese, ”to cover, to shelter,” which is the very
idea of a house, which ”covers” or ”shelters” from the inclemency of the
weather. The verb ”Hes” also signifies ”to protect,” to ”show mercy,” and from
this evidently comes the character of Hestia as ”the protectress of
suppliants.” Taking Hestia as derived from Hes, ”to cover,” or ”shelter,” the
following statement of Smith is easily accounted for: ”Hestia was the goddess
of domestic life, and the giver of all domestic happiness; as such she was
believed to dwell in the inner part of every house, and to have invented the
art of building houses.” If ”fire” be supposed to be the original idea of
Hestia, how could ”fire” ever have been supposed to be ”the builder of houses”!
But taking Hestia in the sense of the Habitation or Dwelling-place, though
derived from Hes, ”to shelter,” or ”cover,” it is easy to see how Hestia would
come to be identified with ”fire.” The goddess who was regarded as the
”Habitation of God” was known by the name of Ashta, ”The Woman”; while ”Ashta”
also signified ”The fire”; and thus Hestia or Vesta, as the Babylonian system
was developed, would easily come to be regarded as ”Fire,” or ”the goddess of
fire.” For the reason that suggested the idea of the Goddess-mother being a
Habitation, see <u><span style="color: blue;">note</span></u> below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or Vesta addressed in the Orphic
Hymns:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Daughter of Saturn, venerable
dame,<br />
Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,<br />
In thee the gods have fix’d their DWELLING-PLACE,<br />
Strong stable basis of the mortal race.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns: Hymn to Vesta. Though Vesta is here called the
daughter of Saturn, she is also identified in all the Pantheons with Cybele or
Rhea, the wife of Saturn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even when Vesta is identified with fire, this same character of Vesta as
”The Dwelling-place” still distinctly appears. Thus Philolaus, speaking of a
fire in the middle of the centre of the world, calls it ”The Vesta of the
universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods.” In Babylon, the title
of the goddess-mother as the Dwelling-place of God was Sacca, or in the
emphatic form, Sacta, that is, ”The Tabernacle.” Hence, at this day, the great
goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god whom they represent,
are called ”Sacti,” or the ”Tabernacle.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* KENNEDY and MOOR. A synonym for Sacca, ”a tabernacle,” is ”Ahel,” which,
with the points, is pronounced ”Ohel.” From the first form of the word, the
name of the wife of the god Buddha seems to be derived, which, in KENNEDY, is
Ahalya, and in MOOR’S Pantheon, Ahilya. From the second form, in like manner,
seems to be derived the name of the wife of the Patriarch of the Peruvians,
”Mama Oello.” (PRESCOTT’S Peru) Mama was by the Peruvians used in the Oriental
sense: Oello, in all likelihood, was used in the same sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God, not only all power, but all
grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of gentleness and
mercy was regarded as centred in her; and when death had closed her career,
while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, * to
express the celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of
”D’Iune,” ** or ”The Dove,” or without the article, ”Juno”–the name of the
Roman ”queen of heaven,” which has the very same meaning; and under the form of
a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* DIODORUS SIC. In connection with this the classical reader will remember
the title of one of the fables in OVID’S Metamorphoses. ”Semiramis into a
pigeon.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Dione, the name of the mother of Venus, and frequently applied to Venus
herself, is evidently the same name as the above. Dione, as meaning Venus, is
clearly applied by Ovid to the Babylonian goddess. (Fasti)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented
with an olive branch in her mouth, as she herself in her human form also is
seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing
her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is
commonly known, for ”Z’emir-amit” means ”The branch-bearer.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Ze, ”the” or ”that,” emir, ”branch,” and amit, ”bearer,” in the
feminine. HESYCHIUS says that Semiramis is a name for a ”wild pigeon.” The
above explanation of the original meaning of the name Semiramis, as referring
to Noah’s wild pigeon (for it was evidently a wild one, as the tame one would
not have suited the experiment), may account for its application by the Greeks
to any wild pigeon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch,
there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the
flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great
event. ”A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified
son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning
of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all
grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the
sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove
represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In
confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the Assyrian ”Juno,” or ”The
Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air. Thus Julius
Firmicus says: ”The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the
supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element] under
the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus.” Why was air thus identified with Juno,
whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but
because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the
”Holy Ghost.” The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the statement of
Proclus, that ”Juno imports the generation of soul.” Whence could the soul–the
spirit of man–be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God. In
accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit,
the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in
the ”Orphic Hymns”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”O royal Juno, of majestic
mien,<br />
Aerial formed, divine, Jove’s blessed queen,<br />
Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,<br />
The race of mortals is thy constant care;<br />
The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,<br />
Which nourish life, which every life desires;<br />
Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone<br />
Producing all things, mortal life is known;<br />
All natures show thy temperament divine,<br />
And universal sway alone is thine,<br />
With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea<br />
And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns. Every classical reader must be aware of the
identification of Juno with the air. The following, however, as still further
illustrative of the subject from Proclus, may not be out of place: ”The series
of our sovereign mistress Juno, beginning from on high, pervades the last of
things, and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air; for air is a
symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable
woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the
Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a
famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to
worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden
dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, ”Semeion.” (BRYANT)
What is the meaning of Semeion? It is evidently ”The Habitation”; * and the
”golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell
in her–even the Spirit of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Ze, ”that,” or ”the great,” and ”Maaon,” or Maion, ”a habitation,”
which, in the Ionic dialect, in which Lucian, the describer of the goddess,
wrote, would naturally become Meion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on her, when such winning
characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all, her images
presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, ”the heavenly Venus,” the
queen of beauty, who assured her worshippers of salvation, while giving loose
reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite–no
wonder that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored. Under the name of the
”Mother of the gods,” the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost
universal worship. ”The Mother of the gods,” says Clericus, ”was worshipped by
the Persians, the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most
profound religious veneration.” Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian
goddess was worshipped in the heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded
Britain, found that the priests of this same goddess, known by the name of
Druids, had been there before him. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* CAESAR, De Bello Gallico. The name Druid has been thought to be derived
from the Greek Drus, an oak tree, or the Celtic Deru, which has the same
meaning; but this is obviously a mistake. In Ireland, the name for a Druid is
Droi, and in Wales Dryw; and it will be found that the connection of the Druids
with the oak was more from the mere similarity of their name to that of the
oak, than because they derived their name from it. The Druidic system in all
its parts was evidently the Babylonian system. Dionysius informs us, that the
rites of Bacchus were duly celebrated in the British Islands and Strabo cites Artemidorus
to show that, in an island close to Britain, Ceres and Proserpine were
venerated with rites similar to the orgies of Samothrace. It will be seen from
the account of the Druidic Ceridwen and her child, afterwards to be noticed
(see Chapter IV, Section III), that there was a great analogy between her
character and that of the great goddess-mother of Babylon. Such was the system;
and the name Dryw, or Droi, applied to the priests, is in exact accordance with
that system. The name Zero, given in Hebrew or the early Chaldee, to the son of
the great goddess queen, in later Chaldee became ”Dero.” The priest of Dero,
”the seed,” was called, as is the case in almost all religions, by the name of
his god; and hence the familiar name ”Druid” is thus proved to signify the
priest of ”Dero”–the woman’s promised ”seed.” The classical Hamadryads were
evidently in like manner priestesses of ”Hamed-dero,”–”the desired seed”–i.e.,
”the desire of all nations.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies, that in Egypt this ”queen of
heaven” was ”the greatest and most worshipped of all the divinities.” Wherever
her worship was introduced, it is amazing what fascinating power it exerted.
Truly, the nations might be said to be ”made drunk” with the wine of her
fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in the days of Jeremiah
drink of her wine cup, so bewitched were they with her idolatrous worship, that
even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very
thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up. While dwelling in Egypt as
forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism
around them, they were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the
Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against them,
if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but his warnings were in
vain. ”Then,” saith the prophet, ”all the men which knew that their wives had
burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great
multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros,
answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the
name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee; but we will certainly do
whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the
queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we,
and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the
streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and
saw no evil” (Jer 44:15-17). Thus did the Jews, God’s own peculiar people,
emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The worship of the goddess-mother with the child in her arms continued to
be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the Gospel had come in power
among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess-queen would have been
overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of
the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was
changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshipped
with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open
and avowed Pagans. The consequence was, that when, in AD 325, the Nicene Council
was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius, who denied the true divinity of
Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without the help of men who
gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level with the
Creator, to set the Virgin-mother side by side with her Son. At the Council of
Nice, says the author of ”Nimrod,” ”The Melchite section”–that is, the
representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt–”held that there were
three persons in the Trinity–the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their
Son.” In reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council,
Father Newman speaks exultingly of these discussions as tending to the
glorification of Mary. ”Thus,” says he, ”the controversy opened a question which
it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the
realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Thus,
there was a wonder in Heaven; a throne was seen far above all created powers,
mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as the morning
star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne, robes pure as the heavens, and a
sceptre over all. And who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was
that wisdom, and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and far, and holy
hope, exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created
from the beginning before the world, in God’s counsels, and in Jerusalem was
her power? The vision is found in the Apocalypse ‘a Woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* NEWMAN’S Development. The intelligent reader will see at a glance the
absurdity of applying this vision of the ”woman” of the Apocalypse to the
Virgin Mary. John expressly declares that what he saw was a ”sign” or ”symbol”
(semeion). If the woman here is a literal woman, the woman that sits on the
seven hills must be the same. ”The woman” in both cases is a ”symbol.” ”The
woman” on the seven hills is the symbol of the false church; the woman clothed
with the sun, of the true church–the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The votaries of Mary,” adds he, ”do not exceed the true faith, unless the
blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous,
unless Arianism is orthodoxy.” This is the very poetry of blasphemy. It
contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to? It just
amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and
worthy of Divine honours, His mother, from whom He derived merely His humanity,
must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all
creatures, and be worshipped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of
Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of His mother. Such is Popery
in the nineteenth century; yea, such is Popery in England. It was known already
that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its blasphemies; that in Lisbon a
church was to be seen with these words engraven on its front, ”To the virgin
goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY, have dedicated
this temple.” (Journal of Professor GIBSON, in Scottish Protestant) But when
till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just
the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the
great goddess-mother. The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of
Babylon. The ”Queen of Heaven” in the one system is the same as the ”Queen of
Heaven” in the other. The goddess worshipped in Babylon and Egypt as the
Tabernacle or Habitation of God, is identical with her who, under the name of
Mary, is called by Rome ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” ”the awful
Dwelling-place,” * ”the Mansion of God” (Pancarpium Marioe), the ”Tabernacle of
the Holy Ghost” (Garden of the Soul), the ”Temple of the Trinity” (Golden
Manual in Scottish Protestant).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Golden Manual in Scottish Protestant. The word here used for
”Dwelling-place” in the Latin of this work is a pure Chaldee word–”Zabulo,” and
is from the same verb as Zebulun (Gen 30:20), the name which was given by Leah
to her son, when she said ”Now will my husband dwell with me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some may possibly be inclined to defend such language, by saying that the
Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and,
therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was
unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import?
Now, no doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor 3:16), ”Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is not only
true, but it is a great truth, and a blessed one–a truth that enhances every
comfort when enjoyed, and takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes,
that every genuine Christian has less or more experience of what is contained
in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor 6:16), ”Ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will
be their God, and they shall be my people.” It must also be admitted, and
gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the Persons of the
glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John 14:23), ”If a man love me,
he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him,
and make our abode with him.” But while admitting all this, on examination it
will be found that the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these
expressions, however apparently similar, are essentially different. When it is
said that a believer is ”a temple of God,” or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the
meaning is (Eph 3:17) that ”Christ dwells in the heart by faith.” But when Rome
says that Mary is ”The Temple” or ”Tabernacle of God,” the meaning is the exact
Pagan meaning of the term–viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a
union akin to the hypostatical union between the divine and human nature of
Christ. The human nature of Christ is the ”Tabernacle of God,” inasmuch as the
Divine nature has veiled its glory in such a way, by assuming our nature, that
we can come near without overwhelming dread to the Holy God. To this glorious
truth John refers when he says (John 1:14), ”The Word was made flesh, and dwelt
(literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In this sense, Christ,
the God-man, is the only ”Tabernacle of God.” Now, it is precisely in this
sense that Rome calls Mary the ”Tabernacle of God,” or of the ”Holy Ghost.”
Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation of the
Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given
to Mary: ”Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the
city of God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and
exaltation, and eternal glorification…Is it most clear that this is true of the
holy church? and in like manner also equally true of the most holy sacrament of
the Lord’s body? Is it (true) of every one of us in as far as we are truly
Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this mystery (as existing)
in a peculiar manner in the most holy Mother of our Lord.” (Pancarpium Marioe)
Then the author, after endeavouring to show that ”Mary is rightly considered as
the Tabernacle of God with men,” and that in a peculiar sense, a sense
different from that in which all Christians are the ”temple of God,” thus
proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the Tabernacle:
”Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the Tabernacle of
God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become man.”
(Ibid.) Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least
is shared with her. The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards
of two hundred years ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented
of its blasphemies? No, the very reverse. The quotation already given from
Father Newman proves this; but there is still stronger proof. In a recently
published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more clearly unfolded. While
Mary is called ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” and the ”TEMPLE of the Trinity,”
the following versicle and response will show in what sense she is regarded as
the temple of the Holy Ghost: ”V. The Lord himself created HER in the Holy
Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,” &c. This
astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with the Holy
Ghost, when it speaks of her ”being poured out” on ”all the works of God”; and
that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman, regarded as
the ”Tabernacle” or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon. Where is such
language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in the
dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and centre of the
world’s enlightenment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on Mary have not one shadow
of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the Babylonian idolatry.
Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are
the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten
track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas.
Had these pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent
the mother of our Lord, naturally they would have been cast either in the one
mould or the other. But it was not so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with
raven locks, the Madonna was always represented with blue eyes and golden hair,
a complexion entirely different form the Jewish complexion, which naturally
would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord, but which
precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen
of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with
golden or yellow hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype,
to which they were all made to correspond. The ”yellow-haired Ceres,” might not
have been accounted of any weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for
it might have been supposed in that case that the epithet ”yellow-haired” was
borrowed from the corn that was supposed to be under her guardian care. But
many other goddesses have the very same epithet applied to them. Europa, whom
Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is called ”The yellow-haired
Europa.” (OVID, Fasti) Minerva is called by Homer ”the blue-eyed Minerva,” and
by Ovid ”the yellow-haired”; the huntress Diana, who is commonly identified
with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as ”the yellow-haired daughter of
Jupiter,” a title which the pale face of the silver moon could surely never
have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by Theocritus as
”yellow-haired.” Venus herself is frequently called ”Aurea Venus,” the ”golden
Venus.” (HOMER’S Iliad) The Indian goddess Lakshmi, the ”Mother of the
Universe,” is described as of ”a golden complexion.” (Asiatic Researches) Ariadne,
the wife of Bacchus, was called ”the yellow-haired Ariadne.” (HESIOD,
Theogonia) Thus does Dryden refer to her golden or yellow hair:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Where the rude waves in
Dian’s harbour play,<br />
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;<br />
There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,<br />
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Gorgon Medusa before her transformation, while celebrated for her
beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Medusa once had charms: to
gain her love<br />
A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.<br />
They who have seen her, own they ne’er did trace<br />
More moving features in a sweeter face;<br />
But above all, her length of hair they own<br />
In golden ringlets waves, and graceful shone.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic tales of the north, which
was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish goddess of Syria,
who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified with
Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. ”The Ellewoman,”
such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, ”is fair,” says the introduction
to the ”Danish Tales” of Hans Andersen, ”and gold-haired, and plays most
sweetly on a stringed instrument.” ”She is frequently seen sitting on the
surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a golden comb.”
Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to
indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow’s head and
neck were gilded. (HERODOTUS and WILKINSON) When, therefore, it is known that
the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a
fair complexion and with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is
almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can
resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented, only because
she had been copied form the same prototype as the Pagan divinities?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish
features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly their own. But
the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are
declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this
respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert
Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of
notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently
encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the heads of the
so-called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a
device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if His head had been merely
surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretence for saying that that
was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy
mount His face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass
of Scripture, do we ever read that His head was surrounded with a disk, or a
circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is
found in he artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of
Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were the well known symbols of
the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the
circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was
the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus
represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally
entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. From Pompeii there
is a representation of Circe, ”the daughter of the Sun” with her head
surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna
is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of
Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how
exactly they correspond. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The explanation of the figure is thus given in Pompeii: ”One of them [the
paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the
moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of
the antidote given him by Mercury [it is well known that Circe had a 'golden
cup,' even as the Venus of Babylon had], draws his sword, and advances to
avenge his companions,” who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into
swine. The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by
Homer; Ulysses himself being the narrator:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Hence, seek the sty, there
wallow with thy friends,<br />
She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh<br />
My Falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,<br />
Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,<br />
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,<br />
And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:<br />
‘Say, who art thou,’” &c.–COWPER’S Odyssey</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”This picture,” adds the author of Pompeii, ”is remarkable, as teaching us
the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which the heads of saints are
often surrounded…This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius
to be ‘the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.’ It belongs
with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors,
with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under
this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and
customs, into the use of the Church.” The emperors here get rather more than a
fair share of the blame due to them. It was not the emperors that brought
”Pagan superstition” into the Church, so much as the Bishop of Rome. See
Chapter VII, Section II.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, could any one possibly believe that all this coincidence could be
accidental. Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled the Virgin
Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the
goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries,
is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus ”the Son,” as the
rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of
licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry.
What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say
that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus?
When she was worshipped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called
by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of His glorious character, as
the name of Jesus. He was called ”Zoro-ashta,” ”the seed of the woman.” But
that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against those in
the days of old who worshipped that ”image of jealousy, provoking to jealousy.”
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Ezekiel 8:3. There have been many speculations about what this ”image of
jealousy” could be. But when it is known that the grand feature of ancient
idolatry was just the worship of the Mother and the child, and that child as
the Son of God incarnate, all is plain. Compare verses 3 and 5 with verse 14,
and it will be seen that the ”women weeping for Tammuz” were weeping close
beside the image of jealousy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to the infant in the arms of
the Romish Madonna, make it less the ”image of jealousy,” less offensive to the
Most High, less fitted to provoke His high displeasure, when it is evident that
that infant is worshipped as the child of her who was adored as Queen of
Heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time the
”Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Image-worship in every case
the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly
abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it
wonderful that such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God
against the Romish apostacy, and that the vials of this tremendous wrath are
destined to be outpoured upon its guilty head? If these things be true (and
gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call
her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines,
who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a
doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy
Trinity consisted of ”the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son”?
(Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, July, 1852) Is there one who would not shrink
with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a Church
that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the
following lines?</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Heart of Jesus, I adore thee;<br />
Heart of Mary, I implore thee;<br />
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;<br />
IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* What every Christian must Know and Do. By the Rev. J. FURNISS. Published
by James Duffy, Dublin. The edition of this Manual of Popery quoted above,
besides the blasphemy it contains, contains most immoral principles, teaching
distinctly the harmlessness of fraud, if only kept within due bounds. On this
account, a great outcry having been raised against it, I believe this edition
has been withdrawn from general circulation. The genuineness of the passage
above given is, however, beyond all dispute. I received myself from a fried in
Liverpool a copy of the edition containing these words, which is now in my
possession, having previously seen them in a copy in the possession of the Rev.
Richard Smyth of Armagh. It is not in Ireland, however, only, that such a
trinity is exhibited for the worship of Romanists. In a Card, or Fly-leaf,
issued by the Popish priests of Sunderland, now lying before me, with the
heading ”Paschal Duty, St. Mary’s Church, Bishopwearmouth, 1859,” the following
is the 4th admonition given to the ”Dear Christians” to whom it is addressed:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”4. And never forget the acts of a good Christian, recommended to you so
often during the renewal of the Mission.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Blessed be Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph.<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart, my life, and my soul.<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me always; and in my last agony,<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, receive my last breath. Amen.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To induce the adherents of Rome to perform this ”act of a good Christian,”
a considerable bribe is held out. In p. 30 of Furniss’ Manual above referred
to, under the head ”Rule of Life,” the following passage occurs: ”In the
morning, before you get up, make the sign of the cross, and say, Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. (Each time you say this prayer,
you get an indulgence of 100 days, which you can give to the souls in
Purgatory)!” I must add that the title of Furniss’ book, as given above, is the
title of Mr. Smyth’s copy. The title of the copy in my possession is ”What
every Christian must Know.” London: Richardson & Son, 147 Strand. Both
copies alike have the blasphemous words given in the text, and both have the
”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name?
Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of Ireland from tender
infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest books of
catechetical instruction is presented as the grand object of devotion to the
adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth
with the express ”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen,” Popish Archbishop of Dublin.
Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called
Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan
Babylonians, so did the Egyptians, so do the Hindoos at this hour, in the very
same sense in which Rome does. They all admitted A trinity, but did they worship
THE Triune Jehovah, the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one
say with such evidence before him, that Rome does so? <b>Away then, with
the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian!</b> There might once have been
some palliation for entertaining such a supposition; but every day the ”Grand
Mystery” is revealing itself more and more in its true character. There is not,
and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in ”Babylon.” ”Come out of
her, my people,” is the loud and express command of God. Those who disobey that
command, do it at their peril.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Notes</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Identification of Rhea or
Cybele and Venus</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the exoteric doctrine of Greece and Rome, the characters of Cybele, the
mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of love, are generally very
distinct, insomuch that some minds may perhaps find no slight difficulty in
regard to the identification of these two divinities. But that difficulty will
disappear, if the fundamental principle of the Mysteries be borne in mind–viz.,
that at bottom they recognised only Adad, ”The One God.” Adad being Triune,
this left room, when the Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity took shape, for three
different FORMS of divinity–the father, the mother, and the son; but all the
multiform divinities with which the Pagan world abounded, whatever diversities
there were among them, were resolved substantially into so many manifestations
of one or other of these divine persons, or rather of two, for the first person
was generally in the background. We have distinct evidence that this was the
case. Apuleius tells us, that when he was initiated, the goddess Isis revealed
herself to him as ”The first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation
of the gods and goddesses…WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth
venerated, and under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety
of appellations”; and going over many of these appellations, she declares
herself to be at once ”Pessinuntica, the mother of the gods [i.e. Cybele], and
Paphian Venus.” Now, as this was the case in the later ages of the Mysteries,
so it must have been the case from the very beginning; because they SET OUT,
and necessarily set out, with the doctrine of the UNITY of the Godhead. This,
of course, would give rise to no little absurdity and inconsistency in the very
nature of the case. Both Wilkinson and Bunsen, to get rid of the
inconsistencies they have met with in the Egyptian system, have found it necessary
to have recourse to substantially the same explanation as I have done. Thus we
find Wilkinson saying: ”I have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form
of different deities, which, though it appears at first sight to present some
difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we consider that each of those
whose figures or emblem were adopted, was only an EMANATION, or deified
attribute of the SAME GREAT BEING to whom they ascribed various characters,
according to the several offices he was supposed to perform.” The statement of
Bunsen is to the same effect, and it is this: ”Upon these premises, we think
ourselves justified in concluding that the two series of gods were originally
identical, and that, in the GREAT PAIR of gods, all those attributes were
concentrated, from the development of which, in various personifications, that
mythological system sprang up which we have been already considering.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The bearing of all this upon the question of the identification of Cybele
and Astarte, or Venus, is important. Fundamentally, there was but one
goddess–the Holy Spirit, represented as female, when the distinction of sex was
wickedly ascribed to the Godhead, through a perversion of the great Scripture
idea, that all the children of God are at once begotten of the Father, and born
of the Spirit; and under this idea, the Spirit of God, as Mother, was
represented under the form of a dove, in memory of the fact that that Spirit,
at the creation, ”fluttered”–for so, as I have observed, is the exact meaning of
the term in Genesis 1:2–”on the face of the waters.” This goddess, then, was
called Ops, ”the flutterer,” or Juno, ”The Dove,” or Khubele, ”The binder with
cords,” which last title had reference to ”the bands of love, the cords of a
man” (called in Hosea 11:4, ”Khubeli Adam”), with which not only does God @mL3
continually, by His providential goodness, draw men unto Himself, but with
which our first parent Adam, through the Spirit’s indwelling, while the
covenant of Eden was unbroken, was sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely
dwelt on in Pagan story, and the evidence is very abundant; but I cannot enter
upon it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that the Romans joined the two
terms Juno and Khubele–or, as it is commonly pronounced, Cybele–together; and
on certain occasions invoked their supreme goddess, under the name of Juno
Covella–that is, ”The dove that binds with cords.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the reader looks, in Layard, at the triune emblem of the supreme
Assyrian divinity, he will see this very idea visibly embodied. There the wings
and tail of the dove have two bands associated with them instead of feet
(LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In reference to events after the Fall, Cybele got a new idea attached to
her name. Khubel signifies not only to ”bind with cords,” but also ”to travail
in birth”; and therefore Cybele appeared as the ”Mother of the gods,” by whom
all God’s children must be born anew or regenerated. But, for this purpose, it
was held indispensable that there should be a union in the first instance with
Rhea, ”The gazer,” the human ”mother of gods and men,” that the ruin she had
introduced might be remedied. Hence the identification of Cybele and Rhea,
which in all the Pantheons are declared to be only two different names of the
same goddess, though, as we have seen, these goddesses were in reality entirely
distinct. This same principle was applied to all the other deified mothers.
They were deified only through the supposed miraculous identification with them
of Juno or Cybele–in other words, of the Holy Spirit of God. Each of these
mothers had her own legend, and had special worship suited thereto; but, as in
all cases, she was held to be an incarnation of the one spirit of God, as the
great Mother of all, the attributes of that one Spirit were always pre-supposed
as belonging to her. This, then, was the case with the goddess recognised as
Astarte or Venus, as well as with Rhea. Though there were points of difference
between Cybele, or Rhea, and Astarte or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus, Layard shows
that there were also distinct points of contact between them. Cybele or Rhea
was remarkable for her turreted crown. Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented
with a similar crown. Cybele, or Rhea, was drawn by lions; Mylitta, or Astarte,
was represented as standing on a lion. The worship of Mylitta, or Astarte, was
a mass of moral pollution (HERODOTUS). The worship of Cybele, under the name of
Terra, was the same (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis, as the first deified man
was her husband. But it is evident that it was some time after the Mysteries
began that this deification took place; for it was not till after Semiramis was
dead that she was exalted to divinity, and worshipped under the form of a dove.
When, however, the Mysteries were originally concocted, the deeds of Eve, who,
through her connection with the serpent, brought forth death, must necessarily
have occupied a place; for the Mystery of sin and death lies at the very
foundation of all religion, and in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem
and Ham, all men must have been well acquainted with the facts of the Fall. At
first the sin of Eve may have been admitted in all its sinfulness (otherwise
men generally would have been shocked, especially when the general conscience
had been quickened through the zeal of Shem); but when a woman was to be
deified, the shape that the mystic story came to assume shows that that sin was
softened, yea, that it changed its very character, and that by a perversion of
the name given to Eve, as ”the mother of all living ones,” that is, all the
regenerate, she was glorified as the authoress of spiritual life, and, under
the very name Rhea, was recognised as the mother of the gods. Now, those who
had the working of the Mystery of Iniquity did not find it very difficult to
show that this name Rhea, originally appropriate to the mother of mankind, was
hardly less appropriate for her who was the actual mother of the gods, that is,
of all the deified mortals. Rhea, in the active sense, signifies ”the Gazing
woman,” but in the passive it signifies ”The woman gazed at,” that is, ”The
beauty,” and thus, under one and the same term, the mother of mankind and the
mother of the Pagan gods, that is, Semiramis, were amalgamated; insomcuh, that now,
as is well known, Rhea is currently recognised as the ”Mother of gods and men”
(HESIOD, Theogon). It is not wonderful, therefore that the name Rhea is found
applied to her, who, by the Assyrians, was worshipped in the very character of
Astarte or Venus.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">____________________</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Virgin Mother of Paganism</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Almost all the Tartar princes,” says SALVERTE (Des Sciences Occultes),
”trace their genealogy to a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sun-beam, or
some equally miraculous means.” In India, the mother of Surya, the sun-god, who
was born to destroy the enemies of the gods, is said to have become pregnant in
this way, a beam of the sun having entered her womb, in consequence of which
she brought forth the sun-god. Now the knowledge of this widely diffused myth
casts light on the secret meaning of the name Aurora, given to the wife of
Orion, to whose marriage with that ”mighty hunter” Homer refers (Odyssey).
While the name Aur-ora, in the physical sense, signifies also ”pregnant with
light”; and from ”ohra,” ”to conceive” or be ”pregnant,” we have in Greek, the
word for a wife. As Orion, according to Persian accounts, was Nimrod; and
Nimrod, under the name of Ninus, was worshipped as the son of his wife, when he
came to be deified as the sun-god, that name Aurora, as applied to his wife, is
evidently intended to convey the very same idea as prevails in Tartary and
India. These myths of the Tartars and Hindoos clearly prove that the Pagan idea
of the miraculous conception had not come from any intermixture of Christianity
with that superstition, but directly from the promise of ”the seed of the
woman.” But how, it may be asked, could the idea of being pregnant with a
sunbeam arise? There is reason to believe that it came from one of the natural
names of the sun. From the Chaldean zhr, ”to shine,” comes, in the participle
active, zuhro or zuhre, ”the Shiner”; and hence, no doubt, from zuhro, ”the
Shiner,” under the prompting of a designing priesthood, men would slide into
the idea of zuro, ”the seed,”–”the Shiner” and ”the seed,” according to the
genius of Paganism, being thus identified. This was manifestly the case in
Persia, where the sun as the great divinity; for the ”Persians,” says Maurice,
”called God Sure” (Antiquities).</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">____________________</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Goddess Mother as a
Habitation</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What could ever have induced mankind to think of calling the great Goddess-mother,
or mother of gods and men, a House or Habitation? The answer is evidently to be
found in a statement made in Genesis 2:21, in regard to the formation of the
mother of mankind: ”And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he
slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made (margin, literally
BUILDED) he into a woman.” That this history of the rib was well known to the
Babylonians, is manifest from one of the names given to their primeval goddess,
as found in Berosus. That name is Thalatth. But Thalatth is just the Chaldean
form of the Hebrew Tzalaa, in the feminine,–the very word used in Genesis for
the rib, of which Eve was formed; and the other name which Berosus couples with
Thalatth, does much to confirm this; for that name, which is Omorka, * just
signifies ”The Mother of the world.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From ”Am,” ”mother,” and ”arka,” ”earth.” The first letter aleph in both
of these words is often pronounced as o. Thus the pronunciation of a in Am,
”mother,” is seen in the Greek a ”shoulder.” Am, ”mother,” comes from am, ”to
support,” and from am, pronounced om, comes the shoulder that bears burdens.
Hence also the name Oma, as one of the names of Bona Des. Oma is evidently the
”Mother.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When we have thus deciphered the meaning of the name Thalatth, as applied
to the ”mother of the world,” that leads us at once to the understanding, of
the name Thalasius, applied by the Romans to the god of marriage, the origin of
which name has hitherto been sought in vain. Thalatthi signifies ”belonging to
the rib,” and, with the Roman termination, becomes Thalatthius or ”Thalasius,
the man of the rib.” And what name more appropriate than this for Adam, as the
god of marriage, who, when the rib was brought to him, said, ”This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of man.” At first, when Thalatth, the rib, was builded into a woman,
that ”woman” was, in a very important sense, the ”Habitation” or ”Temple of
God”; and had not the Fall intervened, all her children would, in consequence
of mere natural generation, have been the children of God. The entrance of sin
into the world subverted the original constitution of things. Still, when the
promise of a Saviour was given and embraced, the renewed indwelling of the Holy
Spirit was given too, not that she might thereby have any power in herself to
bring forth children unto God, but only that she might duly act the part of a
mother to a spiritually living offspring–to those whom God of his free grace
should quicken, and bring from death unto life. Now, Paganism willingly
overlooked all this; and taught, as soon as its votaries were prepared for
receiving it, that this renewed indwelling of the spirit of God in the woman,
was identification, and so it deified her. Then Rhea, ”the gazer,” the mother
of mankind, was identified with Cybele ”the binder with cords,” or Juno, ”the
Dove,” that is, the Holy Spirit. Then, in the blasphemous Pagan sense, she
became Athor, ”the Habitation of God,” or Sacca, or Sacta, ”the tabernacle” or
”temple,” in whom dwelt ”all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Thus she
became Heva, ”The Living One”; not in the sense in which Adam gave that name to
his wife after the Fall, when the hope of life out of the midst of death was so
unexpectedly presented to her as well as to himself; but in the sense of the
communicator of spiritual and eternal life to men; for Rhea was called the
”fountain of the blessed ones.” The agency, then, of this deified woman was
held to be indispensable for the begetting of spiritual children to God, in
this, as it was admitted, fallen world. Looked at from this point of view, the
meaning of the name given to the Babylonian goddess in 2 Kings 17:30, will be
at once apparent. The name Succoth-benoth has very frequently been supposed to
be a plural word, and to refer to booths or tabernacles used in Babylon for
infamous purposes. But, as observed by Clericus (De Chaldoeis), who refers to the
Rabbins as being of the same opinion, the context clearly shows that the name
must be the name of an idol: (vv 29,30), ”Howbeit every nation made gods of
their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans
had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of
Babylon made Succoth-benoth.” It is here evidently an idol that is spoken of;
and as the name is feminine, that idol must have been the image of a goddess.
Taken in this sense, then, and in the light of the Chaldean system as now
unfolded, the meaning of ”Succoth-benoth,” as applied to the Babylonian
goddess, is just ”The tabernacle of child-bearing.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* That is, the Habitation in which the Spirit of God dwelt, for the purpose
of begetting spiritual children.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When the Babylonian system was developed, Eve was represented as the first
that occupied this place, and the very name Benoth, that signifies
”child-bearing,” explains also how it came about that the Woman, who, as Hestia
or Vesta, was herself called the ”Habitation,” got the credit of ”having
invented the art of building houses” (SMITH, ”Hestia”). Benah, the verb, from
which Benoth comes, signifies at once to ”bring forth children” and ”to build
houses”; the bringing forth of children being metaphorically regarded as the
”building up of the house,” that is, of the family.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While the Pagan system, so far as a Goddess-mother was concerned, was
founded on this identification of the Celestial and Terrestrial mothers of the
”blessed” immortals, each of these two divinities was still celebrated as
having, in some sense, a distinct individuality; and, in consequence, all the
different incarnations of the Saviour-seed were represented as born of two
mothers. It is well known that Bimater, or Two-mothered, is one of the
distinguishing epithets applied to Bacchus. Ovid makes the reason of the
application of this epithet to him to have arisen from the myth, that when in
embryo, he was rescued from the flames in which is mother died, was sewed up in
Jupiter’s thigh, and then brought forth at the due time. Without inquiring into
the secret meaning of this, it is sufficient to state that Bacchus had two
goddess-mothers; for, not only was he conceived by Semele, but he was brought
into the world by the goddess Ippa (PROCLUS in Timoeum). This is the very same
thing, no doubt, that is referred to, when it is said that after his mother
Semele’s death, his aunt Ino acted the part of a mother and nurse unto him. The
same thing appears in the mythology of Egypt, for there we read that Osiris,
under the form of Anubis, having been brought forth by Nepthys, was adopted and
brought up by the goddess Isis as her own son. In consequence of this, the
favourite Triad came everywhere to be the two mothers and the son. In
WILKINSON, the reader will find a divine Triad, consisting of Isis and Nepthys,
and the child of Horus between them. In Babylon, the statement of Diodorus
shows that the Triad there at one period was two goddesses and the son–Hera,
Rhea, and Zeus; and in the Capitol at Rome, in like manner, the Triad was Juno,
Minerva, and Jupiter; while, when Jupiter was worshipped by the Roman matrons
as ”Jupiter puer,” or ”Jupiter the child,” it was in company with Juno and the
goddess Fortuna (CICERO, De Divinatione). This kind of divine Triad seems to be
traced up to very ancient times among the Romans; for it is stated both by
Dionysius Halicarnassius and by Livy, that soon after the expulsion of the
Tarquins, there was at Rome a temple in which were worshipped Ceres, Liber, and
Libera (DION. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">HALICARN and
LIVY).</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter III<br />
Festivals<br />
Section I. Christmas and Lady-day</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined
in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the worshipping of whom the
fierce anger of God was provoked against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it
is of the last consequence that the fact should be established beyond all
possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who trembles
at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either
individually or nationally, the least countenance or support. Something has
been said already that goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and
Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence becomes still more
overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different festivals is
peculiarly so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may
be singled out for elucidation–viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the
Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these
can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in honour of the
birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected
with the 25th of December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise
day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded
there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have
been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to
the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open
fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate
of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable,
the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was
not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open
fields later than about the end of October. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* GILL, in his Commentary on Luke 2:8, has the following: ”There are two
sorts of cattle with the Jews…there are the cattle of the house that lie in the
city; the cattle of the wilderness are they that lie in the pastures. On which
one of the commentators (MAIMONIDES, in Misn. Betza), observes, ‘These lie in
the pastures, which are in the villages, all the days of the cold and heat, and
do not go into the cities until the rains descend.’ The first rain falls in the
month Marchesvan, which answers to the latter part of our October and the
former part of November…From whence it appears that Christ must be born before
the middle of October, since the first rain was not yet come.” KITTO, on
Deuteronomy 11:14 (Illustrated Commentary), says that the ”first rain,” is in
”autumn,” ”that is, in September or October.” This would make the time of the removal
of the flocks from the fields somewhat earlier than I have stated in the text;
but there is no doubt that it could not be later than there stated, according
to the testimony of Maimonides, whose acquaintance with all that concerns
Jewish customs is well known.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could
have taken place at the end of December. There is great unanimity among
commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph
Scaliger, and Jennings, in his ”Jewish Antiquities,” who are all of opinion
that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord’s nativity, the
celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect.
After a long and careful disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he
adduces the following;–”At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go
to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys;
but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for
women with child, and children to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be
born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the
shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was
not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter
wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in
the gospel, ‘Pray that your flight be not in the winter.’ If the winter was so
bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields
in, and women and children to travel in.” Indeed, it is admitted by the most
learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our Lord’s birth
cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival
as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the
fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER’s Manual of Presbytery.
Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into the Worship of the
Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival was observed in that
Church, and adds–”It seems improbably that they should celebrate Christ’s
nativity when they disagreed about the month and the day when Christ was born.”
See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of
Christ’s birth is uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could
not have been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob’s complaint
to Laban, ”By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night.” Now the
whole force of Jacob’s complaint against his churlish kinsman lay in this, that
Laban made him do what no other man would have done, and, therefore, if he
refers to the cold nights of winter (which, however, is not the common
understanding of the expression), it proves just the opposite of what it is
brought by Mr. Ryle to prove–viz., that it was not the custom for shepherds to
tend their flocks in the fields by night in winter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** GIESELER,
CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Christi),
writing in Antioch about AD 380, says: ”It is not yet ten years since this day
was made known to us”. ”What follows,” adds Gieseler, ”furnishes a remarkable
illustration of the ease with which customs of recent date could assume the
character of apostolic institutions.” Thus proceeds Chrysostom: ”Among those
inhabiting the west, it was known before from ancient and primitive times, and
to the dwellers from Thrace to Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and
well-known,” that is, the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch
in the east, on the very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was
perfectly well-known in all the European region of the west, from Thrace even
to Spain!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day?
Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era
itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of
the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven;
and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to
swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival
was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This
tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early
developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230,
bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this
respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own
superstition. ”By us,” says he, ”who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons,
and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January,
the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro,
new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are
celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their
religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”
Upright men strive to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the
apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was
submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan
festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with
which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the
Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ”about the
time of the winter solstice.” The very name by which Christmas is popularly
known among ourselves–Yule-day –proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin.
”Yule” is the Chaldee name for an ”infant” or ”little child”; * and as the 25th
of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ”Yule-day,” or the
”Child’s day,” and the night that preceded it, ”Mother-night,” long before they
came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Eol, an ”infant.” In Scotland, at least in the Lowlands, the
Yule-cakes are also called Nur-cakes. Now in Chaldee Nour signifies ”birth.”
Therefore, Nur-cakes are ”birth-cakes.” The Scandinavian goddesses, called
”norns,” who appointed children their destinies at their birth, evidently
derived their name from the cognate Chaldee word ”Nor,” a child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This
festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character,
referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement
of a new cycle. But there is indubitably evidence that the festival in question
had a much higher reference than this–that it commemorated not merely the
figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day
of the grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and
not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry,
the same period was observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley’s
Sabean Philosophy: ”On the 24th of the tenth month,” that is December,
according to our reckoning, ”the Arabians celebrated the BIRTHDAY OF THE
LORD–that is the Moon.” The Lord Moon was the great object of Arabian worship,
and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December, which
clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection
with the course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if
Christmas-day among the ancient Saxons of this island, was observed to
celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the case must have been
precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known,
regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* SHARON TURNER. Turner cites an Arabic poem which proves that a female sun
and a masculine moon were recognised in Arabia as well as by the Anglo-Saxons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the
Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day
of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The
name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the
most natural interpretation of the Divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, ”But ye
are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad, and that
furnish the drink-offering unto Meni.” There is reason to believe that Gad
refers to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the
moon-divinity. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">*See KITTO, vol. iv. p. 66, end of Note. The name Gad evidently refers, in
the first instance, to the war-god, for it signifies to assault; but it also
signifies ”the assembler”; and under both ideas it is applicable to Nimrod,
whose general character was that of the sun-god, for he was the first grand
warrior; and, under the name Phoroneus, he was celebrated for having first
gathered mankind into social communities. The name Meni, ”the numberer,” on the
other hand, seems just a synonym for the name of Cush or Chus, which, while it
signifies ”to cover” or ”hide,” signifies also ”to count or number.” The true
proper meaning of the name Cush is, I have no doubt, ”The numberer” or
”Arithmetician”; for while Nimrod his son, as the ”mighty” one, was the grand
propagator of the Babylonian system of idolatry, by force and power, he, as
Hermes, was the real concocter of that system, for he is said to have ”taught
men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayers and sacrifice”
(WILKINSON); and seeing idolatry and astronomy were intimately combined, to
enable him to do so with effect, it was indispensable that he should be
pre-eminently skilled in the science of numbers. Now, Hermes (that is Cush) is
said to have ”first discovered numbers, and the art of reckoning, geometry, and
astronomy, the games of chess and hazard” (Ibid.); and it is in all probability
from reference to the meaning of the name of Cush, that some called ”NUMBER the
father of gods and men” (Ibid.). The name Meni is just the Chaldee form of the
Hebrew ”Mene,” the ”numberer” for in Chaldee i often takes the place of the
final e. As we have seen reason to conclude with Gesenius, that Nebo, the great
prophetic god of Babylon, was just the same god as Hermes, this shows the
peculiar emphasis of the first words in the Divine sentence that sealed the
doom of Belshazzar, as representing the primeval god–”MENE, MENE, Tekel,
Upharsin,” which is as much as covertly to say, ”The numberer is numbered.” As
the cup was peculiarly the symbol of Cush, hence the pouring out of the
drink-offering to him as the god of the cup; and as he was the great Diviner,
hence the divinations as to the future year, which Jerome connects with the
divinity referred to by Isaiah. Now Hermes, in Egypt as the ”numberer,” was
identified with the moon that numbers the months. He was called ”Lord of the
moon” (BUNSEN); and as the ”dispenser of time” (WILKINSON), he held a ”palm
branch, emblematic of a year” (Ibid.). Thus, then, if Gad was the
”sun-divinity,” Meni was very naturally regarded as ”The Lord Moon.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Meni, or Manai, signifies ”The Numberer.” And it is by the changes of the
moon that the months are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, ”He appointed the moon for
seasons: the sun knoweth the time of its going down.” The name of the ”Man of
the Moon,” or the god who presided over that luminary among the Saxons, was
Mane, as given in the ”Edda,” and Mani, in the ”Voluspa.” That it was the birth
of the ”Lord Moon” that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we
have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of
Scotland to the feast on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant
of the old birth festival for the cakes then made are called Nur-Cakes, or
Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, ”Hog-Manai” in Chaldee signifies ”The
feast of the Numberer”; in other words, the festival of Deus Lunus, or of the
Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the
inveterate endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome,
commenting on the very words of Isaiah already quoted, about spreading ”a table
for Gad,” and ”pouring out a drink-offering to Meni,” observes that it ”was the
custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities especially in
Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious
articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the
last day of the month and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in
respect of the fruitfulness of the year.” The Egyptian year began at a different
time from ours; but this is a near as possible (only substituting whisky for
wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the last
month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any omens are drawn from
anything that takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland
is personally cognisant of the fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before
New Year’s day, among those who observe old customs, a table is spread, and
that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can afford them,
oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes but
on this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the
provision.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon
itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb
of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian
system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was
worshipped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an incarnation of
the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology, which is admitted to be essentially
Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is
represented as being incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the
enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* See the Sanscrit Researches of Col. VANS KENNEDY. Col. K., a most
distinguished Sanscrit scholar, brings the Brahmins from Babylon (Ibid.). Be it
observed the very name Surya, given to the sun over all India, is connected
with this birth. Though the word had originally a different meaning, it was
evidently identified by the priests with the Chaldee ”Zero,” and made to
countenance the idea of the birth of the ”Sun-god.” The Pracrit name is still
nearer the Scriptural name of the promised ”seed.” It is ”Suro.” It has been
seen, in a previous chapter, that in Egypt also the Sun was represented as born
of a goddess.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the
winter solstice. That festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the
mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence it had been derived. The
feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; * loose reins were given to
drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, ** and used all
manner of freedoms with their masters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Subsequently the number of the days of the Saturnalia was increased to
seven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** If Saturn, or Kronos, was, as we have seen reason to believe, Phoroneus,
”The emancipator,” the ”temporary emancipation” of the slaves at his festival
was exactly in keeping with his supposed character.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken
festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the
festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon. ”It was the custom,” says he,
”during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in subjection to their
servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a
king.” This ”purple-robed” servant was called ”Zoganes,” the ”Man of sport and
wantonness,” and answered exactly to the ”Lord of Misrule,” that in the dark
ages, was chosen in all Popish countries to head the revels of Christmas. The
wassailling bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the ”Drunken
festival” of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up among
ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some
parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive
season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of
the Babylonian god, to do honour to him: for it was one of the distinguishing
peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his altars. The
Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and
Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the
palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him
as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial
divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in
that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the
son must have been recognised as the ”Man the branch.” And this entirely
accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and
the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, ”The seed
of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or ”born of the fire,” he
has to enter the fire on ”Mother-night,” that he may be born the next day out
of it, as the ”Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men.
But why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To
understand this, it must be remembered that the divine child born at the winter
solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had
been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the
great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a
huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But
the great serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself
around the dead stock, and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree–a tree of an
entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile
power–even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The Christmas-tree,
as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but
the very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the
Christmas-fir; for that covertly symbolised the new-born God as Baal-berith, *
”Lord of the Covenant,” and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting
nature of his power, not that after having fallen before his enemies, he had
risen triumphant over them all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Baal-bereth, which differs only in one letter from Baal-berith, ”Lord of
the Covenant,” signifies ”Lord of the fir-tree.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the
day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis
invicti solis, ”The birth-day of the unconquered Sun.” Now the Yule Log is the
dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the
Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus–the slain god come to life again. In the
light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger among us,
the origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the
reader look at the singular practice still kept up in the South on
Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That mistletoe bough in
the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon, was
a representation of the Messiah, ”The man the branch.” The mistletoe was
regarded as a divine branch *–a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a
tree that sprung out of the earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is
distinguished from the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian myths
somewhat differed; but yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it is evident that
some marvellous power was attributed to the mistletoe branch; for it was able
to do what nothing else in the compass of creation could accomplish; it slew
the divinity on whom the Anglo-Saxons regarded ”the empire” of their ”heaven”
as ”depending.” Now, all that is neceesary to unravel this apparent
inconsistency, is just to understand ”the branch” that had such power, as a
symbolical expression for the true Messiah. The Bacchus of the Greeks came
evidently to be recognised as the ”seed of the serpent”; for he is said to have
been brought forth by his mother in consequence of intercourse with Jupiter,
when that god had appeared in the form of a serpent. If the character of Balder
was the same, the story of his death just amounted to this, that the ”seed of
the serpent” had been slain by the ”seed of the woman.” This story, of course,
must have originated with his enemies. But the idolators took up what they
could not altogether deny, evidently with the view of explaining it away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree,
heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the
mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man, the kiss
being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation. Whence could such an
idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11,
”Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each
other. Truth shall spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the
promised Saviour], and righteousness shall look down from heaven”? Certain it
is that that Psalm was written soon after the Babylonish captivity; and as
multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in Babylon under the
guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the Divine word it must
have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine.
Babylon was, at that time, the centre of the civilised world; and thus
Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol as it ever has done, had opportunities
of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the ends of the
earth, through the Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system
in Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising
light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the
efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to materialise, carnalise, and degrade
them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar
was fabled to have done him. According to one version of the story of the death
of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as we have seen, in consequence of a wound from
the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele,
whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in
like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly
represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the
great mother of the gods, has frequently the boar’s head as her accompaniment,
in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of her triumph over the
grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she occupied so conspicuous a
place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that killed
Adonis, because when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically
that it had not killed her husband of malice prepense, but only through
accident. But yet, in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a
boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess. In
Smith, Diana is represented with a boar’s head lying beside her, on the top of
a heap of stones in which the Roman Emperor Trajan is represented burning
incense to the same goddess, the boar’s head forms a very prominent figure. On
Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the Sun, to
propitiate her * for the loss of her beloved Adonis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The reader will remember the Sun was a goddess. Mallet says, ”They
offered the largest hog they could get to Frigga”–i.e., the mother of Balder
the lamented one. In Egypt swine were offered once a year, at the feast of the
Moon, to the Moon, and Bacchus or Osiris; and to them only it was lawful to
make such an offering. (AELIAN)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the
great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of
Martial:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”That boar will make you a
good Saturnalia.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hence the boar’s head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas
dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the ”Christmas
goose” and ”Yule cakes” were essential articles in the worship of the
Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at Rome.
Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that ”the favourite offering” of Osiris
was ”a goose,” and moreover, that the ”goose could not be eaten except in the
depth of winter.” As to Rome, Juvenal says, ”that Osiris, if offended, could be
pacified only by a large goose and a thin cake.” In many countries we have
evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is well known that the
capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being surprised
by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno,
kept in the temple of Jupiter. In India, the goose occupied a similar position;
for in that land we read of the sacred ”Brahmany goose,” or goose sacred to Brahma.
Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic
character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in
Rome or Egypt, for there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and
his sacrificing knife in the other. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The symbolic meaning of the offering of the goose is worthy of notice.
”The goose,” says Wilkinson, ”signified in hieroglyphics a child or son”; and
Horapolo says, ”It was chosen to denote a son, from its love to its young, being
always ready to give itself up to the chasseur, in order that they might be
preserved; for which reason the Egyptians thought it right to revere this
animal.” (WILKINSON’s Egyptians) Here, then, the true meaning of the symbol is
a son, who voluntarily gives himself up as a sacrifice for those whom he
loves–viz., the Pagan Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter
solstice–in other words, Christmas–was held in honour of the birth of the
Babylonian Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives
the very strongest confirmation to what has now been said. That festival,
called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on the 25th of March, in alleged
commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the
Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished
honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who
could tell when this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all
in regard to the time. But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived
or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the
”Annunciation of the Virgin” was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele,
the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, and MACROB., Sat. The fact stated in the paragraph
above casts light on a festival held in Egypt, of which no satisfactory account
has yet been given. That festival was held in commemoration of ”the entrance of
Osiris into the moon.” Now, Osiris, like Surya in India, was just the Sun.
(PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride) The moon, on the other hand, though most
frequently the symbol of the god Hermes or Thoth, was also the symbol of the
goddess Isis, the queen of heaven. The learned Bunsen seems to dispute this;
but his own admissions show that he does so without reason. And Jeremiah 44:17
seems decisive on the subject. The entrance of Osiris into the moon, then, was
just the sun’s being conceived by Isis, the queen of heaven, that, like the
Indian Surya, he might in due time be born as the grand deliverer. Hence the
very name Osiris; for, as Isis is the Greek form of H’isha, ”the woman,” so
Osiris, as read at this day on the Egyptian monuments, is He-siri, ”the seed.”
It is no objection to this to say that Osiris is commonly represented as the
husband of Isis; for, as we have seen already, Osiris is at once the son and
husband of his mother. Now, this festival took place in Egypt generally in
March, just as Lady-day, or the first great festival of Cybele, was held in the
same month in Pagan Rome. We have seen that the common title of Cybele at Rome
was Domina, or ”the lady” (OVID, Fasti), as in Babylon it was Beltis (EUSEB.
Praep. Evang.), and from this, no doubt, comes the name ”Lady-day” as it has
descended to us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate
relation to one another. Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December
there are exactly nine months. If, then, the false Messiah was conceived in
March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe that the
conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronised, not
only to the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and
Christmas-day, then, are purely Babylonian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter III<br />
Section II<br />
Easter</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a
Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is
nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven,
whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with
that now in common use in this country. That name, aas found by Layard on the
Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early
introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, ”the priests of the groves.”
Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the
Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines
of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of
the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has
everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on
the early British mind. From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the
Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove
how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same
god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. ”The late
Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in ”Notes and
Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, ”told me, that every year,
at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an
ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a
fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet;
they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has
been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the
fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part
of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was
previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents
that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus
worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort
Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in
Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called
by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called
Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name
of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival
from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by
any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not
of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing
Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened
account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different
countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: ”Thus
much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the
celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any
commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one
knows that the name ”Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not
to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few
places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when
Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of
the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival
was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ”It ought to be known,”
said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and
contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, ”that the
observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of
that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance?
The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers
of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ”in the spring of the
year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of
Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.
Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we
read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: ”Three days
after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the
sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on
consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are
informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in
commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time,
the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar
manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for ”forty nights” the ”wailing
for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the
Pagans observed, called ”Castus” or the ”sacred” fast, was, by the Christians
in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of
Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her
”excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine,
when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or
Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit
in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne,
Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that
the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both.
Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to
the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of
Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in
many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being
observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the ”month of
Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April.
To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual
policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated,
and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no
difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in
idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in
accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom
also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the
Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the
true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of
question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the
Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the
calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It
brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in
connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that
were commemorated during the ”sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by
Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the
Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations,
”went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate
Church, and who could find no more excellent way to ”revive” it, than by
borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected
with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn. That Christians
should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of
evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it
inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the
preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when
fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow
steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism.
What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of
the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period
after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three
weeks. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard
to Paschal observances, says: ”In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of
the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread,
probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival
of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic
Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of
Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in
connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following
extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period
of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: ”The solemnities of Pasch
[are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross,
the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and
Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by
law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a
law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal
processes.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are
these: ”Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter
three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the
worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the
whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within
the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held
at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which
decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view,
no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after,
readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once.
About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to
enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first
attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous
resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as
observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by
Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by
violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or
Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of
Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been
brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from
their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there
were something ”untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the
origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to
banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true,
it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are
already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this
country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to
undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of
the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the
truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat
run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly
considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the
seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the
Saints. If a heathen could say, ”Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love
truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity.
Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the
earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous
efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south
those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from
Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer,
Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt
the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their
closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own
consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and
labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed,
would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her
sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of
all Christendom, ”clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army
with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague
that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself,
but to the whole empire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend
the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its
Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of
Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The
”buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen
of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of
Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ”One species of sacred
bread,” says Bryant, ”which used to be offered to the gods, was of great
antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being
made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed,
saying, ”He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine
flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering
when he says, ”The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the
women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the
word ”bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was
pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon
Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical
Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass
into the Latin panis, ”bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would
become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa
has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of
Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The
origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as
the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus,
as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the
consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a
golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen.
In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even
as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of
the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their
temples. From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of
the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the
Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned
keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was
skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: ”An egg of wondrous size is
said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it
to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came
Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence
the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in
Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of
wondrous size was represented on a grand scale.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects
(for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time
of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is
enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could
it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such
a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already
indicated, is well known as the ”mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the
world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the
material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term
is seen in Genesis 11:1, ”The whole earth was of one language and of one
speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If
then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may
not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that
the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that
contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to
the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine
(for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes
Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the
name of a house is pronounced. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The common word ”Beth,” ”house,” in the Bible without the points, is
”Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the
Greek Septuagint, where it is ”Baith-el.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house
floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its
bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of
the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied
in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the
mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This,
then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything
that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean
mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the
greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was
held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world.
Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence
till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of
metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her
worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had
lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the
flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and
consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even
appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his
superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: ”Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee,
this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy
servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish
Guardian, April, 1844). Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem
of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or
”pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently
represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of
Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a
temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The
pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been
supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of
the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with
man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon
more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” had
reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also
Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of
her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of
these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. ”Idaia Mater,” then, signifies ”the
Mother of Knowledge”–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the
”knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to
herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was
worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the
mother of mankind. (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect32.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of
knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended
hand, inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her
mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify?
Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of
the ”Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Tree, whose mortal taste.<br />
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted,
was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the
forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base.
Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand
benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that
knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the
Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery
inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads
its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which
Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the
Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first
parent is apostrophised: ”Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a
Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount
to this: ”Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious
Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in
the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of
the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the
consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse.
Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered
from them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also
the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and
most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the
superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the
pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland
join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of
Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve
ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of
them with two eggs and an orange.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s
”dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back
to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the
West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the
counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred
gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of
Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or
Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the ”golden fruit” on
the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let
the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no
serpent in that garden of delight in the ”islands of the blest,” to TEMPT
mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the
sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the
contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil,
the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that
strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form
of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s
unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged
mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly
happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been
hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made
to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of
knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and
malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him
of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of
Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race.
What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred
orange of Easter.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Note</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Meaning of the Name
Astarte</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That Semiramis, under the name of Astarte, was worshipped not only as an
incarnation of the Spirit of God, but as the mother of mankind, we have very
clear and satisfactory evidence. There is no doubt that ”the Syrian goddess”
was Astarte (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains). Now, the Assyrian goddess, or
Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio), and by Lucian
(De Dea Syria). These testimonies in regard to Astarte, or the Syrian goddess,
being, in one aspect, Semiramis, are quite decisive. 1. The name Astarte, as
applied to her, has reference to her as being Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing
goddess, the first as Ovid says (Opera), that ”made (towers) in cities”; for we
find from Layard that in the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, ”she [Dea Syria or
Astarte] was represented standing on a lion crowned with towers.” Now, no name
could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of
Babylon, than the name of ”Ash-tart,” for that just means ”The woman that made
towers.” It is admitted on all hands that the last syllable ”tart” comes from
the Hebrew verb ”Tr.” It has been always taken for granted, however, that ”Tr”
signifies only ”to go round.” But we have evidence that, in nouns derived from
it, it also signifies ”to be round,” ”to surround,” or ”encompass.” In the
masculine, we find ”Tor” used for ”a border or row of jewels round the head”
(see PARKHURST and also GESENIUS). And in the feminine, as given in Hesychius
(Lexicon), we find the meaning much more decisively brought out. Turis is just
the Greek form of Turit, the final t, according to the genius of the Greek
language, being converted into s. Ash-turit, then, which is obviously the same
as the Hebrew ”Ashtoreth,” is just ”The woman that made the encompassing wall.”
Considering how commonly the glory of that achievement, as regards Babylon, was
given to Semiramis, not only by Ovid, but by Justin, Dionysius, Afer, and
others, both the name and mural crown on the head of that goddess were surely
very appropriate. In confirmation of this interpretation of the meaning of the
name Astarte, I may adduce an epithet applied to the Greek Diana, who at
Ephesus bore a turreted crown on her head, and was identified with Semiramis,
which is not a little striking. It is contained in the following extract from
Livy: ”When the news of the battle [near Pydna] reached Amphipolis, the matrons
ran together to the temple of Diana, whom they style Tauropolos, to implore her
aid.” Tauropolos, from Tor, ”a tower,” or ”surrounding fortification,” and Pol,
”to make,” plainly means the ”tower-maker,” or ”maker of surrounding
fortifications”; and P53 to her as the goddess of fortifications, they would
naturally apply when they dreaded an attack upon their city.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest
honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently
intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the
Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that
Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and
whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of
the Messiah was the Lamb. Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom,
natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being
attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that
Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of
the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS). Hence, also, the character
attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to
conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian
goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the ”goddess of
wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies
also the ”Maker of investigations”; and in this respect was applicable to
Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove. That this is one of the
meanings of the name Astarte may be seen from comparing it with the cognate
names Asterie and Astraea (in Greek Astraia), which are formed by taking the
last member of the compound word in the masculine, instead of the feminine,
Teri, or Tri (the latter being pronounced Trai or Trae), being the same in
sense as Tart. Now, Asterie was the wife of Perseus, the Assyrian (HERODOTUS),
and who was the founder of Mysteries (BRYANT). As Asterie was further
represented as the daughter of Bel, this implies a position similar to that of
Semiramis. Astraea, again, was the goddess of justice, who is identified with
the heavenly virgin Themis, the name Themis signifying ”the perfect one,” who
gave oracles (OVID, Metam.), and who, having lived on earth before the Flood,
forsook it just before that catastrophe came on. Themis and Astraea are
sometimes distinguished and sometimes identified; but both have the same
character as goddesses of justice. The explanation of the discrepancy obviously
is, that the Spirit has sometimes been viewed as incarnate and sometimes not.
When incarnate, Astraea is daughter of Themis. What name could more exactly
agree with the character of a goddess of justice, than Ash-trai-a, ”The maker
of investigations,” and what name could more appropriately shadow forth one of
the characters of that Divine Spirit, who ”searcheth all things, yea, the deep
things of God”? As Astraea, or Themis, was ”Fatidica Themis,” ”Themis the
prophetic,” this also was another characteristic of the Spirit; for whence can
any true oracle, or prophetic inspiration, come, but from the inspiring Spirit
of God? Then, lastly, what can more exactly agree with the Divine statement in
Genesis in regard to the Spirit of God, than the statement of Ovid, that
Astraea was the last of the celestials who remained on earth, and that her
forsaking it was the signal for the downpouring of the destroying deluge? The
announcement of the coming Flood is in Scripture ushered in with these words
(Gen 6:3): ”And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” All
these 120 years, the Spirit was striving; when they came to an end, the Spirit
strove no longer, forsook the earth, and left the world to its fate. But though
the Spirit of God forsook the earth, it did not forsake the family of righteous
Noah. It entered with the patriarch into the ark; and when that patriarch came
forth from his long imprisonment, it came forth along with him. Thus the Pagans
had an historical foundation for their myth of the dove resting on the symbol
of the ark in the Babylonian waters, and the Syrian goddess, or Astarte–the
same as Astraea–coming forth from it. Semiramis, then, as Astarte, worshipped
as the dove, was regarded as the incarnation of the Spirit of God. 3. As Baal,
Lord of Heaven, had his visible emblem, the sun, so she, as Beltis, Queen of
Heaven, must have hers also–the moon, which in another sense was Asht-tart-e,
”The maker of revolutions”; for there is no doubt that Tart very commonly
signifies ”going round.” But, 4th, the whole system must be dovetailed
together. As the mother of the gods was equally the mother of mankind,
Semiramis, or Astarte, must also be identified with Eve; and the name Rhea,
which, according to the Paschal Chronicle was given to her, sufficiently proves
her identification with Eve. As applied to the common mother of the human race,
the name Astarte is singularly appropriate; for, as she was Idaia mater, ”The
mother of knowledge,” the question is, ”How did she come by that knowledge?” To
this the answer can only be: ”by the fatal investigations she made.” It was a
tremendous experiment she made, when, in opposition to the Divine command, and
in spite of the threatened penalty, she ventured to ”search” into that
forbidden knowledge which her Maker in his goodness had kept from her. Thus she
took the lead in that unhappy course of which the Scripture speaks–”God made
man upright, but they have SOUGHT out many inventions” (Eccl7:29). Now Semiramis,
deified as the Dove, was Astarte in the most gracious and benignant form.
Lucius Ampelius calls her ”the goddess benignant and merciful to me” (bringing
them) ”to a good and happy life.” In reference to this benignity of her
character, both the titles, Aphrodite and Mylitta, are evidently attributed to
her. The first I have elsewhere explained as ”The wrath-subduer,” and the
second is in exact accordance with it. Mylitta, or, as it is in Greek, Mulitta,
signifies ”The Mediatrix.” The Hebrew Melitz, which in Chaldee becomes Melitt,
is evidently used in Job 33:23, in the sense of a Mediator; ”the messenger, the
interpreter” (Melitz), who is ”gracious” to a man, and saith, ”Deliver from
going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” being really ”The Messenger, the
MEDIATOR.” Parkhurst takes the word in this sense, and derives it from ”Mltz,”
”to be sweet.” Now, the feminine of Melitz is Melitza, from which comes
Melissa, a ”bee” (the sweetener, or producer of sweetness), and Melissa, a
common name of the priestesses of Cybele, and as we may infer of Cybele, as
Astarte, or Queen of Heaven, herself; for, after Porphyry, has stated that ”the
ancients called the priestesses of Demeter, Melissae,” he adds, that they also
”called the Moon Melissa.” We have evidence, further, that goes far to identify
this title as a title of Semiramis. Melissa or Melitta (APPOLODORUS)–for the
name is given in both ways–is said to have been the mother of Phoroneus, the
first that reigned, in whose days the dispersion of mankind occurred, divisions
having come in among them, whereas before, all had been in harmony and spoke
one language (Hyginus). There is no other to whom this can be applied but
Nimrod; and as Nimrod came to be worshipped as Nin, the son of his own wife,
the identification is exact. Melitta, then, the mother of Phoroneus, is the
same as Mylitta, the well known name of the Babylonian Venus; and the name, as
being the feminine of Melitz, the Mediator, consequently signifies the
Mediatrix. Another name also given to the mother of Phoroneus, ”the first that
reigned,” is Archia (LEMPRIERE; SMITH). Now Archia signifies ”Spiritual” (from
”Rkh,” Heb. ”Spirit,” which in Egyptian also is ”Rkh” [BUNSEN]; and in Chaldee,
with the prosthetic a prefixed becomes Arkh). * From the same root also
evidently comes the epithet Architis, as applied to the Venus that wept for
Adonis. Venus Architis is the spiritual Venus. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Hebrew Dem, blood, in Chaldee becomes Adem; and, in like manner, Rkh
becomes Arkh.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** From OUVAROFF we learn that the mother of the third Bacchus was Aura,
and Phaethon is said by Orpheus to have been the son of the ”wide extended air”
(LACTANTIUS). The connection in the sacred language between the wind, the air,
and the spirit, sufficiently accounts for these statements, and shows their
real meaning.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, then, the mother-wife of the first king that reigned was known as
Archia and Melitta, in other words, as the woman in whom the ”Spirit of God”
was incarnate; and thus appeared as the ”Dea Benigna,” ”The Mediatrix” for
sinful mortals. The first form of Astarte, as Eve, brought sin into the world;
the second form before the Flood, was avenging as the goddess of justice. This
form was ”Benignant and Merciful.” Thus, also, Semiramis, or Astarte, as Venus
the goddess of love and beauty, became ”The HOPE of the whole world,” and men
gladly had recourse to the ”mediation” of one so tolerant of sin.</span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter III<br />
Section III<br />
The Nativity of St. John</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Feast of the Nativity of St. John is set down in the Papal calendar for
the 24th of June, or Midsummer-day. The very same period was equally memorable
in the Babylonian calendar as that of one of its most celebrated festivals. It
was at Midsummer, or the summer solstice, that the month called in Chaldea,
Syria, and Phoenicia by the name of ”Tammuz” began; and on the first day–that
is, on or about the 24th of June–one of the grand original festivals of Tammuz
was celebrated. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* STANLEY’S Saboean Philosophy. In Egypt the month corresponding to
Tammuz–viz., Epep–began June 25 (WILKINSON)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For different reasons, in different countries, other periods had been
devoted to commemorate the death and reviving of the Babylonian god; but this,
as may be inferred from the name of the month, appears to have been the real
time when his festival was primitively observed in the land where idolatry had
its birth. And so strong was the hold that this festival, with its peculiar
rites, had taken of the minds of men, that even when other days were devoted to
the great events connected with the Babylonian Messiah, as was the case in some
parts of our own land, this sacred season could not be allowed to pass without
the due observance of some, at least, of its peculiar rites. When the Papacy
sent its emissaries over Europe, towards the end of the sixth century, to
gather in the Pagans into its fold, this festival was found in high favour in
many countries. What was to be done with it? Were they to wage war with it? No.
This would have been contrary to the famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that, by
all means they should meet the Pagans half-way, and so bring them into the
Roman Church. The Gregorian policy was carefully observed; and so
Midsummer-day, that had been hallowed by Paganism to the worship of Tammuz, was
incorporated as a sacred Christian festival in the Roman calendar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But still a question was to be determined, What was to be the name of this
Pagan festival, when it was baptised, and admitted into the ritual of Roman
Christianity? To call it by its old name of Bel or Tammuz, at the early period
when it seems to have been adopted, would have been too bold. To call it by the
name of Christ was difficult, inasmuch as there was nothing special in His
history at that period to commemorate. But the subtlety of the agents of the
Mystery of Iniquity was not to be baffled. If the name of Christ could not be
conveniently tacked to it, what should hinder its being called by the name of
His forerunner, John the Baptist? John the Baptist was born six months before
our Lord. When, therefore, the Pagan festival of the winter solstice had once
been consecrated as the birthday of the Saviour, it followed, as a matter of
course, that if His forerunner was to have a festival at all, his festival must
be at this very season; for between the 24th of June and the 25th of
December–that is, between the summer and the winter solstice–there are just six
months. Now, for the purposes of the Papacy, nothing could be more opportune
than this. One of the many sacred names by which Tammuz or Nimrod was called,
when he reappeared in the Mysteries, after being slain, was Oannes. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* BEROSUS, BUNSEN’S Egypt. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by
Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been
proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome
by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4,
section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural
that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes as a Fish-god. Now,
Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), ”the fish
of sorrow,” which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the
”Lamented one”; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that
some called Bacchus Ichthys, or ”The fish.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The name of John the Baptist, on the other hand, in the sacred language
adopted by the Roman Church, was Joannes. To make the festival of the 24th of
June, then, suit Christians and Pagans alike, all that was needful was just to
call it the festival of Joannes; and thus the Christians would suppose that
they were honouring John the Baptist, while the Pagans were still worshipping
their old god Oannes, or Tammuz. Thus, the very period at which the great
summer festival of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon, is at this very
hour observed in the Papal Church as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John. And
the fete of St. John begins exactly as the festal day began in Chaldea. It is
well known that, in the East, the day began in the evening. So, though the 24th
be set down as the nativity, yet it is on St. John’s EVE–that is, on the
evening of the 23rd–that the festivities and solemnities of that period begin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if we examine the festivities themselves, we shall see how purely
Pagan they are, and how decisively they prove their real descent. The grand
distinguishing solemnities of St. John’s Eve are the Midsummer fires. These are
lighted in France, in Switzerland, in Roman Catholic Ireland, and in some of
the Scottish isles of the West, where Popery still lingers. They are kindled
throughout all the grounds of the adherents of Rome, and flaming brands are
carried about their corn-fields. Thus does Bell, in his Wayside Pictures,
describe the St. John’s fires of Brittany, in France: ”Every fete is marked by
distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is perhaps, on the
whole, the most striking. Throughout the day the poor children go about begging
contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean, and towards evening
one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four; then a thousand gleam out
from the hill-tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration.
Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market place; and sometimes
it is lighted by an angel, who is made to descend by a mechanical device from
the top of the church, with a flambeau in her hand, setting the pile in a
blaze, and flying back again. The young people dance with a bewildering
activity about the fires; for there is a superstition among them that, if they
dance round nine fires before midnight, they will be married in the ensuing
year. Seats are placed close to the flaming piles for the dead, whose spirits
are supposed to come there for the melancholy pleasure of listening once more
to their native songs, and contemplating the lively measures of their youth.
Fragments of the torches on those occasions are preserved as spells against
thunder and nervous diseases; and the crown of flowers which surmounted the
principal fire is in such request as to produce tumultuous jealousy for its
possession.” Thus is it in France. Turn now to Ireland. ”On that great festival
of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,” says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a
particular festival which she had witnessed, ”it is the custom, at sunset on
that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our
bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such
other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady,
substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of
these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from
every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the
peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with
health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of
enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never
seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome,
intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but
really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and
the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot
up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured
by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a
short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very
beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair,
with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest
tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me
not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable
part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed
through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while
a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end,
and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on
whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud
shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of
its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the
people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant
for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ Here,” adds the authoress, ”was
the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and
universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions
professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that
Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such is the festival of St. John’s Eve, as celebrated at this day in France
and in Popish Ireland. Such is the way in which the votaries of Rome pretend to
commemorate the birth of him who came to prepare the way of the Lord, by
turning away His ancient people from all their refuges of lies, and shutting
them up to the necessity of embracing that kingdom of God that consists not in
any mere external thing, but in ”righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost.” We have seen that the very sight of the rites with which that festival
is celebrated, led the authoress just quoted at once to the conclusion that
what she saw before her was truly a relic of the Pagan worship of Baal. The
history of the festival, and the way in which it is observed, reflect mutual
light upon each other. Before Christianity entered the British Isles, the Pagan
festival of the 24th of June was celebrated among the Druids by blazing fires
in honour of their great divinity, who, as we have already seen, was Baal.
”These Midsummer fires and sacrifices,” says Toland, in his Account of the
Druids, ”were [intended] to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now
becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May, that they might
prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a thanksgiving for
finishing the harvest.” Again, speaking of the Druidical fires at Midsummer, he
thus proceeds: ”To return to our carn-fires, it was customary for the lord of
the place, or his son, or some other person of distinction, to take the
entrails of the sacrificed animals in his hands, and, walking barefoot over the
coals thrice after the flames had ceased, to carry them straight to the Druid,
who waited in a whole skin at the altar. If the nobleman escaped harmless, it
was reckoned a good omen, welcomed with loud acclamations; but if he received
any hurt, it was deemed unlucky both to the community and himself.” ”Thus, I
have seen,” adds Toland, ”the people running and leaping through the St. John’s
fires in Ireland; and not only proud of passing unsinged, but, as if it were
some kind of lustration, thinking themselves in an especial manner blest by the
ceremony, of whose original, nevertheless, they were wholly ignorant, in their
imperfect imitation of it.” We have seen reason already to conclude that
Phoroneus, ”the first of mortals that reigned”–i.e., Nimrod and the Roman
goddess Feronia–bore a relation to one another. In connection with the firs of
”St. John,” that relation is still further established by what has been handed
down from antiquity in regard to these two divinities; and, at the same time,
the origin of these fires is elucidated. Phoroneus is described in such a way
as shows that he was known as having been connected with the origin of
fire-worship. Thus does Pausanias refer to him: ”Near this image [the image of
Biton] they [the Argives] enkindle a fire, for they do not admit that fire was
given by Prometheus, to men, but ascribe the invention of it to Phoroneus.”
There must have been something tragic about the death of this fire-inventing
Phoroneus, who ”first gathered mankind into communities”; for, after describing
the position of his sepulchre, Pausanias adds: ”Indeed, even at present they
perform funeral obsequies to Phoroneus”; language which shows that his death
must have been celebrated in some such way as that of Bacchus. Then the
character of the worship of Feronia, as coincident with fire-worship, is
evident from the rites practised by the priests at the city lying at the foot
of Mount Socracte, called by her name. ”The priests,” says Bryant, referring
both to Pliny and Strabo as his authorities, ”with their feet naked, walked
over a large quantity of live coals and cinders.” To this same practice we find
Aruns in Virgil referring, when addressing Apollo, the sun-god, who had his
shrine at Soracte, where Feronia was worshipped, and who therefore must have
been the same as Jupiter Anxur, her contemplar divinity, who was regarded as a
”youthful Jupiter,” even as Apollo was often called the ”young Apollo”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”O patron of Soracte’s high
abodes,<br />
Phoebus, the ruling power among the gods,<br />
Whom first we serve; whole woods of unctuous pine<br />
Are felled for thee, and to thy glory shine.<br />
By thee protected, with our naked soles,<br />
Through flames unsinged we march and tread the kindled coals.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* DRYDEN’S Virgil Aeneid. ”The young Apollo,” when ”born to introduce law
and order among the Greeks,” was said to have made his appearance at Delphi
”exactly in the middle of summer.” (MULLER’S Dorians)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus the St. John’s fires, over whose cinders old and young are made to
pass, are traced up to ”the first of mortals that reigned.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is remarkable, that a festival attended with all the essential rites of
the fire-worship of Baal, is found among Pagan nations, in regions most remote
from one another, about the very period of the month of Tammuz, when the
Babylonian god was anciently celebrated. Among the Turks, the fast of Ramazan,
which, says Hurd, begins on the 12th of June, is attended by an illumination of
burning lamps. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies. The time here given by Hurd would not in
itself be decisive as a proof of agreement with the period of the original
festival of Tammuz; for a friend who has lived for three years in
Constantinople informs me that, in consequence of the disagreement between the
Turkish and the solar year, the fast of Ramazan ranges in succession through
all the different months in the year. The fact of a yearly illumination in
connection with religious observances, however, is undoubted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In China where the Dragon-boat festival is celebrated in such a way as
vividly to recall to those who have witnessed it, the weeping for Adonis, the
solemnity begins at Midsummer. In Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the
feast of Raymi, the most magnificent feast of the Peruvians, when the sacred
fire every year used to be kindled anew from the sun, by means of a concave
mirror of polished metal, took place at the very same period. Regularly as
Midsummer came round, there was first, in token of mourning, ”for three days, a
general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in their dwellings,” and
then, on the fourth day, the mourning was turned into joy, when the Inca, and
his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn
in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. ”Eagerly,” says Prescott,
”they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays
strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of
gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of
triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and
louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east,
shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and
rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over
Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to
see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the
sun. In Egypt, the festival of the burning lamps, in which many have already
been constrained to see the counterpart of the festival of St. John, was
avowedly connected with the mourning and rejoicing for Osiris. ”At Sais,” says
Herodotus, ”they show the sepulchre of him whom I do not think it right to
mention on this occasion.” This is the invariable way in which the historian
refers to Osiris, into whose mysteries he had been initiated, when giving
accounts of any of the rites of his worship. ”It is in the sacred enclosure
behind the temple of Minerva, and close to the wall of this temple, whose whole
length it occupies. They also meet at Sais, to offer sacrifice during a certain
night, when every one lights, in the open air, a number of lamps around his
house. The lamps consist of small cups filled with salt and oil, having a wick
floating in it which burns all night. This festival is called the festival of
burning lamps. The Egyptians who are unable to attend also observe the
sacrifice, and burn lamps at home, so that not only at Sais, but throughout
Egypt, the same illumination takes place. They assign a sacred reason for the
festival celebrated on this night, and for the respect they have for it.”
Wilkinson, in quoting this passage of Herodotus, expressly identifies this
festival with the lamentation for Osiris, and assures us that ”it was
considered of the greatest consequence to do honour to the deity by the proper
performance of this rite.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Among the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers of Modern Chaldea, the same
festival is celebrated at this day, with rites probably almost the same, so far
as circumstances will allow, as thousands of years ago, when in the same
regions the worship of Tammuz was in all its glory. Thus graphically does Mr.
Layard describe a festival of this kind at which he himself had been present:
”As the twilight faded, the Fakirs, or lower orders of priests, dressed in
brown garments of coarse cloth, closely fitting to their bodies, and wearing
black turbans on their heads, issued from the tomb, each bearing a light in one
hand, and a pot of oil, with a bundle of cotton wick in the other. They filled
and trimmed lamps placed in niches in the walls of the courtyard and scattered
over the buildings on the sides of the valley, and even on isolated rocks, and
in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumerable stars appeared to glitter on the
black sides of the mountain and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the
priests made their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women
passed their right hands through the flame; and after rubbing the right eyebrow
with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly
carried it to their lips. Some who bore children in their arms anointed them in
like manner, whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who,
less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame…As night advanced,
those who had assembled–they must now have amounted to nearly five thousand
persons–lighted torches, which they carried with them as they wandered through
the forest. The effect was magical: the varied groups could be faintly
distinguished through the darkness–men hurrying to and fro–women with their
children seated on the house-tops–and crowds gathering round the pedlars, who
exposed their wares for sale in the courtyard. Thousands of lights were
reflected in the fountains and streams, glimmered amongst the foliage of the
trees, and danced in the distance. As I was gazing on this extraordinary scene,
the hum of human voices was suddenly hushed, and a strain, solemn and
melancholy, arose from the valley. It resembled some majestic chant which years
before I had listened to in the cathedral of a distant land. Music so pathetic
and so sweet I never before heard in the East. The voices of men and women were
blended in harmony with the soft notes of many flutes. At measured intervals
the song was broken by the loud clash of cymbals and tambourines; and those who
were within the precincts of the tomb then joined in the melody…The
tambourines, which were struck simultaneously, only interrupted at intervals
the song of the priests. As the time quickened they broke in more frequently.
The chant gradually gave way to a lively melody, which, increasing in measure,
was finally lost in a confusion of sounds. The tambourines were beaten with
extraordinary energy–the flutes poured forth a rapid flood of notes–the voices
were raised to the highest pitch–the men outside joined in the cry–whilst the
women made the rocks resound with the shrilltahlehl.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The musicians, giving way to the excitement, threw their instruments into
the air, and strained their limbs into every contortion, until they fell
exhausted to the ground. I never heard a more frightful yell than that which
rose in the valley. It was midnight. I gazed with wonder upon the extraordinary
scene around me. Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of
the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove.” Layard does not state
at what period of the year this festival occurred; but his language leaves
little doubt that he regarded it as a festival of Bacchus; in other words, of
the Babylonian Messiah, whose tragic death, and subsequent restoration to life
and glory, formed the cornerstone of ancient Paganism. The festival was
avowedly held in honour at once of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun, and of the Sheik
Adi, or ”Prince of Eternity,” around whose tomb nevertheless the solemnity took
place, just as the lamp festival in Egypt, in honour of the sun-god Osiris, was
celebrated in the precincts of the tomb of that god at Sais.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the reader cannot fail to have observed that in this Yezidi festival,
men, women, and children were ”PURIFIED” by coming in contact with ”the sacred
element” of fire. In the rites of Zoroaster, the great Chaldean god, fire
occupied precisely the same place. It was laid down as an essential principle
in his system, that ”he who approached to fire would receive a light from
divinity,” (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus) and that ”through divine fire all the stains
produced by generation would be purged away” (PROCLUS, Timaeo). Therefore it
was that ”children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch” (Jer 32:35),
to purge them from original sin, and through this purgation many a helpless
babe became a victim to the bloody divinity. Among the Pagan Romans, this
purifying by passing through the fire was equally observed; ”for,” says Ovid,
enforcing the practice, ”Fire purifies both the shepherd and the sheep.” Among
the Hindoos, from time immemorial, fire has been worshipped for its purifying
efficacy. Thus a worshipper is represented by Colebrooke, according to the
sacred books, as addressing the fire: ”Salutation to thee [O fire!], who dost
seize oblations, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost scintillate, may thy
auspicious flame burn our foes; mayest thou, the PURIFIER, be auspicious unto
us.” There are some who maintain a ”perpetual fire,” and perform daily
devotions to it, and in ”concluding the sacraments of the gods,” thus every day
present their supplications to it: ”Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the
gods; may this oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against man;
thou dost expiate a sin against the manes [departed spirits]; thou dost expiate
a sin against my own soul; thou dost expiate repeated sins; thou dost expiate
every sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; may this
oblation be efficacious.” Among the Druids, also, fire was celebrated as the
purifier. Thus, in a Druidic song, we read, ”They celebrated the praise of the
holy ones in the presence of the purifying fire, which was made to ascend on
high” (DAVIES’S Druids, ”Song to the Sun”). If, indeed, a blessing was expected
in Druidical times from lighting the carn-fires, and making either young or
old, either human beings or cattle, pass through the fire, it was simply in
consequence of the purgation from sin that attached to human beings and all
things connected with them, that was believed to be derived from this passing
through the fire. It is evident that this very same belief about the
”purifying” efficacy of fire is held by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, when
they are so zealous to pass both themselves and their children through the
fires of St. John. * Toland testifies that it is as a ”lustration” that these
fires are kindled; and all who have carefully examined the subject must come to
the same conclusion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* ”I have seen parents,” said the late Lord J. Scott in a letter to me,
”force their children to go through the Baal-fires.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if Tammuz was, as we have seen,the same as Zoroaster, the god of the
ancient ”fire-worshippers,” and if his festival in Babylon so exactly
synchronised with the feast of the Nativity of St. John, what wonder that that
feast is still celebrated by the blazing ”Baal-fires,” and that it presents so
faithful a copy of what was condemned by Jehovah of old in His ancient people
when they ”made their children pass through the fire to Moloch”? But who that
knows anything of the Gospel would call such a festival as this a Christian
festival? The Popish priests, if they do not openly teach, at least allow their
deluded votaries to believe, as firmly s ever ancient fire worshipper did, that
material fire can purge away the guilt and stain of sin. How that tends to
rivet upon the minds of their benighted vassals one of the most monstrous but
profitable fables of their system, will come to be afterwards considered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The name Oannes could be known only to the initiated as the name of the
Pagan Messiah; and at first, some measure of circumspection was necessary in
introducing Paganism into the Church. But, as time went on, as the Gospel
became obscured, and the darkness became more intense, the same caution was by
no means so necessary. Accordingly, we find that, in the dark ages, the Pagan
Messiah has not been brought into the Church in a mere clandestine manner. Openly
and avowedly under his well known classic names of Bacchus and Dionysus, has he
been canonised, and set up for the worship of the ”faithful.” Yes, Rome, that
professes to be pre-eminently the Bride of Christ, the only Church in which
salvation is to be found, has had the unblushing effrontery to give the grand
Pagan adversary of the Son of God, UNDER HIS OWN PROPER NAME, a place in her
calendar. The reader has only to turn to the Roman calendar, and he will find
that this is a literal fact; he will find that October the 7th is set apart to
be observed in honour of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr.” Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a
”martyr”; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the
religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was
put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of
the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for
the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this ”St.
Bacchus the Martyr” was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of
drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for
October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the
vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the
”Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival
of ”St Bacchus the Martyr” occur.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name
of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The
Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names;
and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by
which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the
Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the
name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece.
That ”rustic” festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing
its object more fully, the name became ”Festum Dionysi Eleutherei
rusticum”–i.e., the ”rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus.” (BEGG’S Handbook
of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship,
has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints
out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the
innocent epithet ”Rusticum,” which, even among the heathen, had no pretension
to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of
October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: ”The festival of St.
Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in
Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case
of the Romish saint.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two
companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison
of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light
on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs
the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the
spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the
place of burial. In commemoration of so stupendous a miracle, a hymn was duly
chanted for many a century in the Cathedral of St. Denys, at Paris, containing
the following verse:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The corpse immediately arose;<br />
The trunk bore away the dissevered head,<br />
Guided on its way by a legion of angels.”<br />
(SALVERTE, Des Sciences Occultes</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">At last, even Papists began to be ashamed of such an absurdity being
celebrated in the name of religion; and in 1789, ”the office of St. Denys” was
abolished. Behold, however, the march of events. The world has for some time
past been progressing back again to the dark ages. The Romish Breviary, which
had been given up in France, has, within the last six years, been reimposed by
Papal authority on the Gallican Church, with all its lying legends, and this
among the rest of them; the Cathedral of St. Denys is again being rebuilt, and
the old worship bids fair to be restored in all its grossness. Now, how could
it ever enter the minds of men to invent so monstrous a fable? The origin of it
is not far to seek. The Church of Rome represented her canonised saints, who
were said to have suffered martyrdom by the sword, as headless images or
statues with the severed head borne in the hand. ”I have seen,” says Eusebe
Salverte, ”in a church of Normandy, St. Clair; St. Mithra, at Arles, in
Switzerland, all the soldiers of the Theban legion represented with their heads
in their hands. St. Valerius is thus figured at Limoges, on the gates of the
cathedral, and other monuments. The grand seal of the canton of Zurich
represents, in the same attitude, St. Felix, St. Regula, and St. Exsuperantius.
There certainly is the origin of the pious fable which is told of these
martyrs, such as St. Denys and many others besides.” This was the immediate
origin of the story of the dead saint rising up and marching away with his head
in his hand. But it turns out that this very mode of representation was
borrowed from Paganism, and borrowed in such a way as identifies the Papal St.
Denys of Paris with the Pagan Dionysus, not only of Rome but of Babylon.
Dionysus or Bacchus, in one of his transformations, was represented as
Capricorn, the ”goat-horned fish”; and there is reason to believe that it was
in this very form that he had the name of Oannes. In this form in India, under
the name ”Souro,” that is evidently ”the seed,” he is said to have done many
marvellous things. (For Oannes and Souro, see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect33.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)
Now, in the Persian Sphere he was not only represented mystically as Capricorn,
but also in the human shape; and then exactly as St. Denys is represented by
the Papacy. The words of the ancient writer who describes this figure in the
Persian Sphere are these: ”Capricorn, the third Decan. The half of the figure
without a head, because its head is in its hand.” Nimrod had his head cut off;
and in commemoration of that fact, which his worshippers so piteously bewailed,
his image in the Sphere was so represetned. That dissevered head, in some of
the versions of his story, was fabled to have done as marvellous things as any
that were done by the lifeless trunk of St. Denys. Bryant has proved, in this
story of Orpheus, that it is just a slighty-coloured variety of the story of Osiris.
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* BRYANT. The very name Orpheus is just a synonym for Bel, the name of the
great Babylonian god, which, while originally given to Cush, became hereditary
in the line of his deified descendants. Bel signifies ”to mix,” as well as ”to
confound,” and ”Orv” in Hebrew, which in Chaldee becomes Orph, signifies also
”to mix.” But ”Orv,” or ”Orph,” signifies besides ”a willow-tree”; and
therefore, in exact accordance with the mystic system, we find the symbol of
Orpheus among the Greeks to have been a willow-tree. Thus, Pausanias, after
referring to a representation of Actaeon, says, ”If again you look to the lower
parts of the picture, you will see after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on a hill,
with a harp in his left hand, and in his right hand the leaves of a
willow-tree”; and again, a little furthe on, he says: ”He is represented
leaning on the trunk of this tree.” The willow-leaves in the right hand of
Orpheus, and the willow-tree on which he leans, sufficiently show the meaning
of his name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Osiris was cut in pieces in Egypt, so Orpheus was torn in pieces in
Thrace. Now, when the mangled limbs of the latter had been strewn about the
field, his head, floating on the Hebrus, gave proof of the miraculous character
of him that owned it. ”Then,” says Virgil:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Then, when his head from his
fair shoulders torn,<br />
Washed by the waters, was on Hebrus borne,<br />
Even then his trembling voice invoked his bride,<br />
With his last voice, ‘Eurydice,’ he creid;<br />
‘Eurydice,’ the rockes and river banks replied.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is diversity here, but amidst that diversity there is an obvious
unity. In both cases, thehead dissevered from the lifeless body occupies the
foreground of the picture; in both cases, the miracle is in connection with a
river. Now, when the festivals of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr,” and of ”St.
Dionysius and Eleuther,” so remarkably agree with the time when the festivals
of the Pagan god of wine were celbrated, whether by the name of Bacchus, or
Dionysus, or Eleuthereus, and when the mode of representing the modern
Dionysius and the ancient Dionysus are evidently the very same, while the
legends of both so strikiingly harmonise, who can doubt the real character of
those Romish festivals? They are not Christina. They are Pagan; they are
unequivocally Babylonian.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Note</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect33.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US">[Back]</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Oannes and Souro</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reason for believing that Oannes, that was said to have been the first
of the fabulous creatures that came up out of the sea and instructed the
Babylonians, was represented as the goat-horned fish, is as follows: First, the
name Oannes, as elsewhere shown, is just the Greek form of He-annesh, or ”The
man,” which is a synonym for the name of our first parent, Adam. Now, Adam can
be proved to be the original of Pan, who was also called Inuus, which is just
another pronunciation of Anosh without the article, which, in our translation
of Genesis 5:7, is made Enos. This name, as universally admitted, is the
generic name for man after the Fall, as weak and diseased. The o in Enos is
what is called the vau, which sometimes is pronounced o, sometimes u, and
sometimes v or w. A legitimate pronunciation of Enos, therefore, is just Enus
or Enws, the same in sound as Inuus, the Ancient Roman name of Pan. The name
Pan itself signifies ”He who turned aside.” As the Hebrew word for
”uprightness” signifies ”walking straight in the way,” so every deviation from
the straight line of duty was Sin; Hata, the word for sin, signifying
generically ”to go aside from the straight line.” Pan, it is admitted, was the
Head of the Satyrs–that is, ”the first of the Hidden Ones,” for Satyr and
Satur, ”the Hidden One,” are evidently just the same word; and Adam was the
first of mankind that hid himself. Pan is said to have loved a nymph called
Pitho, or, as it is given in another form, Pitys (SMITH, ”Pan”); and what is
Pitho or Pitys but just the name of the beguiling woman, who, having been
beguiled herself, acted the part of a beguiler of her husband, and induced him
to take the step, in consequence of which he earned the name Pan, ”The man that
turned aside.” Pitho or Pitys evidently come from Peth or Pet, ”to beguile,”
from which verb also the famous serpent Python derived its name. This
conclusion in regard to the personal identity of Pan and Pitho is greatly
confirmed by the titles given to the wife of Faunus. Faunus, says Smith, is
”merely another name for Pan.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In Chaldee the same letter that is pronounced P is also pronounced Ph,
that is F, therefore Pan is just Faun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the wife of Faunus was called Oma, Fauna, and Fatua, which names
plainly mean ”The mother that turned aside, being beguiled.” This beguiled
mother is also called indifferently ”the sister, wife, or daughter” of her
husband; and how this agrees with the relations of Eve to Adam, the reader does
not need to be told.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, a title of Pan was Capricornus, or ”The goat-horned” (DYMOCK, ”Pan”),
and the origin of this title must be traced to what took place when our first
parent became the Head of the Satyrs–the ”first of the Hidden ones.” He fled to
hide himself; and Berkha, ”a fugitive,” signifies also ”a he-goat.” Hence the
origin of the epithet Capricornus, or ”goat-horned,” as applied to Pan. But as
Capricornus in the sphere is generally represented as the ”Goat-fish,” if Capricornus
represents Pan, or Adam, or Oannes, that shows that it must be Adam, after,
through virtue of the metempsychosis, he had passed through the waters of the
deluge: the goat, as the symbol of Pan, representing Adam, the first father of
mankind, combined with the fish, the symbol of Noah, the second father of the
human race; of both whom Nimrod, as at once Kronos, ”the father of the gods,”
and Souro, ”the seed,” was a new incarnation. Among the idols of Babylon, as
represented in KITTO’S Illust. Commentary, we find a representation of this
very Capricornus, or goat-horned fish; and Berosus tells us that the well known
representations of Pan, of which Capricornus is a modification, were found in
Babylon in the most ancient times. A great deal more of evidence might be
adduced on this subject; but I submit to the reader if the above statement does
not sufficiently account for the origin of the remarkable figure in the Zodiac,
”The goat-horned fish.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter III<br />
Section IV<br />
The Feast of the Assumption</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If what has been already said shows the carnal policy of Rome at the
expense of truth, the circumstances attending the festival of the Assumption
show the daring wickedness and blasphemy of that Church still more; considering
that the doctrine in regard to this festival, so far as the Papacy is concerned,
was not established in the dark ages, but three centuries after the
Reformation, amid all the boasted light of the nineteenth century. The doctrine
on which the festival of the Assumption is founded, is this: that the Virgin
Mary saw no corruption, that in body and in soul she was carried up to heaven,
and now is invested with all power in heaven and in earth. This doctrine has
been unblushingly avowed in the face of the British public, in a recent
pastoral of the Popish Archbishop of Dublin. This doctrine has now received the
stamp of Papal Infallibility, having been embodied in the late blasphemous
decree that proclaims the ”Immaculate Conception.” Now, it is impossible for
the priests of Rome to find one shred of countenance for such a doctrine in Scripture.
But, in the Babylonian system, the fable was ready made to their hand. There it
was taught that Bacchus went down to hell, rescued his mother from the infernal
powers, and carried her with him in triumph to heaven. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* APOLLODORUS. We have seen that the great goddess, who was worshipped in
Babylon as ”The Mother,” was in reality the wife of Ninus, the great god, the
prototype of Bacchus. In conformity with this, we find a somewhat similar story
told of Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, as is fabled of Semele his mother. ”The
garment of Thetis,” says Bryant, ”contained a description of some notable
achievements in the first ages; and a particular account of the apotheosis, of
Ariadne, who is described, whatever may be the meaning of it, as carried by Bacchus
to heaven.” A similar story is told of Alcmene, the mother of the Grecian
Hercules, who was quite distinct, as we have seen, from the primitive Hercules,
and was just one of the forms of Bacchus, for he was a ”great tippler”; and the
”Herculean goblets” are proverbial. (MULLER’S Dorians) Now the mother of this
Hercules is said to have had a resurrection. ”Jupiter” [the father of
Hercules], says Muller, ”raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the
islands of the blest, as the wife of Rhadamanthus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This fable spread wherever the Babylonian system spread; and, accordingly,
at this day, the Chinese celebrate, as they have done from time immemorial, a
festival in honour of a Mother, who by her son was rescued from the power of
death and the grave. The festival of the Assumption in the Romish Church is
held on the 15th of August. The Chinese festival, founded on a similar legend,
and celebrated with lanterns and chandeliers, as shown by Sir J. F. Davis in
his able and graphic account of China, is equally celebrated in the month of
August. Now, when the mother of the Pagan Messiah came to be celebrated as
having been thus ”Assumed,” then it was that, under the name of the ”Dove,” she
was worshipped as the Incarnation of the Spirit of God, with whom she was
identified. As such as she was regarded as the source of all holiness, and the
grand ”PURIFIER,” and, of course, was known herself as the ”Virgin” mother,
”PURE AND UNDEFILED.” (PROCLUS, in TAYLOR’S Note upon Jamblichus) Under the
name of Proserpine (with whom, though the Babylonian goddess was originally
distinct, she was identified), while celebrated, as the mother of the first
Bacchus, and known as ”Pluto’s honoured wife,” she is also addressed, in the
”Orphic Hymns,” as</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Associate of the seasons, essence
bright,<br />
All-ruling VIRGIN, bearing heavenly light.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whoever wrote these hymns, the more they are examined the more does it
become evident, when they are compared with the most ancient doctrine of
Classic Greece, that their authors understood and thoroughly adhered to the
genuine theology of Paganism. To the fact that Proserpine was currently
worshipped in Pagan Greece, though well known to be the wife of Pluto, the god
of hell, under the name of ”The Holy Virgin,” we find Pausanias, while describing
the grove Carnasius, thus bearing testimony: ”This grove contains a statue of
Apollo Carneus, of Mercury carrying a ram, and of Proserpine, the daughter of
Ceres, who is called ‘The HOLY VIRGIN.’” The purity of this ”Holy Virgin” did
not consist merely in freedom from actual sin, but she was especially
distinguished for her ”immaculate conception”; for Proclus says, ”She is called
Core, through the purity of her essence, and her UNDEFILED transcendency in her
GENERATIONS.” Do men stand amazed at the recent decree? There is no real reason
to wonder. It was only in following out the Pagan doctrine previously adopted
and interwoven with the whole system of Rome to its logical consequences, that
that decree has been issued, and that the Madonna of Rome has been formally
pronounced at last, in every sense of the term, absolutely ”IMMACULATE.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, after all this, is it possible to doubt that the Madonna of Rome, with
the child in her arms, and the Madonna of Babylon, are one and the same
goddess? It is notorious that the Roman Madonna is worshipped as a goddess,
yea, is the supreme object of worship. Will not, then, the Christians of
Britain revolt at the idea of longer supporting this monstrous Babylonian
Paganism? What Christian constituency could tolerate that its representative
should vote away the money of this Protestant nation for the support of such
blasphemous idolatry? *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* It is to be lamented that Christians in general seem to have so little
sense either of the gravity of the present crisis of the Church and the world,
or of the duty lying upon them as Christ’s witnesses, to testify, and that
practically, against the public sins of the nation. If they would wish to be
stimulated to a more vigorous discharge of duty in this respect, let them read
an excellent and well-timed little work recently issued from the press,
entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse, where the Apocalyptic
statements in regard to the character, life, death, and resurrection of the Two
Witnesses, are briefly but forcibly handled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Were not the minds of men judicially blinded, they would tremble at the
very thought of incurring the guilt that this land, by upholding the corruption
and wickedness of Rome, has for years past been contracting. Has not the Word
of God, in the most energetic and awful terms, doomed the New Testament
Babylon? And has it not equally declared, that those who share in Babylon’s
sins, shall share in Babylon’s plagues? (Rev 18:4)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The guilt of idolatry is by many regarded as comparatively slight and insignificant
guilt. But not so does the God of heaven regard it. Which is the commandment of
all the ten that is fenced about with the most solemn and awful sanctions? It
is the second: ”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them,
nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me.” These words were spoken by God’s own lips, they were written by
God’s own finger on the tables of stone: not for the instruction of the seed of
Abraham only, but of all the tribes and generations of mankind. No other
commandment has such a threatening attached to it as this. Now, if God has
threatened to visit the SIN OF IDOLATRY ABOVE ALL OTHER SINS, and if we find
the heavy judgments of God pressing upon us as a nation, while this very sin is
crying to heaven against us, ought it not to be a matter of earnest inquiry, if
among all our other national sins, which are both many and great, this may not
form ”the very head and front of our offending”? What though we do not
ourselves bow down to stocks and stones? Yet if we, making a profession the
very opposite, encourage, and foster, and maintain that very idolatry which God
has so fearfully threatened with His wrath, our guilt, instead of being the
less, is only so much the greater, for it is a sin against the light. Now, the
facts are manifest to all men. It is notorious, that in 1845 anti-Christian
idolatry was incorporated in the British Constitution, in a way in which for a
century and a half it had not been incorporated before. It is equally notorious,
that ever since, the nation has been visited with one succession of judgments
after another. Ought we then to regard this coincidence as merely accidental?
Ought we not rather to see in it the fulfilment of the threatening pronounced
by God in the Apocalypse? This is at this moment an intensely practical
subject. If our sin in this matter is not nationally recognised, if it is not
penitently confessed, if it is not put away from us; if, on the contrary, we go
on increasing it, if now for the first time since the Revolution, while so
manifestly dependent on the God of battles for the success of our arms, we
affront Him to His face by sending idol priests into our camp, then, though we
have national fasts, and days of humiliation without number, they cannot be
accepted; they may procure us a temporary respite, but we may be certain that
”the Lord’s anger will not be turned away, His hand will be stretched out
still.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The above paragraph first appeared in the spring of 1855, when the empire
had for months been looking on in amazement at the ”horrible and heart-rending”
disasters in the Crimea, caused simply by the fact, that official men in that
distant region ”could not find their hands,” and when at last a day of
humiliation had been appointed. The reader can judge whether or not the events
that have since occurred have made the above reasoning out of date. The few
years of impunity that have elapsed since the Indian Mutiny, with all its
horrors, was suppressed, show the long-suffering of God. But if that
long-suffering is despised (which it manifestly is, while the guilt is daily
increasing), the ultimate issue must just be so much the more terrible.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
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</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">See Chapter V, Section IV regarding Cupid (St. Valentine’s Day)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter IV<br />
Doctrine and Discipline</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When Linacer, a distinguished physician, but bigoted Romanist, in the reign
of Henry VIII first fell in with the New Testament, after reading it for a
while, he tossed it from him with impatience and a great oath, exclaiming,
”Either this book is not true, or we are not Christians.” He saw at once that
the system of Rome and the system of the New Testament were directly opposed to
one another; and no one who impartially compares the two systems can come to
any other conclusion. In passing from the Bible to the Breviary, it is like
passing from light to darkness. While the one breathes glory to God in the
highest, peace on earth, and good will to men, the other inculcates all that is
dishonouring to the Most High, and ruinous to the moral and spiritual welfare
of mankind. How came it that such pernicious doctrines and practices were
embraced by the Papacy? Was the Bible so obscure or ambiguous that men
naturally fell into the mistake of supposing that it required them to believe
and practise the very opposite of what it did? No; the doctrine and discipline
of the Papacy were never derived from the Bible. The fact that wherever it has
the power, it lays the reading of the Bible under its ban, and either consigns
that choicest gift of heavenly love to the flames, or shuts it up under lock
and key, proves this of itself. But it can be still more conclusively
established. A glance at the main pillars of the Papal system will sufficiently
prove that its doctrine and discipline, in all essential respects, have been
derived from Babylon. Let the reader now scan the evidence.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Section I<br />
Baptismal Regeneration</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is well known that regeneration by baptism is a fundamental article of
Rome, yea, that it stands at the very threshold of the Roman system. So
important, according to Rome, is baptism for this purpose, that, on the one
hand, it is pronounced of ”absolute necessity for salvation,” * insomuch that
infants dying without it cannot be admitted to glory; and on the other, its
virtues are so great, that it is declared in all cases infallibly to
”regenerate us by a new spiritual birth, making us children of God”:–it is
pronounced to be ”the first door by which we enter into the fold of Jesus
Christ, the first means by which we receive the grace of reconciliation with
God; therefore the merits of His death are by baptism applied to our souls in
so superabundant a manner, as fully to satisfy Divine justice for all demands
against us, whether for original or actual sin.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Bishop HAY’S Sincere Christian. There are two exceptions to this
statement; the case of an infidel converted in a heathen land, where it is
impossible to get baptism, and the case of a martyr ”baptised,” as it is
called, ”in his own blood”; but in all other cases, whether of young or old,
the necessity is ”absolute.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, in both respects this doctrine is absolutely anti-Scriptural; in both
it is purely Pagan. It is anti-Scriptural, for the Lord Jesus Christ has
expressly declared that infants, without the slightest respect to baptism or
any external ordinance whatever, are capable of admission into all the glory of
the heavenly world: ”Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid
them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” John the Baptist, while yet in
his mother’s womb was so filled with joy at the advent of the Saviour, that, as
soon as Mary’s salutation sounded in the ears of his own mother, the unborn
babe ”leaped in the womb for joy.” Had that child died at the birth, what could
have excluded it from ”the inheritance of the saints in light” for which it was
so certainly ”made meet”? Yet the Roman Catholic Bishop Hay, in defiance of
very principle of God’s Word, does not hesitate to pen the following:
”Question: What becomes of young children who die without baptism? Answer: If a
young child were put to death for the sake of Christ, this would be to it the
baptism of blood, and carry it to heaven; but except in this case, as such
infants are incapable of having the desire of baptism, with the other necessary
dispositions, if they are not actually baptised with water, THEY CANNOT GO TO
HEAVEN.” As this doctrine never came from the Bible, whence came it? It came
from heathenism. The classic reader cannot fail to remember where, and in what
melancholy plight, Aeneas, when he visited the infernal regions, found the
souls of unhappy infants who had died before receiving, so to speak, ”the rites
of the Church”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Before the gates the cries of
babes new-born,<br />
Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,<br />
Assault his ears.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These wretched babes, to glorify the virtue and efficacy of the mystic
rites of Paganism, are excluded from the Elysian Fields, the paradise of the
heathen, and have among their nearest associates no better company than that of
guilty suicides:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The next in place and
punishment are they<br />
Who prodigally threw their souls away,<br />
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,<br />
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Virgil, DRYDEN’S translation. Between the infants and the suicides one
other class is interposed, that is, those who on earth have been unjustly
condemned to die. Hope is held out for these, but no hope is held out for the
babes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So much for the lack of baptism. Then as to its positive efficacy when
obtained, the Papal doctrine is equally anti-Scriptural. There are professed
Protestants who hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; but the Word of
God knows nothing of it. The Scriptural account of baptism is, not that it
communicates the new birth, but that it is the appointed means of signifying
and sealing that new birth where it already exists. In this respect baptism
stands on the very same ground as circumcision. Now, what says God’s Word of
the efficacy of circumcision? This it says, speaking of Abraham: ”He received
the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he
had, yet being uncircumcised” (Rom 4:11). Circumcision was not intended to make
Abraham righteous; he was righteous already before he was circumcised. But it
was intended to declare him righteous, to give him the more abundant evidence
in his own consciousness of his being so. Had Abraham not been righteous before
his circumcision, his circumcision could not have been a seal, could not have
given confirmation to that which did not exist. So with baptism, it is ”a seal
of the righteousness of the faith” which the man ”has before he is baptised”;
for it is said, ”He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved” (Mark
16:16). Where faith exists, if it be genuine, it is the evidence of a new
heart, of a regenerated nature; and it is only on the profession of that faith
and regeneration in the case of an adult, that he is admitted to baptism. Even
in the case of infants, who can make no profession of faith or holiness, the
administration of baptism is not for the purpose of regenerating them, or
making them holy, but of declaring them ”holy,” in the sense of being fit for
being consecrated, even in infancy, to the service of Christ, just as the whole
nation of Israel, in consequence of their relation to Abraham, according to the
flesh, were ”holy unto the Lord.” If they were not, in that figurative sense,
”holy,” they would not be fit subjects for baptism, which is the ”seal” of a
holy state. But the Bible pronounces them, in consequence of their descent from
believing parents, to be ”holy,” and that even where only one of the parents is
a believer: ”The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean,
but now they are HOLY” (1 Cor 7:14). It is in consequence of, and solemnly to
declare, that ”holiness,” with all the responsibilities attaching to it, that
they are baptised. That ”holiness,” however, is very different from the
”holiness” of the new nature; and although the very fact of baptism, if
Scripturally viewed and duly improved, is, in the hand of the good Spirit of
God, an important means of making that ”holiness” a glorious reality, in the
highest sense of the term, yet it does not in all cases necessarily secure
their spiritual regeneration. God may, or may not, as He sees fit, give the new
heart, before, or at, or after baptism; but manifest it is, that thousands who
have been duly baptised are still unregenerate, are still in precisely the same
position as Simon Magus, who, after being canonically baptised by Philip, was
declared to be ”in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts
7:23). The doctrine of Rome, however, is, that all who are canonically
baptised, however ignorant, however immoral, if they only give implicit faith
to the Church, and surrender their consciences to the priests, are as much
regenerated as ever they can be, and that children coming from the waters of
baptism are entirely purged from the stain of original sin. Hence we find the
Jesuit missionaries in India boasting of making converts by thousands, by the
mere fact of baptising them, without the least previous instruction, in the
most complete ignorance of the truths of Christianity, on their mere profession
of submission to Rome. This doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration also is
essentially Babylonian. Some may perhaps stumble at the idea of regeneration at
all having been known in the Pagan world; but if they only go to India, they
will find at this day, the bigoted Hindoos, who have never opened their ears to
Christian instruction, as familiar with the term and the idea as ourselves. The
Brahmins make it their distinguishing boast that they are ”twice-born” men, and
that, as such, they are sure of eternal happiness. Now, the same was the case
in Babylon, and there the new birth was conferred by baptism. In the Chaldean
mysteries, before any instruction could be received, it was required first of
all, that the person to be initiated submit to baptism in token of blind and
implicit obedience. We find different ancient authors bearing direct testimony
both to the fact of this baptism and the intention of it. ”In certain sacred
rites of the heathen,” says Tertullian, especially referring to the worship of
Isis and Mithra, ”the mode of initiation is by baptism.” The term ”initiation”
clearly shows that it was to the Mysteries of these divinities he referred.
This baptism was by immersion, and seems to have been rather a rough and
formidable process; for we find that he who passed through the purifying
waters, and other necessary penances, ”if he survived, was then admitted to the
knowledge of the Mysteries.” (Elliae Comment. in S. GREG. NAZ.) To face this
ordeal required no little courage on the part of those who were initiated.
There was this grand inducement, however, to submit, that they who were thus baptised
were, as Tertullian assures us, promised, as the consequence, ”REGENERATION,
and the pardon of all their perjuries.” Our own Pagan ancestors, the
worshippers of Odin, are known to have practised baptismal rites, which, taken
in connection with their avowed object in practising them, show that,
originally, at least, they must have believed that the natural guilt and
corruption of their new-born children could be washed away by sprinkling them
with water, or by plunging them, as soon as born, into lakes or rivers. Yea, on
the other side of the Atlantic, in Mexico, the same doctrine of baptismal
regeneration was found in full vigour among the natives, when Cortez and his
warriors landed on their shores. The ceremony of Mexican baptism, which was
beheld with astonishment by the Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries, is thus
strikingly described in Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico: ”When everything
necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child
were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of
baptism, * was summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the courtyard of
the house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms,
called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about her placed the
ornaments, which had been prepared for baptism, in the midst of the court. To
perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face toward the west,
and immediately began to go through certain ceremonies…After this she sprinkled
water on the head of the infant, saying, ‘O my child, take and receive the
water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, which is given for the
increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that
these heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may
destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given you before the
beginning of the world, since all of us are under its power’…She then washed
the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner: ‘Whencesoever thou
comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for
he now liveth anew, and is BORN ANEW; now he is purified and cleansed afresh,
and our mother Chalchivitylcue [the goddess of water] bringeth him into the
world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and,
lifting him towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom
thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence.
Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration, for thou art the Great God, and
with thee is the great goddess.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* As baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, Rome also authorises
midwives to administer baptism. In Mexico the midwife seems to have been a
”priestess.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here is the opus operatum without mistake. Here is baptismal regeneration
and exorcism too, * as thorough and complete as any Romish priest or lover of
Tractarianism could desire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Romish ceremony of baptism, the first thing the priest does is to
exorcise the devil out of the child to be baptised in these words, ”Depart from
him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter.”
(Sincere Christian) In the New Testament there is not the slightest hint of any
such exorcism accompanying Christian Baptism. It is purely Pagan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Does the reader ask what evidence is there that Mexico had derived this
doctrine from Chaldea? The evidence is decisive. From the researches of
Humboldt we find that the Mexicans celebrated Wodan as the founder of their
race, just as our own ancestors did. The Wodan or Odin of Scandinavia can be
proved to be the Adon of Babylon. (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect41.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)
The Wodan of Mexico, from the following quotation, will be seen to be the very
same: ”According to the ancient traditions collected by the Bishop Francis
Nunez de la Vega,” says Humboldt, ”the Wodan of the Chiapanese [of Mexico] was
grandson of that illustrious old man, who at the time of the great deluge, in
which the greater part of the human race perished, was saved on a raft,
together with his family. Wodan co-operated in the construction of the great
edifice which had been undertaken by men to reach the skies; the execution of
this rash project was interrupted; each family received from that time a
different language; and the great spirit Teotl ordered Wodan to go and people
the country of Anahuac.” This surely proves to demonstration whence originally
came the Mexican mythology and whence also that doctrine of baptismal
regeneration which the Mexicans held in common with Egyptian and Persian
worshippers of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven. Prestcott, indeed, has cast doubts
on the genuiness of this tradition, as being too exactly coincident with the Scriptural
history to be easily believed. But the distinguished Humboldt, who had
carefully examined the matter, and who had no prejudice to warp him, expresses
his full belief in its correctness; and even from Prestcott’s own interesting
pages, it may be proved in every essential particular, with the single
exception of the name of Wodan, to which he makes no reference. But, happily,
the fact that that name had been borne by some illustrious hero among the
supposed ancestors of the Mexican race, is put beyond all doubt by the singular
circumstance that the Mexicans had one of their days called Wodansday, exactly
as we ourselves have. This, taken in connection with all the circumstances, is
a very striking proof, at once of the unity of the human race, and of the
wide-spread diffusion of the system that began at Babel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the question arise, How came it that the Bayblonians themselves adopted
such a doctrine as regeneration by baptism, we have light also on that. In the
Babylonian Mysteries, the commemoration of the flood, of the ark, and the grand
events in the life of Noah, was mingled with the worship of the Queen of Heaven
and her son. Noah, as having lived in two worlds, both before the flood and
after it, was called ”Dipheus,” or ”twice-born,” and was represented as a god
with two heads looking in opposite directions, the one old, and the other
young. Though we have seen that the two-headed Janus in one aspect had
reference to Cush and his son, Nimrod, viewed as one god, in a two-fold
capacity, as the Supreme, and Father of all the deified ”mighty ones,” yet, in
order to gain for him the very authority and respect essential to constitute
him properly the head of the great system of idolatry that the apostates
inaugurated, it was necessary to represent him as in some way or other
identified with the great patriarch, who was the Father of all, and who had so
miraculous a history. Therefore in the legends of Janus, we find mixed up with
other things derived from an entirely different source, statements not only in
regard to his being the ”Father of the world,” but also his being ”the inventor
of ships,” which plainly have been borrowed from the history of Noah; and
therefore, the remarkable way in which he is represented in the figure here
presented to the reader may confidently be concluded to have been primarily
suggested by the history of the great Diluvian patriarch, whose integrity in
his two-fold life is so particularly referred to in the Scripture, where it is
said (Gen 6:9), ”Noah was just a man, and perfect in his generations,” that is,
in his life before the flood, and in his life after it. The whole mythology of
Greece and Rome, as well as Asia, is full of the history and deeds of Noah,
which it is impossible to misunderstand. In India, the god Vishnu, ”the
Preserver,” who is celebrated as having miraculously preserved one righteous
family at the time when the world was drowned, not only has the story of Noah
wrought up with his legend, but is called by his very name. Vishnu is just the
Sanscrit form of the Chaldee ”Ish-nuh,” ”the man Noah,” or the ”Man of rest.”
In the case of Indra, the ”king of the gods,” and god of rain, which is
evidently only another form of the same god, the name is found in the precise
form of Ishnu. Now, the very legend of Vishnu, that pretends to make him no
mere creature, but the supreme and ”eternal god,” shows that this
interpretation of the name is no mere unfounded imagination. Thus is he
celebrated in the ”Matsya Puran”: ”The sun, the wind, the ether, all things
incorporeal, were absorbed into his Divine essence; and the universe being
consumed, the eternal and omnipotent god, having assumed an ancient form,
REPOSED mysteriously upon the surface of that (universal) ocean. But no one is
capable of knowing whether that being was then visible or invisible, or what
the holy name of that person was, or what the cause of his mysterious SLUMBER.
Nor can any one tell how long he thus REPOSED until he conceived the thought of
acting; for no one saw him, no one approached him, and none can penetrate the
mystery of his real essence.” (Col. KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology) In conformity
with this ancient legend, Vishnu is still represented as sleeping four months
every year. Now, connect this story with the name of Noah, the man of ”Rest,” and
with his personal history during the period of the flood, when the world was
destroyed, when for forty days and forty nights all was chaos, when neither sun
nor moon nor twinkling star appeared, when sea and sky were mingled, and all
was one wide universal ”ocean,” on the bosom of which the patriarch floated,
when there was no human being to ”approach” him but those who were with him in
the ark, and ”the mystery of his real essence is penetrated” at once, ”the holy
name of that person” is ascertained, and his ”mysterious slumber” fully
accounted for. Now, wherever Noah is celebrated, whether by the name of Saturn,
”the hidden one,”–for that name was applied to him as well as to Nimrod, on
account of his having been ”hidden” in the ark, in the ”day of the Lord’s
fierce anger,”–or, ”Oannes,” or ”Janus,” the ”Man of the Sea,” he is generally
described in such a way as shows that he was looked upon as Diphues,
”twice-born,” or ”regenerate.” The ”twice-born” Brahmins, who are all so many
gods upon earth, by the very title they take to themselves, show that the god
whom they represent, and to whose prerogatives they lay claim, had been known
as the ”twice-born” god. The connection of ”regeneration” with the history of
Noah, comes out with special evidence in the accounts handed down to us of the
Mysteries as celebrated in Egypt. The most learned explorers of Egyptian
antiquities, including Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, admit that the story of Noah was
mixed up with the story of Osiris. The ship of Isis, and the coffin of Osiris,
floating on the waters, point distinctly to that remarkable event. There were
different periods, in different places in Egypt, when the fate of Osiris was
lamented; and at one time there was more special reference to the personal
history of ”the mighty hunter before the Lord,” and at another to the awful
catastrophe through which Noah passed. In the great and solemn festival called
”The Disappearance of Osiris,” it is evident that it is Noah himself who was
then supposed to have been lost. The time when Osiris was ”shut up in his
coffin,” and when that coffin was set afloat on the waters, as stated by
Plutarch, agrees exactly with the period when Noah entered the ark. That time
was ”the 17th day of the month Athyr, when the overflowing of the Nile had
ceased, when the nights were growing long and the days decreasing.” The month
Athyr was the second month after the autumnal equinox, at which time the civil
year of the Jews and the patriarchs began. According to this statement, then,
Osiris was ”shut up in his coffin” on the 17th day of the second month of the
patriarchal year. Compare this with the Scriptural account of Noah’s entering
into the ark, and it will be seen how remarkably they agree (Gen 7:11), ”In the
six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the SECOND MONTH, in the SEVENTEENTH DAY
of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up; in the
self-same day entered Noah into the ark.” The period, too, that Osiris
(otherwise Adonis) was believed to have been shut up in his coffin, was precisely
the same as Noah was confined in the ark, a whole year. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* APOLLODORUS. THEOCRITUS, Idyll. Theocritus is speaking of Adonis as
delivered by Venus from Acheron, or the infernal regions, after being there for
a year; but as the scene is laid in Egypt, it is evident that it is Osiris he
refers to, as he was the Adonis of the Egyptians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the statements of Plutarch demonstrate that, as Osiris at this
festival was looked upon as dead and buried when put into his ark or coffin,
and committed to the deep, so, when at length he came out of it again, that new
state was regarded as a state of ”new life,” or ”REGENERATION.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride. It was in the character of
Pthah-Sokari-Osiris that he was represented as having been thus ”buried” in the
waters. In his own character, simply as Osiris, he had another burial
altogether.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There seems every reason to believe that by the ark and the flood God
actually gave to the patriarchal saints, and especially to righteous Noah, a
vivid typical representation of the power of the blood and Spirit of Christ, at
once in saving from wrath, and cleansing from all sin–a representation which
was a most cheering ”seal” and confirmation to the faith of those who really
believed. To this Peter seems distinctly to allude, when he says, speaking of
this very event, ”The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us.”
Whatever primitive truth the Chaldean priests held, they utterly perverted and
corrupted it. They willingly overlooked the fact, that it was ”the
righteousness of the faith” which Noah ”had before” the flood, that carried him
safely through the avenging waters of that dread catastrophe, and ushered him,
as it were, from the womb of the ark, by a new birth, into a new world, when on
the ark resting on Mount Ararat, he was released from his long confinement.
They led their votaries to believe that, if they only passed through the
baptismal waters, and the penances therewith connected, that of itself would
make them like the second father of mankind, ”Diphueis,” ”twice-born,” or
”regenerate,” would entitle them to all the privileges of ”righteous” Noah, and
give them that ”new birth” (palingenesia) which their consciences told them
they so much needed. The Papacy acts on precisely the same principle; and from
this very source has its doctrine of baptismal regeneration been derived, about
which so much has been written and so many controversies been waged. Let men
contend as they may, this, and this only, will be found to be the real origin
of the anti-Scriptural dogma. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* There have been considerable speculations about the meaning of the name
Shinar, as applied to the region of which Babylon was the capital. Do not the
facts above stated cast light on it? What so likely a derivation of this name
as to derive it from ”shene,” ”to repeat,” and ”naar,” ”childhood.” The land of
”Shinar,” then, according to this view, is just the land of the ”Regenerator.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reader has seen already how faithfully Rome has copied the Pagan
exorcism in connection with baptism. All the other peculiarities attending the
Romish baptism, such as the use of salt, spittle, chrism, or anointing with
oil, and marking the forehead with the sign of the cross, are equally Pagan.
Some of the continental advocates of Rome have admitted that some of these at
least have not been derived from Scripture. Thus Jodocus Tiletanus of Louvaine,
defending the doctrine of ”Unwritten Tradition,” does not hesitate to say, ”We
are not satisfied with that which the apostles or the Gospel do declare, but we
say that, as well before as after, there are divers matters of importance and
weight accepted and received out of a doctrine which is nowhere set forth in
writing. For we do blesse the water wherewith we baptize, and the oyle
wherewith we annoynt; yea, and besides that, him that is christened. And (I
pray you) out of what Scripture have we learned the same? Have we it not of a
secret and unwritten ordinance? And further, what Scripture hath taught us to
grease with oyle? Yea, I pray you, whence cometh it, that we do dype the childe
three times in the water? Doth it not come out of this hidden and undisclosed
doctrine, which our forefathers have received closely without any curiosity,
and do observe it still.” This learned divine of Louvaine, of course, maintains
that ”the hidden and undisclosed doctrine” of which he speaks, was the
”unwritten word” handed down through the channel of infallibility, from the
Apostles of Christ to his own time. But, after what we have already seen, the
reader will probably entertain a different opinion of the source from which the
hidden and undisclosed doctrine must have come. And, indeed, Father Newman
himself admits, in regard to ”holy water” (that is, water impregnated with
”salt,” and consecrated), and many other things that were, as he says, ”the
very instruments and appendages of demon-worship”–that they were all of ”Pagan”
origin, and ”sanctified by adoption into the Church.” What plea, then, what
palliation can he offer, for so extraordinary an adoption? Why, this: that the
Church had ”confidence in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of
evil,” and to transmute them to ”an evangelical use.” What right had the Church
to entertain any such ”confidence”? What fellowship could light have with
darkness? what concord between Christ and Belial? Let the history of the Church
bear testimony to the vanity, yea, impiety of such a hope. Let the progress of
our inquiries shed light upon the same. At the present stage, there is only one
of the concomitant rites of baptism to which I will refer–viz., the use of
”spittle” in that ordinance; and an examination of the very words of the Roman
ritual, in applying it, will prove that its use in baptism must have come from
the Mysteries. The following is the account of its application, as given by
Bishop Hay: ”The priest recites another exorcism, and at the end of it touches
the ear and nostrils of the person to be baptised with a little spittle,
saying, ‘Ephpheta, that is, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness; but be
thou put to flight, O Devil, for the judgment of God will be at hand.’” Now,
surely the reader will at once ask, what possible, what conceivable connection
can there be between spittle, and an ”odour of sweetness”? If the secret
doctrine of the Chaldean mysteries be set side by side with this statement, it
will be seen that, absurd and nonsensical as this collocation of terms may
appear, it was not at random that ”spittle” and an ”odour of sweetness” were
brought together. We have seen already how thoroughly Paganism was acquainted
with the attributes and work of the promised Messiah, though all that
acquaintance with these grand themes was used for the purpose of corrupting the
minds of mankind, and keeping them in spiritual bondage. We have now to see
that, as they were well aware of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so,
intellectually, they were just as well acquainted with His work, though their
knowledge on that subject was equally debased and degraded. Servius, in his
comments upon Virgil’s First Georgic, after quoting the well known expression,
”Mystica vannus Iacchi,” ”the mystic fan of Bacchus,” says that that ”mystic
fan” symbolised the ”purifying of souls.” Now, how could the fan be a symbol of
the purification of souls? The answer is, The fan is an instrument for
producing ”wind”; * and in Chaldee, as has been already observed, it is one and
the same word which signifies ”wind” and the ”Holy Spirit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* There is an evident allusion to the ”mystic fan” of the Babylonian god,
in the doom of Babylon, as pronounced by Jeremiah 51:1, 2: ”Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in
the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; and will send
unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There can be no doubt, that, from the very beginning, the ”wind” was one of
the Divine patriarchal emblems by which the power of the Holy Ghost was
shadowed forth, even as our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, ”The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the
Spirit.” Hence, when Bacchus was represented with ”the mystic fan,” that was to
declare him to be the mighty One with whom was ”the residue of the Spirit.”
Hence came the idea of purifying the soul by means of the wind, according to
the description of Virgil, who represents the stain and pollution of sin as
being removed in this very way:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”For this are various penances
enjoined,<br />
And some are hung to bleach upon the WIND.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hence the priests of Jupiter (who was originally just another form of
Bacchus), were called Flamens, * — that is Breathers, or bestowers of the Holy
Ghost, by breathing upon their votaries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From ”Flo,” ”I breathe.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, in the Mysteries, the ”spittle” was just another symbol for the same
thing. In Egypt, through which the Babylonian system passed to Western Europe,
the name of the ”Pure or Purifying Spirit” was ”Rekh” (BUNSEN). But ”Rekh” also
signified ”spittle” (PARKHURST’S Lexicon); so that to anoint the nose and ears
of the initiated with ”spittle,” according to the mystic system, was held to be
anointing them with the ”Purifying Spirit.” That Rome in adopting the ”spittle”
actually copied from some Chaldean ritual in which ”spittle” was the appointed
emblem of the ”Spirit,” is plain from the account which she gives in her own
recognised formularies of the reason for anointing the ears with it. The reason
for anointing the ears with ”spittle” says Bishop Hay, is because ”by the grace
of baptism, the ears of our soul are opened to hear the Word of God, and the
inspirations of His Holy Spirit.” But what, it may be asked, has the ”spittle”
to do with the ”odour of sweetness”? I answer, The very word ”Rekh,” which
signified the ”Holy Spirit,” and was visibly represented by the ”spittle,” was
intimately connected with ”Rikh,” which signifies a ”fragrant smell,” or ”odour
of sweetness.” Thus, a knowledge of the Mysteries gives sense and a consistent
meaning to the cabalistic saying addressed by the Papal baptiser to the person
about to be baptised, when the ”spittle” is daubed on his nose and ears, which
otherwise would have no meaning at all–”Ephpheta, Be thou opened into an odour
of sweetness.” While this was the primitive truth concealed under the
”spittle,” yet the whole spirit of Paganism was so opposed to the spirituality
of the patriarchal religion, and indeed intended to make it void, and to draw
men utterly away from it, while pretending to do homage to it, that among the
multitude in general the magic use of ”spittle” became the symbol of the
grossest superstition. Theocritus shows with what debasing rites it was mixed
up in Sicily and Greece; and Persius thus holds up to scorn the people of Rome
in his day for their reliance on it to avert the influence of the ”evil eye”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Our superstitions with our
life begin;<br />
The obscene old grandam, or the next of kin,<br />
The new-born infant from the cradle takes,<br />
And first of spittle a lustration makes;<br />
Then in the spawl her middle finger dips,<br />
Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips,<br />
Pretending force of magic to prevent<br />
By virtue of her nasty excrement.”–DRYDEN</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While thus far we have seen how the Papal baptism is just a reproduction of
the Chaldean, there is still one other point to be noticed, which makes the
demonstration complete. That point is contained in the following tremendous
curse fulminated against a man who committed the unpardonable offence of
leaving the Church of Rome, and published grave and weighty reasons for so
doing: ”May the Father, who creates man, curse him! May the Son, who suffered
for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost who suffered for us in baptism, curse
him!” I do not stop to show how absolutely and utterly opposed such a curse as
this is to the whole spirit of the Gospel. But what I call the reader’s
attention to is the astounding statement that ”the Holy Ghost suffered for us
in baptism.” Where in the whole compass of Scripture could warrant be found for
such an assertion as this, or anything that could even suggest it? But let the
reader revert to the Babylonian account of the personality of the Holy Ghost,
and the amount of blasphemy contained in this language will be apparent.
According to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Nimrod,
when exalted to divinity under the name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we
have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the ”Dove”–in other words, the Holy Spirit
incarnate. Now, when her husband, for his blasphemous rebellion against the
majesty of heaven, was cut off, for a season it was a time of tribulation also
for her. The fragments of ancient history that have come down to us give an
account of her trepidation and flight, to save herself from her adversaries. In
the fables of the mythology, this flight was mystically represented in
accordance with what was attributed to her husband. The bards of Greece
represented Bacchus, when overcome by his enemies, as taking refuge in the
depths of the ocean. Thus, Homer:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”In a mad mood, while Bacchus
blindly raged,<br />
Lycurgus drove his trembling bands, confused,<br />
O’er the vast plains of Nusa. They in haste<br />
Threw down their sacred implements, and fled<br />
In fearful dissipation. Bacchus saw<br />
Rout upon rout, and, lost in wild dismay,<br />
Plunged in the deep. Here Thetis in her arms<br />
Received him shuddering at the dire event.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, as identified with Noah, was
represented, when overcome by his grand enemy Typhon, or the ”Evil One,” as
passing through the waters. The poets represented Semiramis as sharing in his
distress, and likewise seeking safety in the same way. We have seen already,
that, under the name of Astarte, she was said to have come forth from the
wondrous egg that was found floating on the waters of the Euphrates. Now
Manilius tells, in his Astronomical Poetics, what induced her to take refuge in
these waters. ”Venus plunged into the Babylonia waters,” says he, ”to shun the
fury of the snake-footed Typhon.” When Venus Urania, or Dione, the ”Heavenly
Dove,” plunged in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, be it observed
what, according to the Chaldean doctrine, this amounted to. It was neither more
nor less than saying that the Holy Ghost incarnate in deep tribulation entered
these waters, and that on purpose that these waters might be fit, not only by
the temporary abode of the Messiah in the midst of them, but by the Spirit’s
efficacy thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regeneration, by
baptism, to the worshippers of the Chaldean Madonna. We have evidence that the
purifying virtue of the waters, which in Pagan esteem had such efficacy in
cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the
passing of the Mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these
waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the
Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had sprung up from that
persuasion. So far as heathenism is concerned, the following extracts from
Potter and Athenaeus speak distinctly enough: ”Every person,” says the former,
”who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the Greeks] was purified by water. To
which end, at the entrance of the temples there was commonly placed a vessel
full of holy water.” How did this water get its holiness? This water ”was
consecrated,” says Athenaeus, ”by putting into it a BURNING TORCH taken from
the altar.” The burning torch was the express symbol of the god of fire; and by
the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating ”the holy water,” we
may easily see whence came one great part of the purifying virtue of ”the water
of the loud resounding sea,” which was held to be so efficacious in purging
away the guilt and stain of sin, *–even from the sun-god having taken refuge in
its waters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* ”All human ills,” says Euripides, in a well known passage, ”are washed
away by the sea.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now this very same method is used in the Romish Church for consecrating the
water for baptism. The unsuspicious testimony of Bishop Hay leaves no doubt on
this point: ”It” [the water kept in the baptismal font], says he, ”is blessed
on the eve of Pentecost, because it is the Holy Ghost who gives to the waters
of baptism the power and efficacy of sanctifying our souls, and because the
baptism of Christ is ‘with the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ (Matt 3:11). In blessing
the waters a LIGHTED TORCH is put into the font.” Here, then, it is manifest
that the baptismal regenerating water of Rome is consecrated just as the
regenerating and purifying water of the Pagans was. Of what avail is it for
Bishop Hay to say, with the view of sanctifying superstition and ”making
apostacy plausible,” that this is done ”to represent the fire of Divine love,
which is communicated to the soul by baptism, and the light of good example,
which all who are baptised ought to give.” This is the fair face put on the
matter; but the fact still remains that while the Romish doctrine in regard to
baptism is purely Pagan, in the ceremonies connected with the Papal baptism one
of the essential rites of the ancient fire-worship is still practised at this
day, just as it was practised by the worshippers of Bacchus, the Babylonian
Messiah. As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the fire-god passing through the
waters and giving virtue to them, so when it speaks of the ”Holy Ghost
suffering for us in baptism,” it in like manner commemorates the part which
Paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when she plunged into the waters.
The sorrows of Nimrod, or Bacchus, when in the waters were meritorious sorrows.
The sorrows of his wife, in whom the Holy Ghost miraculously dwelt, were the
same. The sorrows of the Madonna, then, when in these waters, fleeing from
Typhon’s rage, were the birth-throes by which children were born to God. And
thus, even in the Far West, Chalchivitlycue, the Mexican ”goddess of the waters,”
and ”mother” of all the regenerate, was represented as purging the new-born
infant from original sin, and ”bringing it anew into the world.” Now, the Holy
Ghost was idolatrously worshipped in Babylon under the form of a ”Dove.” Under
the same form, and with equal idolatry, the Holy Ghost is worshipped in Rome.
When, therefore, we read, in opposition to every Scripture principle, that ”the
Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism,” surely it must now be manifest who is
that Holy Ghost that is really intended. It is no other than Semiramis, the
very incarnation of lust and all uncleanness.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Note</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect41.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Identity of the
Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon, was the great war-god. Odin, as
is well known, was the same. 2 Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was
regarded as the god of wine; Odin is represented as taking no food but wine.
For thus we read in the Edda: ”As to himself he [Odin] stands in no need of
food; wine is to him instead of every other aliment, according to what is said
in these verses: The illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens
his two wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no other nourishment to himself
than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of wine” (MALLET, 20th Fable).
3. The name of one of Odin’s sons indicates the meaning of Odin’s own name.
Balder, for whose death such lamentations were made, seems evidently just the
Chaldee form of Baal-zer, ”The seed of Baal”; for the Hebrew z, as is well
known, frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and Adon both
alike signify ”Lord”; and, therefore, if Balder be admitted to be the seed or
son of Baal, that is as much as to say that he is the son of Adon; and,
consequently, Adon and Odin must be the same. This, of course, puts Odin a step
back; makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself; but the
same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the child was sometimes represented
as torn in pieces, as Osiris had been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio),
”they 03 lament an infant torn in pieces by the Titans.” The lamentations for
Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the lamentations for Adonis; and, of
course, if Balder was, as the lamentations prove him to have been, the
favourite form of the Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or ”Lord,” as well as
his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name of the other son of Odin, the mighty and
warlike Thor, strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas, the son of
Ninus or Nimrod, on his father’s death, when idolatry rose again, was, of
course, from the nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, ”the Lord.” Now,
as Odin had a son called Thor, so the second Assyrian Adon had a son called
Thouros. The name Thouros seems just to be another form of Zoro, or Doro, ”the
seed”; for Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified ”Seed.” The
D is often pronounced as Th,–Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced
Athon.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter IV<br />
Section II<br />
Justification by Works</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as regenerated and
purged from sin by baptism, which baptism received its virtue from the
sufferings of these two great Babylonian divinities. But yet in regard to
justification, the Chaldean doctrine was that it was by works and merits of men
themselves that they must be justified and accepted of God. The following
remarks of Christie in his observations appended to Ouvaroff’s <i>Eleusinian
Mysteries</i>, show that such was the case: ”Mr. Ouvaroff has suggested that
one of the great objects of the Mysteries was the presenting to fallen man the
means of his return to God. These means were the cathartic virtues–(i.e., the
virtues by which sin is removed), by the exercise of which a corporeal life was
to be vanquished. Accordingly the Mysteries were termed Teletae, ‘perfections,’
because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of life. Those who were
purified by them were styled Teloumenoi and Tetelesmenoi, that is, ‘brought…to
perfection,’ which depended on the exertions of the individual.” In the <i>Metamorphosis</i> of
Apuleius, who was himself initiated in the mysteries of Isis, we find this same
doctrine of human merits distinctly set forth. Thus the goddess is herself
represented as addressing the hero of his tale: ”If you shall be found to
DESERVE the protection of my divinity by <i>sedulous obedience, religious
devotion</i> and <i>inviolable chastity</i>, you shall be sensible
that it is possible for me, and me alone, to extend your life beyond the limits
that have been appointed to it by your destiny.” When the same individual has
received a proof of the supposed favour of the divinity, thus do the onlookers
express their congratulations: ”Happy, by Hercules! and thrice blessed he to
have MERITED, by the innocence and probity of his past life, such special
patronage of heaven.” Thus was it in life. At death, also, the grand passport
into the unseen world was still through the merits of men themselves, although
the name of Osiris was, as we shall by-and-by see, given to those who departed
in the faith. ”When the bodies of persons of distinction” [in Egypt], says
Wilkinson, quoting Porphyry, ”were embalmed, they took out the intestines and
put them into a vessel, over which (after some other rites had been performed
for the dead) one of the embalmers pronounced an invocation to the sun in
behalf of the deceased.” The formula, according to Euphantus, who translated it
from the original into Greek, was as follows: ”O thou Sun, our sovereign lord!
and all ye Deities who have given life to man, receive me, and grant me an
abode with the eternal gods. During the whole course of my life I have
scrupulously worshipped the gods my father taught me to adore; I have ever
honoured my parents, who begat this body; I have killed no one; I have not
defrauded any, nor have I done any injury to any man.” Thus the merits, the
obedience, or the innocence of man was the grand plea. The doctrine of Rome in
regard to the vital article of a sinner’s justification is the very same. Of
course this of itself would prove little in regard to the affiliation of the
two systems, the Babylonian and the Roman; for, from the days of Cain downward,
the doctrine of human merit and of self-justification has everywhere been
indigenous in the heart of depraved humanity. But, what is worthy of notice in
regard to this subject is, that in the two systems, it was <i>symbolised</i> in
precisely the same way. In the Papal legends it is taught that St. Michael the
Archangel has committed to him the balance of God’s justice, and that in the
two opposite scales of that balance the merits and the demerits of the departed
are put that they may be fairly weighed, the one over against the other, and
that as the scale turns to the favourable or unfavourable side they may be
justified or condemned as the case may be. Now, the Chaldean doctrine of
justification, as we get light on it from the monuments of Egypt, is symbolised
in precisely the same way, except that in the land of Ham the scales of justice
were committed to the charge of the god Anubis instead of St. Michael the
Archangel, and that the good deeds and the bad seem to have been weighed
separately, and a distinct record made of each, so that when both were summed
up and the balance struck, judgment was pronounced accordingly. Wilkinson
states that Anubis and his scales are often represented; and that in some cases
there is some difference in the <i>details</i>. But it is evident from his
statements, that the<i>principle</i> in all is the same. The following is
the account which he gives of one of these judgment scenes, previous to the
admission of the dead to Paradise: ”Cerberus is present as the guardian of the
gates, near which the scales of justice are erected; and Anubis, the director
of the weight, having placed a vase representing the good actions of the
deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other, proceeds
to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he is found
wanting, he is rejected, and Osiris, the judge of the dead, inclining his
sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon him, and condemns
his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or some unclean animal…But
if, when the SUM of his deeds are recorded by Thoth [who stands by to mark the
results of the different weighings of Anubis], his virtues so far PREDOMINATE
as to entitle him to admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in
his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in
his palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of
the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded flowers the
four Genii of Amenti.” The same mode of symbolising the justification by works
had evidently been in use in Babylon itself; and, therefore, there was great
force in the Divine handwriting on the wall, when the doom of Belshazzar went
forth: ”Tekel,” ”Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” In
the Parsee system, which has largely borrowed from Chaldea, the principle of
weighing the good deeds over against the bad deeds is fully developed. ”For
three days after dissolution,” says Vaux, in his <i>Nineveh and Persepolis</i>,
giving an account of Parsee doctrines in regard to the dead, ”the soul is
supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on the
fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of Chinevad. On
this structure, which they assert connects heaven and earth, sits the Angel of
Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when the good deeds prevail, the soul
is met on the bridge by a dazzling figure, which says, ‘I am thy good angel, I
was pure originally, but thy good deeds have rendered me purer’; and passing
his hand over the neck of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities
preponderate, the soul is meet by a hideous spectre, which howls out, ‘I am thy
evil genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me fouler;
through thee we shall remain miserable until the resurrection’; the sinning
soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to taunt it with its
crimes.” Such is the doctrine of Parseeism. The same is the case in China,
where Bishop Hurd, giving an account of the Chinese descriptions of the
infernal regions, and of the figures that refer to them, says, ”One of them
always represents a sinner in a pair of scales, with his iniquities in the one,
and his good works in another.” ”We meet with several such representations,” he
adds, ”in the Grecian mythology.” Thus does Sir J. F. Davis describe the
operation of the principle in China: ”In a work of some note on morals,
called <i>Merits and Demerits Examined</i>, a man is directed to keep a
debtor and creditor account with himself of the acts of each day, and at the
end of the year to wind it up. If the balance is in his favour, it serves as
the foundation of a stock of merits for the ensuing year: and if against him,
it must be liquidated by future good deeds. Various lists and comparative
tables are given of both good and bad actions in the several relations of life;
and benevolence is strongly inculcated in regard first to man, and, secondly,
to the brute creation. To cause another’s death is reckoned at one hundred on
the side of demerit; while a single act of charitable relief counts as one on
the other side…To save a person’s life ranks in the above work as an exact
set-off to the opposite act of taking it away; and it is said that this deed of
merit will prolong a person’s life twelve years.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While such a mode of justification is, on the one hand, in the very nature
of the case, utterly demoralising, there never could by means of it, on the
other, be in the bosom of any man whose conscience is aroused, any solid
feeling of comfort, or assurance as to his prospects in the eternal world. Who
could ever tell, however good he might suppose himself to be, whether the ”<i>sum</i>of
his good actions” would or would not counterbalance the amount of sins and
transgressions that his conscience might charge against him. How very different
the Scriptural, the god-like plan of ”justification by faith,” and ”faith
alone, without the deeds of the law,” absolutely irrespective of human merits,
simply and solely through the ”righteousness of Christ, that is unto all and
upon all them that believe,” that delivers at once and for ever ”from all condemnation,”
those who accept of the offered Saviour, and by faith are vitally united to
Him. It is not the will of our Father in heaven, that His children in this
world should be ever in doubt and darkness as to the vital point of their
eternal salvation. Even a genuine saint, no doubt, may for a season, if need
be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations, but such is not the natural,
the normal state of a healthful Christian, of one who knows the fulness and the
freeness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace. God has laid the most solid
foundation for all His people to say, with John, ”We have KNOWN and believed
the love which God hath to us” (1 John 4:16); or with Paul, ”I am PERSUADED
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus” (Rom 8:38,39). But this no man can every say, who ”goes about to
establish his own righteousness” (Rom 10:3), who seeks, in any shape, to be
justified by works. Such assurance, such comfort, can come only from a simple
and believing reliance on the free, unmerited grace of God, given <i>in
and along</i> with Christ, the unspeakable gift of the Father’s love. It
was this that made Luther’s spirit to be, as he himself declared, ”as free as a
flower of the field,” when, single and alone, he went up to the Diet of Worms,
to confront all the prelates and potentates there convened to condemn the doctrine
which he held. It was this that in every age made the martyrs go with such
sublime heroism not only to prison but to death. It is this that emancipates
the soul, restores the true dignity of humanity, and cuts up by the roots all
the imposing pretensions of priestcraft. It is this only that can produce a
life of loving, filial, hearty obedience to the law and commandments of God;
and that, when nature fails, and when the king of terrors is at hand, can
enable poor, guilty sons of men, with the deepest sense of unworthiness, yet to
say, ”O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be
unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor
15:55,57).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, to all such confidence in God, such assurance of salvation, spiritual
despotism in every age, both Pagan and Papal, has ever shown itself unfriendly.
Its grand object has always been to keep the souls of its votaries away from
direct and immediate intercourse with a living and merciful Saviour, and
consequently from assurance of His favour, to inspire a sense of the necessity
of human mediation, and so to establish itself on the ruins of the hopes and
the happiness of the world. Considering the pretensions which the Papacy makes
to absolute infallibility, and the supernatural powers which it attributes to
the functions of its priests, in regard to regeneration and the forgiveness of
sins, it might have been supposed, as a matter of course, that all its
adherents would have been encouraged to rejoice in the continual assurance of
their personal salvation. But the very contrary is the fact. After all its
boastings and high pretensions, perpetual doubt on the subject of a man’s
salvation, to his life’s end, is inculcated as a duty; it being peremptorily
decreed as an article of faith by the Council of Trent, ”That <i>no man</i> can
know with infallible assurance of faith that he HAS OBTAINED the grace of God.”
This very decree of Rome, while directly opposed to the Word of God, stamps its
own lofty claims with the brand of imposture; for if no man who has been
regenerated by its baptism, and who has received its absolution from sin, can
yet have any <i>certain assurance</i> after all that ”the grace of
God” has been<i>conferred</i> upon him, what can be the worth of its <i>opus
operatum</i>? Yet, in seeking to keep its devotees in continual doubt and
uncertainty as to their final state, it is ”wise after its generation.” In the
Pagan system, it was the priest alone who could at all pretend to anticipate
the operation of the scales of Anubis; and, in the confessional, there was from
time to time, after a sort, a mimic rehearsal of the dread weighing that was to
take place at last in the judgment scene before the tribunal of Osiris. There
the priest sat in judgment on the good deeds and bad deeds of his penitents;
and, as his power and influence were founded to a large extent on the mere
principle of slavish dread, he took care that the scale should generally turn
in the wrong direction, that they might be more subservient to his will in
casting in a due amount of good works into the opposite scale. As he was the
grand judge of what these works should be, it was his interest to appoint what
should be most for the selfish aggrandisement of himself, or the glory of his
order; and yet so to weigh and counterweigh merits and demerits, that there
should always be left a large balance to be settled, not only by the man
himself, but by his heirs. If any man had been allowed to believe himself
beforehand absolutely sure of glory, the priests might have been in danger of
being robbed of their dues after death–an issue by all means to be guarded
against. Now, the priests of Rome have in every respect copied after the
priests of Anubis, the god of the scales. In the confessional, when they have
an object to gain, they make the sins and transgressions good weight; and then,
when they have a man of influence, or power, or wealth to deal with, they will
not give him the slightest hope till round sums of money, or the founding of an
abbey, or some other object on which they have set their heart, be cast into
the other scale. In the famous letter of Pere La Chaise, the confessor of Louis
XIV of France, giving an account of the method which he adopted to gain the
consent of that licentious monarch to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by
which such cruelties were inflicted on his innocent Huguenot subjects, we see
how the fear of the scales of St. Michael operated in bringing about the
desired result: ”Many a time since,” says the accomplished Jesuit, referring to
an atrocious sin of which the king had been guilty, ”many a time since, when I
have had him at confession, <i>I have shook hell about his ears, and made
him sigh, fear and tremble</i>, before I would give him absolution. By this I
saw that he had still an inclination to me, and was willing to be under my
government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling the whole
story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be forgiven till he had
done some good action to BALANCE that, and expiate the crime. Whereupon he at
last asked me what he must do. I told him that he must root out all heretics
from his kingdom.” This was the ”good action” to be cast into the <i>scale</i> of
St. Michael the Archangel, to ”BALANCE” his crime. The king, wicked as he
was–sore against his will-consented; the ”good action” was cast in, the
”heretics” were extirpated; and the king was absolved. But yet the absolution
was not such but that, when he went the way of all the earth, there was still
much to be cast in before the scales could be fairly adjusted. Thus Paganism
and Popery alike ”make merchandise of the souls of men” (Rev 18:13). Thus the
one with the scales of Anubis, the other with the scales of St. Michael,
exactly answer to the Divine description of Ephraim in his apostacy: ”Ephraim
is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand” (Hosea 12:7). The Anubis
of the Egyptians was precisely the same as the Mercury of the Greeks–the ”god
of thieves.” St. Michael, in the hands of Rome, answers exactly to the same
character. By means of him and his scales, and their doctrine of human merits,
they have made what they call the house of God to be nothing else than a ”den
of thieves.” To rob men of their money is bad, but infinitely worse to cheat
them also of their souls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Into the scales of Anubis, the ancient Pagans, by way of securing their
justification, were required to put not merely good deeds, properly so called,
but deeds of austerity and self-mortification inflicted on their own persons,
for averting the wrath of the gods. The scales of St. Michael inflexibly
required to be balanced in the very same way. The priests of Rome teach that
when sin is forgiven, the <i>punishment</i> is not thereby fully
taken away. However perfect may be the pardon that God, through the priests,
may bestow, yet punishment, greater or less, still remains behind, which men
must endure, and that to ”<i>satisfy the justice of God</i>.” Again and again
has it been shown that man cannot do anything to satisfy the justice of God,
that to that justice he is hopelessly indebted, that he ”has” absolutely
”nothing to pay”; and more than that, that there is no need that he should
attempt to pay one farthing; for that, in behalf of all who believe, Christ has
finished transgression, made an end of sin, and made <i>all</i> the
satisfaction to the broken law that that law could possibly demand. Still Rome
insists that every man must be punished for his own sins, and that God <i>cannot
be satisfied</i> * without groans and sighs, lacerations of the flesh,
tortures of the body, and penances without number, on the part of the offender,
however broken in heart, however contrite that offender may be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Bishop HAY’S <i>Sincere Christian</i>. The words of Bishop Hay are:
”But He absolutely demands that, by penitential works, we PUNISH ourselves for
our shocking ingratitude, and satisfy the Divine justice for the abuse of His
mercy.” The established modes of ”punishment,” as is well known, are just such
as are described in the text.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, looking simply at the Scripture, this perverse demand for self-torture
on the part of those for whom Christ has made a <i>complete</i> and <i>perfect</i> atonement,
might seem exceedingly strange; but, looking at the real character of the god
whom the Papacy has set up for the worship of its deluded devotees, there is
nothing in the least strange about it. That god is Moloch, the god of barbarity
and blood. Moloch signifies ”king”; and Nimrod was the first after the flood
that violated the patriarchal system, and set up as ”king” over his fellows. At
first he was worshipped as the ”revealer of goodness and truth,” but by-and-by
his worship was made to correspond with his dark and forbidding countenance and
complexion. The name Moloch originally suggested nothing of cruelty or terror;
but now the well known rites associated with that name have made it for ages a
synonym for all that is most revolting to the heart of humanity, and amply
justify the description of Milton (<i>Paradise Lost</i>):</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”First Moloch, horrid king,
besmeared with blood<br />
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,<br />
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,<br />
Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire<br />
To his grim idol.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In almost every land the bloody worship prevailed; ”horrid cruelty,” hand
in hand with abject superstition, filled not only ”the dark places of the
earth,” but also regions that boasted of their enlightenment. Greece, Rome,
Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, and our own land under the savage Druids, at one
period or other in their history, worshipped the same god and in the same way.
Human victims were his most acceptable offerings; human groans and wailings
were the sweetest music in his ears; human tortures were believed to delight
his heart. His image bore, as the symbol of ”majesty,” a <i>whip</i>, and
with whips his worshippers, at some of his festivals, were required unmercifully
to scourge themselves. ”After the ceremonies of sacrifice,” says Herodotus,
speaking of the feast of Isis at Busiris, ”the whole assembly, to the amount of
many thousands, scourge themselves; but in whose honour they do this I am not
at liberty to disclose.” This reserve Herodotus generally uses, out of respect
to his oath as an initiated man; but subsequent researches leave no doubt as to
the god ”in whose honour” the scourgings took place. In Pagan Rome the
worshippers of Isis observed the same practice in honour of Osiris. In Greece,
Apollo, the Delian god, who was identical with Osiris, * was propitiated with
similar penances by the sailors who visited his shrine, as we learn from the
following lines of Callimachus in his hymn to Delos:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Soon as they reach thy
soundings, down at once<br />
They drop slack sails and all the naval gear.<br />
The ship is moored; nor do the crew presume<br />
To quit thy sacred limits, till they’ve passed<br />
A fearful penance; with the galling whip<br />
Lashed thrice around thine altar.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* We have seen already, that the Egyptian Horus was just a new incarnation
of Osiris or Nimrod. Now, Herodotus calls Horus by the name of Apollo. Diodorus
Siculus, also, says that ”Horus, the son of Isis, is interpreted to be Apollo.”
Wilkinson seems, on one occasion, to call this identity of Horus and Apollo in
question; but he elsewhere admits that the story of Apollo’s ”combat with the
serpent Pytho is evidently derived from the Egyptian mythology,” where the
allusion is to the representation of Horus piercing the snake with a spear.
From divers considerations, it may be shown that this conclusion is correct: 1.
Horus, or Osiris, was the sun-god, so was Apollo. 2. Osiris, whom Horus
represented, was the great Revealer; the Pythian Apollo was the god of oracles.
3. Osiris, in the character of Horus, was born when his mother was said to be
persecuted by the malice of her enemies. Latona, the mother of Apollo, was a
fugitive for a similar reason when Apollo was born. 4. Horus, according to one
version of the myth, was said, like Osiris, to have been cut in pieces
(PLUTARCH, <i>De Iside</i>). In the classic story of Greece, this part of
the myth of Apollo was generally kept in the background; and he was represented
as victor in the conflict with the serpent; but even there it was sometimes
admitted that he had suffered a violent death, for by Porphyry he is said to
have been slain by the serpent, and Pythagoras affirmed that he had seen his
tomb at Tripos in Delphi (BRYANT). 5. Horus was the war-god. Apollo was represented
in the same way as the great god represented in Layard, with the bow and arrow,
who was evidently the Babylonian war-god, Apollo’s well known title of
”Arcitenens,”–”the bearer of the bow,” having evidently been borrowed from that
source. Fuss tells us that Apollo was regarded as the inventor of the art of
shooting with the bow, which identifies him with Sagittarius, whose origin we
have already seen. 6. Lastly, from Ovid (<i>Metam</i>.) we learn that, before
engaging with Python, Apollo had used his arrows only on fallow-deer, stags,
&c. All which sufficiently proves his substantial identification with the
mighty <i>Hunter of Babel</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Over and above the scourgings, there were also slashings and cuttings of
the flesh required as propitiatory rites on the part of his worshippers. ”In
the solemn celebration of the Mysteries,” says Julius Firmicus, ”all things in
order had to be done, which the youth either did or <i>suffered</i> at
his death.” Osiris was cut in pieces; therefore, to imitate his fate, so far as
living men might do so, they were required to cut and wound their own bodies.
Therefore, when the priests of Baal contended with Elijah, to gain the favour
of their god, and induce him to work the desired miracle in their behalf, ”they
cried aloud and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and with
lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:28). In Egypt, the
natives in general, though liberal in the use of the whip, seem to have been
sparing of the knife; but even there, there were men also who mimicked on their
own persons the dismemberment of Osiris. ”The Carians of Egypt,” says
Herodotus, in the place already quoted, ”treat themselves at this solemnity
with still more severity, for they cut themselves in the face with swords”
(HERODOTUS). To this practice, there can be no doubt, there is a direct
allusion in the command in the Mosaic law, ”Ye shall make no cuttings in your
flesh for the dead” (Lev 19:28). * These cuttings in the flesh are largely
practised in the worship of the Hindoo divinities, as propitiatory rites or
meritorious penances. They are well known to have been practised in the rites
of Bellona, ** the ”sister” or ”wife of the Roman war-god Mars,” whose name,
”The lamenter of Bel,” clearly proves the original of her husband to whom the
Romans were so fond of tracing back their pedigree.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Every person who died in the faith was believed to be identified with
Osiris, and called by his name. (WILKINSON)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** ”The priests of Bellona,” says Lactantius, ”sacrificed not with any
other men’s blood but their own, their shoulders being lanced, and with both
hands brandishing naked swords, they ran and leaped up and down like mad men.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">They were practised also in the most savage form in the gladiatorial shows,
in which the Roman people, with all their boasted civilisation, so much
delighted. The miserable men who were doomed to engage in these bloody
exhibitions did not do so generally of their own free will. But yet, the
principle on which these shows were conducted was the very same as that which
influenced the priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory
sacrifices. From Fuss we learn that ”gladiatorial shows were sacred” to Saturn;
and in Ausonius we read that ”the amphitheatre claims its gladiators for
itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE with their blood the
sickle-bearing Son of Heaven.” On this passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it,
thus comments: ”Where you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators
fought on the Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and
PROPITIATING Saturn.” ”The reason of this,” he adds, ”I should suppose to be,
that Saturn is not among the celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his
book of ‘Summaries,’ says that ‘the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean
and infernal God.’” There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for the
name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, ”The Hidden One.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The name Pluto is evidently from ”Lut,” to hide, which with the Egyptian
definite article prefixed, becomes ”P’Lut.” The Greek ”wealth,” ”the <i>hidden</i> thing,”
is obviously formed in the same way. Hades is just another synonym of the same
name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But yet, in the light of the real history of the historical Saturn, we find
a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous custom that so much disgraced the
escutcheon of Rome in all its glory, when mistress of the world, when such
multitudes of men were</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Butchered to make a Roman
holiday.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When it is remembered that Saturn himself was cut in pieces, it is easy to
see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to him by setting
men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way of propitiating his
favour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The practice of such penances, then, on the part of those of the Pagans who
cut and slashed themselves, was intended to propitiate and please their god,
and so to lay up a stock of merit that might tell in their behalf in the scales
of Anubis. In the Papacy, the penances are not only intended to answer the same
end, but, to a large extent,they are identical. I do not know, indeed, that
they use the <i>knife</i> as the priests of Baal did; but it is
certain that they look upon the shedding of their own <i>blood</i> as
a most meritorious penance, that gains them high favour with God, and wipes
away many sins. Let the reader look at the pilgrims at Lough Dergh, in Ireland,
crawling on their bare knees over the sharp rocks, and leaving the bloody
tracks behind them, and say what substantial difference there is between that
and cutting themselves with knives. In the matter of scourging themselves,
however, the adherents of the Papacy have literally borrowed the lash of
Osiris. Everyone has heard of the Flagellants, who publicly scourge themselves
on the festivals of the Roman Church, and who are regarded as saints of the
first water. In the early ages of Christianity such flagellations were regarded
as purely and entirely Pagan. Athenagoras, one of the early Christian
Apologists, holds up the Pagans to ridicule for thinking that sin could be
atoned for, or God propitiated, by any such means. But now, in the high places
of the Papal Church, such practices are regarded as the grand means of gaining
the favour of God. On Good Friday, at Rome and Madrid, and other chief seats of
Roman idolatry, multitudes flock together to witness the performances of the
saintly whippers, who lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams from
every part of their body. They pretend to do this in honour of Christ, on the
festival set apart professedly to commemorate His death, just as the
worshippers of Osiris did the same on the festival when they lamented for his
loss. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The priests of Cybele at Rome observed the same practice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But can any man of the least Christian enlightenment believe that the
exalted Saviour can look on such rites as doing honour to Him, which pour
contempt on His all-perfect atonement, and represent His most ”precious blood”
as needing to have its virtue <i>supplemented</i> by that of blood
drawn from the backs of wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were
altogether fit for the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of
being fit for the service of Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is not in one point only, but in manifold respects, that the ceremonies
of ”Holy Week” at Rome, as it is termed, recall to memory the rites of the
great Babylonian god. The more we look at these rites, the more we shall be
struck with the wonderful resemblance that subsists between them and those
observed at the Egyptian festival of burning lamps and the other ceremonies of
the fire-worshippers in different countries. In Egypt the <i>grand
illumination</i> took place beside the sepulchre of Osiris at Sais. In
Rome in ”Holy Week,” a sepulchre of Christ also figures in connection with a
brilliant illumination of burning tapers. In Crete, where the tomb of Jupiter
was exhibited, that tomb was an object of worship to the Cretans. In Rome, if
the devotees do not worship the so-called sepulchre of Christ, they worship
what is entombed within it. As there is reason to believe that the Pagan
festival of burning lamps was observed in commemoration of the ancient
fire-worship, so there is a ceremony at Rome in the Easter week, which is an
unmistakable act of fire-worship, when a <i>cross of fire</i> is the
grand object of worship. This ceremony is thus graphically described by the
authoress of <i>Rome in the 19th Century</i>: ”The effect of the blazing
cross of fire suspended from the dome above the confession or tomb of St.
Peter’s, was strikingly brilliant at night. It is covered with innumerable
lamps, which have the effect of one blaze of fire…The whole church was thronged
with a vast multitude of all classes and countries, from royalty to the meanest
beggar, all gazing upon this one object. In a few minutes the Pope and all his
Cardinals descended into St. Peter’s, and room being kept for them by the Swiss
guards, the aged Pontiff…prostrated himself in silent adoration before the
CROSS OF FIRE. A long train of Cardinals knelt before him, whose splendid robes
and attendant train-bearers, formed a striking contrast to the humility of
their attitude.” What could be a more clear and unequivocal act of fire-worship
than this? Now, view this in connection with the fact stated in the following
extract from the same work, and how does the one cast light on the other: ”With
Holy Thursday our miseries began [that is, from crowding]. On this disastrous
day we went before nine to the Sistine chapel…and beheld a procession led by
the inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals in superb dresses,
bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the Pope himself, who
walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head uncovered, bearing the Host in a
box; and this being, as you know, the real flesh and blood of Christ, was
carried from the Sistine chapel through the intermediate hall to the Paulina chapel,
where it was deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the
altar…I never could learn why Christ was to be buried before He was dead, for,
as the crucifixion did not take place till Good Friday, it seems odd to inter
Him on Thursday. His body, however, is laid in the sepulchre, in all the
churches of Rome, where this rite is practised, on Thursday forenoon, and it
remains there till Saturday at mid-day, when, for some reason best known to
themselves, He is supposed to rise from the grave amidst the firing of cannon,
and blowing of trumpets, and jingling of bells, which have been carefully tied
up ever since the dawn of Holy Thursday, lest the devil should get into them.”
The worship of the cross of fire on Good Friday explains at once the anomaly
otherwise so perplexing, that Christ should be buried on Thursday, and rise
from the dead on Saturday. If the festival of Holy Week be really, as its rites
declare, one of the old festivals of Saturn, the Babylonian fire-god, who,
though an infernal god, was yet Phoroneus, the great ”Deliverer,” it is
altogether natural that the god of the Papal idolatry, though called by
Christ’s <i>name</i>, should rise from the dead on his <i>own</i> day–the <i>Dies
Saturni</i>, or ”Saturn’s day.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The above account referred to the ceremonies as witnessed by the
authoress in 1817 and 1818. It would seem that some change has taken place
since then, caused probably by the very attention called by her to the gross
anomaly mentioned above; for Count Vlodaisky, formerly a Roman Catholic priest,
who visited Rome in 1845, has informed me that in that year the resurrection
took place, not at mid-day, but at nine o’clock on the evening of Saturday.
This may have been intended to make the inconsistency between Roman practice
and Scriptural fact appear somewhat less glaring. Still the fact remains, that
the resurrection of Christ, as celebrated at Rome, takes place, not on His own
day–”The Lord’s day”–but–on the day of Saturn, the god of fire!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the day before the <i>Miserere</i> is sung with such overwhelming
pathos, that few can listen to it unmoved, and many even swoon with the
emotions that are excited. What if this be at bottom only the old song of
Linus, of whose very touching and melancholy character Herodotus speaks so
strikingly? Certain it is, that much of the pathos of that <i>Miserere</i> depends
on the part borne in singing it by the <i>sopranos</i>; and equally
certain it is that Semiramis, the wife of him who, historically, was the
original of that god whose tragic death was so pathetically celebrated in many
countries, enjoys the fame, such as it is, of having been the inventress of the
practice from which <i>soprano singing</i> took its rise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the flagellations which form an important part of the penances that
take place at Rome on the evening of Good Friday, formed an equally important
part in the rites of that fire-god, from which, as we have seen, the Papacy has
borrowed so much. These flagellations, then, of ”Passion Week,” taken in
connection with the other ceremonies of that period, bear their additional
testimony to the real character of that god whose death and resurrection Rome
then celebrates. Wonderful it is to consider that, in the very high place of
what is called Catholic Christendom, the essential rites at this day are seen
to be the very rites of the old Chaldean fire-worshippers.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
The Two Babylons<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter IV<br />
Section III<br />
The Sacrifice of the Mass</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If baptismal regeneration, the initiating ordinance of Rome, and
justification by works, be both Chaldean, the principle embodied in the
”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass is not less so. We have evidence that goes to
show the Babylonian origin of the idea of that ”unbloody sacrifice” very
distinctly. From Tacitus we learn that no blood was allowed to be offered on
the altars of Paphian Venus. Victims were used for the purposes of the
Haruspex, that presages of the issues of events might be drawn from the
inspection of the entrails of these victims; but the altars of the Paphian
goddess were required to be kept pure from blood. Tacitus shows that the
Haruspex of the temple of the Paphian Venus was brought from <i>Cilicia</i>,
for his knowledge of her rites, that they might be duly performed according to
the supposed will of the goddess, the Cilicians having peculiar knowledge of
her rites. Now, Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was built by Sennacerib, the
Assyrian king, in express imitation of Babylon. Its religion would naturally
correspond; and when we find ”unbloody sacrifice” in Cyprus, whose priest came
from Cilicia, that, in the circumstances, is itself a strong presumption that
the ”unbloody sacrifice” came to it through Cilicia from Babylon. This
presumption is greatly strengthened when we find from Herodotus that the
peculiar and abominable institution of Babylon in prostituting virgins in
honour of Mylitta, was observed also in Cyprus in honour of Venus. But the
positive testimony of Pausanias brings this presumption to a certainty. ”Near
this,” says that historian, speaking of the temple of Vulcan at Athens, ”is the
temple of Celestial Venus, who was first worshipped by the Assyrians, and after
these by the Paphians in Cyprus, and the Phoenicians who inhabited the city of
Ascalon in Palestine. But the Cythereans venerated this goddess in consequence
of learning her sacred rites from the Phoenicians.” The Assyrian Venus,
then–that is, the great goddess of Babylon–and the Cyprian Venus were one and
the same, and consequently the ”bloodless” altars of the Paphian goddess show
the character of the worship peculiar to the Babylonian goddess, from whom she
was derived. In this respect the goddess-queen of Chaldea differed from her
son, who was worshipped in her arms. <i>He</i> was, as we have seen,
represented as delighting in blood. But <i>she</i>, as the mother of grace
and mercy, as the celestial ”Dove,” as ”the hope of the whole world,” (BRYANT)
was averse to blood, and was represented in a benign and gentle character.
Accordingly, in Babylon she bore the name of Mylitta–that is, ”The Mediatrix.”
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Mylitta is the same as Melitta, the feminine of Melitz, ”a mediator,”
which in Chaldee becomes Melitt. Melitz is the word used in Job 33:23, 24: ”If
there be a messenger with him, an <i>interpreter</i> (Heb. Melitz, ”<i>a
mediator</i>”), one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, then he
is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have
found a ransom.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every one who reads the Bible, and sees how expressly it declares that, as
there is only ”one God,” so there is only ”one Mediator between God and man” (1
Tim 2:5), must marvel how it could ever have entered the mind of any one to
bestow on Mary, as is done by the Church of Rome, the character of the
”Mediatrix.” But the character ascribed to the Babylonian goddess as Mylitta
sufficiently accounts for this. In accordance with this character of Mediatrix,
she was called Aphrodite–that is, ”the wrath-subduer” *–who by her charms could
soothe the breast of angry Jove, and soften the most rugged spirits of gods or
mortal-men. In Athens she was called Amarusia (PAUSANIAS)–that is, ”The Mother
of gracious acceptance.” **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Chaldee ”aph,” ”wrath,” and ”radah,” ”to subdue”; ”radite” is the
feminine emphatic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** From ”Ama,” ”mother,” and ”Retza,” ”to accept graciously,” which in the
participle active is ”Rutza.” Pausanias expresses his perplexity as to the
meaning of the name Amarusia as applied to Diana, saying, ”Concerning which
appellation I never could find any one able to give a satisfactory account.”
The sacred tongue plainly shows the meaning of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Rome she was called ”Bona Dea,” ”the good goddess,” the mysteries of
this goddess being celebrated by women with peculiar secrecy. In India the
goddess Lakshmi, ”the Mother of the Universe,” the consort of Vishnu, is
represented also as possessing the most gracious and genial disposition; and
that disposition is indicated in the same way as in the case of the Babylonian
goddess. ”In the festivals of Lakshmi,” says Coleman, ”no <i>sanguinary
sacrifices are offered</i>.” In China, the great gods, on whom the final
destinies of mankind depend, are held up to the popular mind as objects of
dread; but the goddess Kuanyin, ”the goddess of mercy,” whom the Chinese of
Canton recognise as bearing an analogy to the Virgin or Rome, is described as
looking with an eye of compassion on the guilty, and interposing to save
miserable souls even from torments to which in the world of spirits they have
been doomed. Therefore she is regarded with peculiar favour by the Chinese.
This character of the goddess-mother has evidently radiated in all directions
from Chaldea. Now, thus we see how it comes that Rome represents Christ, the
”Lamb of God,” meek and lowly in heart, who never brake the bruised reed, nor
quenched the smoking flax–who spake words of sweetest encouragement to every
mourning penitent–who wept over Jerusalem–who prayed for His murderers–as a
stern and inexorable judge, before whom the sinner ”might grovel in the dust,
and still never be sure that his prayers would be heard,” while Mary is set off
in the most winning and engaging light, as the hope of the guilty, as the grand
refuge of sinners; how it is that the former is said to have ”reserved justice
and judgment to Himself,” but to have committed the exercise of all mercy to
His Mother! The most standard devotional works of Rome are pervaded by this
very principle, exalting the compassion and gentleness of the mother at the expense
of the loving character of the Son. Thus, St. Alphonsus Liguori tells his
readers that the sinner that ventures to come directly to Christ may come with
dread and apprehension of His wrath; but let him only employ the mediation of
the Virgin with her Son, and she has only to ”<i>show</i>” that Son ”<i>the
breasts that gave him suck</i>,” (<i>Catholic Layman</i>, July, 1856) and His
wrath will immediately be appeased. But where in the Word of God could such an
idea have been found? Not surely in the answer of the Lord Jesus to the woman
who exclaimed, ”Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast
sucked!” Jesus answered and said unto her, ”<i>Yea, rather</i>, blessed are
they that hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27,28). There cannot be a
doubt that this answer was given by the prescient Saviour, to check in the very
bud every idea akin to that expressed by Liguori. Yet this idea, which is not
to be found in Scripture, which the Scripture expressly repudiates, was widely
diffused in the realms of Paganism. Thus we find an exactly parallel
representation in the Hindoo mythology in regard to the god Siva and his wife
Kali, when that god appeared as a little child. ”Siva,” says the Lainga Puran,
”appeared as an infant in a cemetery, surrounded by ghosts, and on beholding
him, Kali (his wife) took him up, and, <i>caressing him, gave him her
breast</i>. He sucked the nectareous fluid; but becoming ANGRY, in order to
divert and PACIFY him, Kali <i>clasping him to her bosom</i>, danced with
her attendant goblins and demons amongst the dead, until he was <i>pleased
and delighted</i>; while Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and all the gods, bowing
themselves, praised with laudatory strains the god of gods, Kal and Parvati.”
Kali, in India, is the goddess of destruction; but even into the myth that
concerns this goddess of destruction, the power of the goddess <i>mother</i>,
in appeasing an offended god, by means only suited to PACIFY a peevish child,
has found an introduction. If the Hindoo story exhibits its ”god of gods” in
such a degrading light, how much more honouring is the Papal story to the Son
of the Blessed, when it represents Him as needing to be <i>pacified</i> by
His mother exposing to Him ”the breasts that He has sucked.” All this is done
only to exalt the Mother, as <i>more</i> gracious and <i>more</i> compassionate
than her glorious Son. Now, this was the very case in Babylon: and to this
character of the goddess queen her favourite offerings exactly corresponded.
Therefore, we find the women of Judah represented as simply ”burning incense,
pouring out drink-offerings, and offering <i>cakes</i> to the queen
of heaven” (Jer 44:19). The cakes were ”the unbloody sacrifice” she required.
That ”unbloody sacrifice” her votaries not only offered, but when admitted to
the higher mysteries, they partook of, swearing anew fidelity to her. In the
fourth century, when the queen of heaven, under the name of Mary, was beginning
to be worshipped in the Christian Church, this ”unbloody sacrifice” also was
brought in. Epiphanius states that the practice of offering and eating it began
among the women of Arabia; and at that time it was well known to have been
adopted from the Pagans. The very shape of the unbloody sacrifice of Rome may
indicate whence it came. It is a small thin, <i>round</i> wafer; and
on its <i>roundness</i> the Church of Rome lays so much stress, to
use the pithy language of John Knox in regard to the wafer-god, ”If, in making
the <i>roundness</i> the ring be broken, then must another of his
fellow-cakes receive that honour to be made a god, and the crazed or cracked
miserable cake, that once was in hope to be made a god, must be given to a baby
to play withal.” What could have induced the Papacy to insist so much on the ”<i>roundness</i>”
of its ”unbloody sacrifice”? Clearly not any reference to the Divine
institution of the Supper of our Lord; for in all the accounts that are given
of it, no reference whatever is made to the <i>form</i> of the bread
which our Lord took, when He blessed and break it, and gave it to His
disciples, saying, ”Take, eat; this is My body: this do in remembrance of Me.”
As little can it be taken from any regard to injunctions about the form of the
Jewish Paschal bread; for no injunctions on that subject are given in the books
of Moses. The importance, however, which Rome attaches to the <i>roundness</i> of
the wafer, must have a reason; and that reason will be found, if we look at the
altars of Egypt. ”The thin, <i>round</i> cake,” says Wilkinson,
”occurs on all altars.” Almost every jot or tittle in the Egyptian worship had
a symbolical meaning. The <i>round disk</i>, so frequent in the sacred emblems
of Egypt, symbolised the <i>sun</i>. Now, when Osiris, the sun-divinity,
became incarnate, and was born, it was not merely that he should give his life
as a <i>sacrifice</i> for men, but that he might also be the life
and <i>nourishment</i> of the souls of men. It is universally
admitted that Isis was the original of the Greek and Roman Ceres. But Ceres, be
it observed, was worshipped not simply as the <i>discoverer</i> of
corn; she was worshipped as ”the MOTHER of Corn.” The child she brought forth
was He-Siri, ”the Seed,” or, as he was most frequently called in Assyria,
”Bar,” which signifies at once ”the <i>Son</i>” and ”the <i>Corn</i>.”
The uninitiated might reverence Ceres for the gift of material corn to nourish
their <i>bodies</i>, but the initiated adored her for a higher gift–for
food to nourish their souls–for giving them that bread of God that cometh down
from heaven–for the life of the world, of which, ”if a man eat, he shall never
die.” Does any one imagine that it is a mere <i>New Testament</i> doctrine,
that Christ is the ”bread of life”? There never <i>was</i>, there
never <i>could</i> be, spiritual life in any soul, since the world
began, at least since the expulsion from Eden, that was not nourished and
supported by a continual feeding by faith on the Son of God, ”in whom it hath
pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell” (Col 1:19), ”that out of His
fulness we might receive, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). Paul tells us that
the manna of which the Israelites ate in the wilderness was to them a type and
lively symbol of ”the bread of life”; (1 Cor 10:3), ”They did all eat the
same <i>spiritual</i> meat”–i.e., meat which was intended not only to
support their natural lives, but to point them to Him who was the life of their
souls. Now, Clement of Alexandria, to whom we are largely indebted for all the
discoveries that, in modern times, have been made in Egypt, expressly assures
us that, ”in their <i>hidden character</i>, the enigmas of the Egyptians
were VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE JEWS.” That the initiated Pagans actually
believed that the ”Corn” which Ceres bestowed on the world was not the ”Corn”
of this earth, but the Divine ”Son,” through whom alone spiritual and eternal
life could be enjoyed, we have clear and decisive proof. The Druids were
devoted worshippers of Ceres, and as such they were celebrated in their mystic
poems as ”bearers of the ears of corn.” Now, the following is the account which
the Druids give of their great divinity, under the form of ”<i>Corn</i>.” That
divinity was represented as having, in the first instance, incurred, for some
reason or other, the displeasure of Ceres, and was fleeing in terror from her.
In his terror, ”he took the form of a bird, and mounted into the air. That
element afforded him no refuge: for <i>The Lady</i>, in the form of a
sparrow-hawk, was gaining upon him–she was just in the act of pouncing upon
him. Shuddering with dread, he perceived a heap of clean wheat upon a floor,
dropped into the midst of it, and assumed the form of a <i>single grain</i>.
Ceridwen [i.e., the British Ceres] took the form of a black high-crested hen,
descended into the wheat, scratched him out, distinguished, and swallowed him.
And, as the history relates, she was pregnant of him nine months, and when
delivered of him, she found him <i>so lovely a babe</i>, that she had not
resolution to put him to death” (”Song of Taliesin,” DAVIES’S <i>British
Druids</i>). Here it is evident that the <i>grain of corn</i>, is
expressly identified with ”<i>the lovely babe</i>”; from which it is still
further evident that Ceres, who, to the profane vulgar was known only as the
Mother of ”Bar,” ”the Corn,” was known to the initiated as the Mother of ”Bar,”
”the Son.” And now, the reader will be prepared to understand the full
significance of the representation in the Celestial sphere of ”the Virgin with
the ear of wheat in her hand.” That <i>ear of wheat</i> in the
Virgin’s <i>hand</i> is just another symbol for the <i>child</i> in
the <i>arms</i>of the Virgin Mother.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this Son, who was symbolised as ”Corn,” was the SUN-divinity
incarnate, according to the sacred oracle of the great goddess of Egypt: ”No
mortal hath lifted my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the SUN”
(BUNSEN’S <i>Egypt</i>). What more natural then, if this incarnate
divinity is symbolised as the ”<i>bread</i> of God,” than that he should
be represented as a ”<i>round</i>wafer,” to identify him with the Sun? Is this
a mere fancy? Let the reader peruse the following extract from Hurd, in which
he describes the embellishments of the Romish altar, on which the sacrament or
consecrated wafer is deposited, and then he will be able to judge: ”A plate of
silver, in the form of a SUN, is fixed opposite to the SACRAMENT on the altar;
which, with the light of the tapers, makes a most brilliant appearance.” What
has that ”brilliant” ”<i>Sun</i>” to do there, on the altar, over against the ”<i>sacrament</i>,”
or <i>round</i> wafer? In Egypt, the <i>disk</i> of the Sun
was represented in the temples, and the sovereign and his wife and children
were represented as adoring it. Near the small town of Babin, in Upper Egypt,
there still exists in a grotto, a representation of a sacrifice to the sun,
where two priests are seen worshipping the sun’s image. In the great temple of
Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the
Babylonians. In the temple of Cuzco, in Peru, the disk of the sun was fixed up
in flaming gold upon the wall, that all who entered might bow down before it.
The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers; and in their worship they adored
an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole. In the
worship of Baal, as practised by the idolatrous Israelites in the days of their
apostacy, the worship of the sun’s image was equally observed; and it is
striking to find that the image of the sun, which apostate Israel worshipped,
was erected <i>above the altar</i>. When the good king Josiah set about
the work of reformation, we read that his servants in carrying out the work,
proceeded thus (2 Chron 34:4): ”And they brake down the <i>altars</i> of
Baalim in his presence, and the images (margin, SUN-IMAGES) that were on high
above them, he cut down.” Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives
a striking account of sun-worship even in comparatively modern times, as
subsisting among the Cushites of the East, from which we find that the image of
the sun was, even in his day, worshipped on the altar. ”There is a temple,”
says he, ”of the posterity of Chus, addicted to the contemplation of the stars.
They worship the sun as a god, and the whole country, for half-a-mile round
their town, is filled with great altars dedicated to him. By the dawn of morn
they get up and run out of town, to wait the rising sun, to whom, <i>on
every altar</i>, there is a <i>consecrated image</i>, not in the likeness
of a man, but <i>of the solar orb</i>, framed by magic art. These orbs, as
soon as the sun rises, take fire, and resound with a great noise, while
everybody there, men and women, hold censers in their hands, and all burn
incense to the sun.” From all this, it is manifest that the image of the sun
above, or on the altar, was one of the recognised symbols of those who
worshipped Baal or the sun. And here, in a so-called Christian Church, a
brilliant plate of silver, ”in the form of a SUN,” is so placed on the altar,
that every one who adores at that altar must bow down in lowly reverence before
that image of the ”<i>Sun</i>.” Whence, I ask, could that have come, but from
the ancient sun-worship, or the worship of Baal? And when the wafer is so
placed that the silver ”SUN” is fronting the ”<i>round</i>” wafer, whose ”<i>roundness</i>”
is so important an element in the Romish Mystery, what can be the meaning of
it, but just to show to those who have eyes to see, that the ”Wafer” itself is
only another symbol of Baal, or the Sun. If the sun-divinity was worshipped in
Egypt as ”the Seed,” or in Babylon as the ”Corn,” precisely so is the wafer
adored in Rome. ”Bread-<i>corn</i> of the elect, have mercy upon us,” is
one of the appointed prayers of the Roman Litany, addressed to the wafer, in
the celebration of the mass. And one at least of the imperative requirements as
to the way in which that wafer is to be partaken of, is the very same as was
enforced in the old worship of the Babylonian divinity. Those who partake of it
are required to partake absolutely fasting. This is very stringently laid down.
Bishop Hay, laying down the law on the subject, says that it is indispensable,
”that we be fasting from midnight, so as to have taken nothing into our stomach
from twelve o’clock at night before we receive, neither food, nor drink, nor
medicine.” Considering that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Communion
immediately after His disciples had partaken of the paschal feast, such a
strict requirement of fasting might seem very unaccountable. But look at this
provision in regard to the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass in the light of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is accounted for at once; for there the first
question put to those who sought initiation was, ”Are you fasting?”
(POTTER, <i>Eleusiania</i>) and unless that question was answered in the
affirmative, no initiation could take place. There is no question that fasting
is in certain circumstances a Christian duty; but while neither the letter nor
the spirit of the Divine institution requires any such stringent regulation as
the above, the regulations in regard to the Babylonian Mysteries make it
evident whence this requirement has really come.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Although the god whom Isis or Ceres brought forth, and who was offered to
her under the symbol of the wafer or thin round cake, as ”the bread of life,”
was in reality the fierce, scorching Sun, or terrible Moloch, yet in that
offering all his terror was veiled, and everything repulsive was cast into the
shade. In the appointed symbol he is offered up to the benignant Mother, who
tempers judgment with mercy, and to whom all spiritual blessings are ultimately
referred; and blessed by that mother, he is given back to be feasted upon, as
the staff of life, as the nourishment of her worshippers’ souls. Thus the
Mother was held up as the favourite divinity. And thus, also, and for an
entirely similar reason, does the Madonna of Rome entirely eclipse her son as
the ”Mother of grace and mercy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In regard to the Pagan character of the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass,
we have seen not little already. But there is something yet to be considered,
in which the working of the mystery of iniquity will still further appear.
There are letters on the wafer that are worth reading. These letters are I. H.
S. What mean these mystical letters? To a Christian these letters are
represented as signifying, ”<i>Iesus Hominum Salvator</i>,” ”Jesus the Saviour
of men.” But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors
there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them,
and how will he read them? He will read them, of course, according to his own
well known system of idolatry: ”<i>Isis, Horus, Seb</i>,” that is, ”The Mother,
the Child, and the Father of the gods,”–in other words, ”The Egyptian Trinity.”
Can the reader imagine that this double sense is accidental? Surely not. The
very same spirit that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast
of the Christian Joannes, retaining at the same time all its ancient Paganism,
has skilfully planned the initials I. H. S. to pay the <i>semblance</i> of
a tribute to Christianity, while Paganism in reality has all the <i>substance</i> of
the homage bestowed upon it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the ”unbloody
sacrifice,” all genuine Christians saw at once the real character of their
sacrifice. They were treated as heretics, and branded with the name of
Collyridians, from the Greek name for the cake which they employed. But Rome
saw that the heresy might be turned to account; and therefore, though condemned
by the sound portion of the Church, the practice of offering and eating this
”unbloody sacrifice” was patronised by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole
bounds of the Romish communion, it has superseded the simple but most precious
sacrament of the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Intimately connected with the sacrifice of the mass is the subject of
transubstantiation; but the consideration of it will come more conveniently at
a subsequent stage of this inquiry.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
The Two Babylons<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter IV<br />
Section IV<br />
Extreme Unction</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The last office which Popery performs for living men is to give them
”extreme unction,” to anoint them in the name of the Lord, after they have been
shriven and absolved, and thus to prepare them for their last and unseen
journey. The pretence for this ”unction” of dying men is professedly taken from
a command of James in regard to the visitation of the sick; but when the
passage in question is fairly quoted it will be seen that such a practice could
never have arisen from the apostolic direction–that it must have come from an
entirely different source. ”Is any sick among you?” says James (v 14,15), ”let
him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing
him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the
sick, and the Lord shall RAISE HIM UP.” Now, it is evident that this prayer and
anointing were intended for the recovery of the sick. Apostolic men, for the
laying of the foundations of the Christian Church, were, by their great King
and Head, invested with miraculous powers–powers which were intended only for a
time, and were destined, as the apostles themselves declared, while exercising
them, to ”vanish away” (1 Cor 13:8). These powers were every day exercised by
the ”elders of the Church,” when James wrote his epistle, and that for healing
the bodies of men, even as our Lord Himself did. The ”extreme unction” of Rome,
as the very expression itself declares, is not intended for any such purpose.
It is not intended for healing the sick, or ”raising them up”; for it is not on
any account to be administered till all hope of recovery is gone, and death is
visibly at the very doors. As the object of this anointing is the very opposite
of the Scriptural anointing, it must have come from a quite different quarter.
That quarter is the very same from which the Papacy has imported so much
heathenism, as we have seen already, into its own foul bosom. From the Chaldean
Mysteries, extreme unction has obviously come. Among the many names of the
Babylonian god was the name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” which is the name
of the sun, but also of course of the sun-god. But Beel-samen also properly
signifies ”Lord of Oil,” and was evidently intended as a synonym of the Divine
name, ”The Messiah.” In Herodotus we find a statement made which this name
alone can fully explain. There an individual is represented as having dreamt
that the sun had anointed her father. That the sun should anoint any one is
certainly not an idea that could naturally have presented itself; but when the
name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” is seen also to signify ”Lord of Oil,” it
is easy to see how that idea would be suggested. This also accounts for the
fact that the body of the Babylonian Belus was represented as having been
preserved in his sepulchre in Babylon till the time of Xerxes, floating in oil
(CLERICUS, Philosoph. Orient.). And for the same reason, no doubt, it was that
at Rome the ”statue of Saturn” was ”made hollow, and filled with oil” (SMITH’S
Classical Dictionary).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The olive branch, which we have already seen to have been one of the
symbols of the Chaldean god, had evidently the same hieroglyphical meaning;
for, as the olive was the oil-tree, so an olive branch emblematically signified
a ”son of oil,” or an ”anointed one” (Zech 4:12-14). Hence the reason that the
Greeks, in coming before their gods in the attitude of suppliants deprecating
their wrath and entreating their favour, came to the temple on many occasions
bearing an olive branch in their hands. As the olive branch was one of the
recognised symbols of their Messiah, whose great mission it was to make peace
between God and man, so, in bearing this branch of the anointed one, they
thereby testified that in the name of that anointed one they came seeking
peace. Now, the worshippers of this Beel-samen, ”Lord of Heaven,” and ”Lord of
Oil,” were anointed in the name of their god. It was not enough that they were
anointed with ”spittle”; they were also anointed with ”magical ointments” of
the most powerful kind; and these ointments were the means of introducing into
their bodily systems such drugs as tended to excite their imaginations and add
to the power of the magical drinks they received, that they might be prepared
for the visions and revelations that were to be made to them in the Mysteries.
These ”unctions,” says Salverte, ”were exceedingly frequent in the ancient
ceremonies…Before consulting the oracle of Trophonius, they were rubbed with
oil over the whole body. This preparation certainly concurred to produce the
desired vision. Before being admitted to the Mysteries of the Indian sages,
Apollonius and his companion were rubbed with an oil so powerful that they felt
as if bathed with fire.” This was professedly an unction in the name of the
”Lord of Heaven,” to fit and prepare them for being admitted in vision into his
awful presence. The very same reason that suggested such an unction before
initiation on this present scene of things, would naturally plead more powerfully
still for a special ”unction” when the individual was called, not in vision,
but in reality, to face the ”Mystery of mysteries,” his personal introduction
into the world unseen and eternal. Thus the Pagan system naturally developed
itself into ”extreme unction” (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, January, 1853).
Its votaries were anointed for their last journey, that by the double influence
of superstition and powerful stimulants introduced into the frame by the only
way in which it might then be possible, their minds might be fortified at once
against the sense of guilt and the assaults of the king of terrors. From this
source, and this alone, there can be no doubt came the ”extreme unction” of the
Papacy, which was entirely unknown among Christians till corruption was far
advanced in the Church. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Bishop GIBSON says that it was not known in the Church for a thousand
years. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(Preservative
against Popery)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter IV<br />
Section V<br />
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Extreme unction,” however, to a burdened soul, was but a miserable
resource, after all, in the prospect of death. No wonder, therefore, that
something else was found to be needed by those who had received all that
priestly assumption could pretend to confer, to comfort them in the prospect of
eternity. In every system, therefore, except that of the Bible, the doctrine of
a purgatory after death, and prayers for the dead, has always been found to
occupy a place. Go wherever we may, in ancient or modern times, we shall find
that Paganism leaves hope after death for sinners, who, at the time of their
departure, were consciously unfit for the abodes of the blest. For this purpose
a middle state has been feigned, in which, by means of purgatorial pains, guilt
unremoved in time may in a future world be purged away, and the soul be made
meet for final beatitude. In Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was inculcated
by the very chief of the philosophers. Thus Plato, speaking of the future
judgment of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but
maintains that, of ”those who are judged,” ”some” must first ”proceed to a
subterranean place of judgment, where they shall sustain the punishment they
have deserved”; while others, in consequence of a favourable judgment, being
elevated at once into a certain celestial place, ”shall pass their time in a
manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape.” In Pagan Rome,
purgatory was equally held up before the minds of men; but there, there seems
to have been no hope held out to any of exemption from its pains. Therefore,
Virgil, describing its different tortures, thus speaks:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Nor can the grovelling mind,<br />
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,<br />
Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind.<br />
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;<br />
But long-contracted filth, even in the soul, remains<br />
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,<br />
And spots of sin obscene in every face appear.<br />
For this are various penances enjoined;<br />
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,<br />
Some plunged in water, others purged in fires,<br />
Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.<br />
All have their Manes, and those Manes bear.<br />
The few so cleansed to these abodes repair,<br />
And breathe in ample fields the soft Elysian air,<br />
Then are they happy, when by length of time<br />
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime.<br />
No speck is left of their habitual stains,<br />
But the pure ether of the soul remains.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was inculcated. But
when once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then
the door was opened for all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead
ever go hand in hand with purgatory; but no prayers can be completely
efficacious without the interposition of the priests; and no priestly functions
can be rendered unless there be special pay for them. Therefore, in every land
we find the Pagan priesthood ”devouring widows’ houses,” and making merchandise
of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives, sensitively alive to the
immortal happiness of the beloved dead. From all quarters there is one
universal testimony as to the burdensome character and the expense of these
posthumous devotions. One of the oppressions under which the poor Romanists in
Ireland groan, is the periodical special devotions, for which they are required
to pay, when death has carried away one of the inmates of their dwelling. Not
only are there funeral services and funeral dues for the repose of the
departed, at the time of burial, but the priest pays repeated visits to the
family for the same purpose, which entail heavy expense, beginning with what is
called ”the month’s mind,” that is, a service in behalf of the deceased when a
month after death has elapsed. Something entirely similar to this had evidently
been the case in ancient Greece; for, says Muller in his History of the
Dorians, ”the Argives sacrificed on the thirtieth day [after death] to Mercury
as the conductor of the dead.” In India many and burdensome are the services of
the Sradd’ha, or funeral obsequies for the repose of the dead; and for securing
the due efficacy of these, it is inculcated that ”donations of cattle, land,
gold, silver, and other things,” should be made by the man himself at the
approach of death; or, ”if he be too weak, by another in his name” (Asiatic
Researches). Wherever we look, the case is nearly the same. In Tartary, ”The
Gurjumi, or prayers for the dead,” says the Asiatic Journal, ”are very
expensive.” In Greece, says Suidas, ”the greatest and most expensive sacrifice
was the mysterious sacrifice called the Telete,” a sacrifice which, according
to Plato, ”was offered for the living and the dead, and was supposed to free
them from all the evils to which the wicked are liable when they have left this
world.” In Egypt the exactions of the priests for funeral dues and masses for
the dead were far from being trifling. ”The priests,” says Wilkinson, ”induced
the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and many
who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life were anxious to
save something for the expenses of their death. For, beside the embalming
process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about 250 pounds English
money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous
demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of
prayer and other services for the soul.” ”The ceremonies,” we find him
elsewhere saying, ”consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the
temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osisris, Anubis, and
others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a
prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners.
They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who
officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who
wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the
minor priests to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of
the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals,
as long as the family paid for their performance.” Such was the operation of
the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and
acknowledged Pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the
operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome? There are the same extortions in
the one as there were in the other. The doctrine of purgatory is purely Pagan,
and cannot for a moment stand in the light of Scripture. For those who die in
Christ no purgatory is, or can be, needed; for ”the blood of Jesus Christ,
God’s Son, cleanseth from ALL sin.” If this be true, where can there be the
need for any other cleansing? On the other hand, for those who die without
personal union to Christ, and consequently unwashed, unjustified, unsaved, there
can be no other cleansing; for, while ”he that hath the son hath life, he that
hath not the Son hath not life,” and never can have it. Search the Scripture
through, and it will be found that, in regard to all who ”die in their sins,”
the decree of God is irreversible: ”Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and
let him that is filthy be filthy still.” Thus the whole doctrine of purgatory
is a system of pure bare-faced Pagan imposture, dishonouring to God, deluding
men who live in sin with the hope of atoning for it after death, and cheating
them at once out of their property and their salvation. In the Pagan purgatory,
fire, water, wind, were represented (as may be seen from the lines of Virgil)
as combining to purge away the stain of sin. In the purgatory of the Papacy,
ever since the days of Pope Gregory, FIRE itself has been the grand means of
purgation (Catechismus Romanus). Thus, while the purgatorial fires of the
future world are just the carrying out of the principle embodied in the blazing
and purifying Baal-fires of the eve of St. John, they form another link in
identifying the system of Rome with the system of Tammuz or Zoroaster, the
great God of the ancient fire-worshippers.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if baptismal regeneration, justification by
works, penance as a satisfaction to God’s justice, the unbloody sacrifice of
the mass, extreme unction, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, were all
derived from Babylon, how justly may the general system of Rome be styled
Babylonian?</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> And if the account already given be true,
what thanks ought we to render to God, that, from a system such as this, we
were set free at the blessed Reformation! How great a boon is it to be
delivered from trusting in such refuges of lies as could no more take away sin
than the blood of bulls or of goats! How blessed to feel that the blood of the
Lamb, applied by the Spirit of God to the most defiled conscience, completely
purges it from dead works and from sin! How fervent ought our gratitude to be,
when we know that, in all our trials and distresses, we may come boldly unto
the throne of grace, in the name of no creature, but of God’s eternal and
well-beloved Son; and that that Son is exhibited as a most tender and
compassionate high priest, who is TOUCHED with a feeling of our infirmities,
having been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Surely the
thought of all this, while inspiring tender compassion for the deluded slaves
of Papal tyranny, ought to make us ourselves stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free, and quit ourselves like men, that neither we
nor our children may ever again be entangled in the yoke of bondage.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter 5<br />
Rites and Ceremonies<br />
Section I<br />
Idol Processions</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Those who have read the account of the last idol procession in the capital
of Scotland, in John Knox’s <i>History of the Reformation</i>, cannot
easily have forgot the tragi-comedy with which it ended. The light of the
Gospel had widely spread, the Popish idols had lost their fascination, and
popular antipathy was everywhere rising against them. ”The images,” says the
historian, ”were stolen away in all parts of the country; and in Edinburgh was
that great idol called Sanct Geyle [the patron saint of the capital], first
drowned in the North Loch, after burnt, which raised no small trouble in the
town.” The bishops demanded of the Town Council either ”to get them again the
old Sanct Geyle, or else, upon their (own) expenses, to make a new image.” The
Town Council <i>could</i> not do the one, and the other they
absolutely <i>refused</i> to do; for they were now convinced of the
sin of idolatry. The bishops and priests, however, were still made upon their
idols; and, as the anniversary of the feast of St. Giles was approaching, when
the saint used to be carried in procession through the town, they determined to
do their best, that the accustomed procession should take place with as much
pomp as possible. For this purpose, ”a marmouset idole” was borrowed from the
Grey friars, which the people, in derision, called ”Young Sanct Geyle,” and
which was made to do service instead of the old one. On the appointed day, says
Know, ”there assembled priests, friars, canons…with taborns and trumpets,
banners, and bagpipes; and who was there to lead the ring but the Queen Regent
herself, with all her shavelings, for honour of that feast. West about goes it,
and comes down the High Street, and down to the Canno Cross.” As long as the
Queen was present, all went to the heart’s content of the priests and their
partisans. But no sooner had majesty retired to dine, than some in the crowd,
who had viewed the whole concern with an evil eye, ”drew nigh to the idol, as
willing to help to bear him, and getting the fertour (or barrow) on their
shoulders, began to shudder, thinking that thereby the idol should have fallen.
But that was provided and prevented by the iron nails [with which it was
fastened to the fertour]; and so began one to cry, ‘Down with the idol, down
with it’; and so without delay it was pulled down. Some brag made the priests’
patrons at the first; but when they saw the feebleness of their god, for one
took him by the heels, and dadding [knocking] his head to the calsay
[pavement], left Dagon without head or hands, and said, ‘Fye upon thee, thou
young Sanct Geyle, thy father would have tarried [withstood] four such
[blows]‘; this considered, we say, the priests and friars fled faster than they
did at Pinkey Cleuch. There might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has
been seen amongst that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the
crosses, off goes the surplice, round caps corner with the crowns. The Grey
friars gaped, the Black friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was
he that first gat the house; for such ane sudden fray came never amongst the
generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such an idol procession among a people who had begun to study and relish
the Word of God, elicited nothing but indignation and scorn. But in Popish
lands, among a people studiously kept in the dark, such processions are among
the favourite means which the Romish Church employs to bind its votaries to
itself. The long processions with images borne on men’s shoulders, with the
gorgeous dresses of the priests, and the various habits of different orders of
monks and nuns, with the aids of flying banners and the thrilling strains of
instrumental music, if not too closely scanned, are well fitted ”plausibly to
amuse” the worldly mind, to gratify the love for the picturesque, and when the
emotions thereby called forth are dignified with the names of piety and
religion, to minister to the purposes of spiritual despotism. Accordingly,
Popery has ever largely availed itself of such pageants. On joyous occasions,
it has sought to consecrate the hilarity and excitement created by such
processions to the service of its idols; and in seasons of sorrow, it has made use
of the same means to draw forth the deeper wail of distress from the multitudes
that throng the procession, as if the mere loudness of the cry would avert the
displeasure of a justly offended God. Gregory, commonly called the Great, seems
to have been the first who, on a <i>large</i> scale, introduced those
religious processions into the Roman Church. In 590, when Rome was suffering
under the heavy hand of God from the pestilence, he exhorted the people to
unite publicly in supplication to God, appointing that they should meet at
daybreak in SEVEN DIFFERENT COMPANIES, according to their respective ages,
SEXES, and stations, and walk in seven different processions, reciting litanies
or supplications, till they all met at one place. They did so, and proceeded singing
and uttering the words, ”Lord, have mercy upon us,” carrying along with them,
as Baronius relates, by Gregory’s express command, an image of the Virgin. The
very idea of such processions was an affront to the majesty of heaven; it
implied that God who is a Spirit ”saw with eyes of flesh,” and might be moved
by the imposing picturesqueness of such a spectacle, just as sensuous mortals
might. As an experiment it had but slender success. In the space of one hour,
while thus engaged, eighty persons fell to the ground, and breathed their last.
Yet this is now held up to Britons as ”the more excellent way” for deprecating
the wrath of God in a season of national distress. ”Had this calamity,” says
Dr. Wiseman, referring to the Indian disasters, ”had this calamity fallen upon
our forefathers in Catholic days, one would have seen the streets of this city
[London] trodden in every direction by penitential processions, crying out,
like David, when pestilence had struck the people.” If this allusion to David
has any pertinence or meaning, it must imply that David, in the time of
pestilence, headed some such ”penitential procession.” But Dr. Wiseman knows,
or ought to know, that David did nothing of the sort, that his penitence was
expressed in no such way as by processions, and far less by idol processions,
as ”in the Catholic days of our forefathers,” to which we are invited to turn
back. This reference to David, then, is a mere blind, intended to mislead those
who are not given to Bible reading, as if such ”penitential processions” had
something of Scripture warrant to rest upon. The <i>Times</i>, commenting
on this recommendation of the Papal dignitary, has hit the nail on the head.
”The historic idea,” says that journal, ”is simple enough, and as old as old
can be. We have it in Homer–the procession of Hecuba and the ladies of Troy to
the shrine of Minerva, in the Acropolis of that city.” It was a time of terror
and dismay in Troy, when Diomede, with resistless might, was driving everything
before him, and the overthrow of the proud city seemed at hand. To avert the
apparently inevitable doom, the Trojan Queen was divinely directed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”To lead the assembled train<br />
Of Troy’s chief matron’s to Minerva’s fane.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And she did so:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Herself…the long procession
leads;<br />
The train majestically slow proceeds.<br />
Soon as to Ilion’s topmost tower they come,<br />
And awful reach the high Palladian dome,<br />
Antenor’s consort, fair Theano, waits<br />
As Pallas’ priestess, and unbars the gates.<br />
With hands uplifted and imploring eyes,<br />
They fill the dome with supplicating cries.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here is a precedent for ”penitential processions” in connection with
idolatry entirely to the point, such as will be sought for in vain in the
history of David, or any of the Old Testament saints. Religious processions,
and especially processions with images, whether of a jubilant or sorrowful
description, are purely Pagan. In the Word of God we find two instances in
which there were processions practised with Divine sanction; but when the
object of these processions is compared with the avowed object and character of
Romish processions, it will be seen that there is no analogy between them and
the processions of Rome. The two cases to which I refer are the seven days’
encompassing of Jericho, and the procession at the bringing up of the ark of
God from Kirjath-jearim to the city of David. The processions, in the first
case, though attended with the symbols of Divine worship, were not intended as
acts of religious worship, but were a miraculous mode of conducting war, when a
signal interposition of Divine power was to be vouchsafed. In the other, there
was simply the removing of the ark, the symbol of Jehovah’s presence, from the
place where, for a long period, it had been allowed to lie in obscurity, to the
place which the Lord Himself had chosen for its abode; and on such an occasion
it was entirely fitting and proper that the transference should be made with
all religious solemnity. But these were simply occasional things, and have
nothing at all in common with Romish processions, which form a regular part of
the Papal ceremonial. But, though Scripture speaks nothing of religious
processions in the approved worship of God, it refers once and again to Pagan
processions, and these, too, accompanied with images; and it vividly exposes
the folly of those who can expect any good from gods that cannot move from one
place to another, unless they are carried. Speaking of the gods of Babylon,
thus saith the prophet Isaiah (46:6), ”They lavish gold out of the bag, and
weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they
fall down, yea, they worship. <i>They bear him upon the shoulder, they
carry him</i>, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place he
shall not remove.” In the sculptures of Nineveh these processions of idols,
borne on men’s shoulders, are forcibly represented, and form at once a striking
illustration of the prophetic language, and of the real <i>origin</i> of
the Popish processions. In Egypt, the same practice was observed. In ”the
procession of shrines,” says Wilkinson, ”it was usual to carry the statue of
the principal deity, in whose honour the procession took place, together with
that of the king, and the figures of his ancestors, borne in the same manner,
on men’s shoulders.” But not only are the processions in general identified
with the Babylonian system. We have evidence that these processions trace their
origin to that very disastrous event in the history of Nimrod, which has
already occupied so much of our attention. Wilkinson says ”that Diodorus speaks
of an Ethiopian festival of Jupiter, when his statue was carried in procession,
probably to commemorate the supposed refuge of the gods in that country,
which,” says he, ”may have been a memorial of the flight of the Egyptians with
their gods.” The passage of Diodorus, to which Wilkinson refers, is not very
decisive as to the object for which the statues of Jupiter and Juno (for
Diodorus mentions the shrine of Juno as well as of Jupiter) were annually
carried into the land of Ethiopia, and then, after a certain period of sojourn
there, were brought back to Egypt again. But, on comparing it with other
passages of antiquity, its object very clearly appears. Eustathius says, that
at the festival in question, ”according to some, the <i>Ethiopians</i> used
to fetch the images of Zeus, and other gods from the great temple of Zeus at
Thebes. With these images they went about at a certain period in Libya, and
celebrated a splendid festival for twelve gods.” As the festival was called an
Ethiopian festival; and as it was Ethiopians that both carried away the idols
and brought them back again, this indicates that the idols must have been
Ethiopian idols; and as we have seen that Egypt was under the power of Nimrod,
and consequently of the Cushites or Ethiopians, when idolatry was for a time
put down in Egypt, what would this carrying of the idols into Ethiopia, the
land of the Cushites, that was solemnly commemorated every year, be, but just
the natural result of the temporary suppression of the idol-worship inaugurated
by Nimrod. In Mexico, we have an account of an exact counterpart of this
Ethiopian festival. There, at a certain period, the images of the gods were
carried out of the country in a mourning procession, as if taking their leave
of it, and then, after a time, they were brought back to it again with every
demonstration of joy. In Greece, we find a festival of an entirely similar
kind, which, while it connects itself with the Ethiopian festival of Egypt on
the one hand, brings that festival, on the other, into the closest relation to
the penitential procession of Pope Gregory. Thus we find Potter referring first
to a ”Delphian festival in memory of a JOURNEY of Apollo”; and then under the
head of the festival called Apollonia, we thus read: ”To Apollo, at Aegialea on
this account: Apollo having obtained a victory over Python, went to Aegialea,
accompanied with his sister Diana; but, <i>being frightened from thence,
fled into Crete</i>. After this, the Aegialeans were infected with an
epidemical distemper; and, being advised by the prophets to appease the two
offended deities, sent SEVEN boys and as many virgins to entreat them to
return. [Here is the typical germ of 'The Sevenfold Litany' of Pope Gregory.]
Apollo and Diana accepted their piety,…and it became a <i>custom</i> to
appoint chosen boys and virgins, to make a solemn procession, in show, as if
they designed to bring back Apollo and Diana, which continued till Pausanias’
time.” The contest between Python and Apollo, in Greece, is just the
counterpart of that between Typho and Osiris in Egypt; in other words, between
Shem and Nimrod. Thus we see the real meaning and origin of the Ethiopian
festival, when the Ethiopians carried away the gods from the Egyptian temples.
That festival evidently goes back to the time when Nimrod being cut off,
idolatry durst not show itself except among the devoted adherents of the
”Mighty hunter” (who were found in his own family–the family of Cush), when,
with great weepings and lamentations, the idolaters fled with their gods on
their shoulders, to hide themselves where they might. In commemoration of the
suppression of idolatry, and the unhappy consequences that were supposed to
flow from that suppression, the first part of the festival, as we get light
upon it both from Mexico and Greece, had consisted of a procession of mourners;
and then the mourning was turned into joy, in memory of the happy return of
these banished gods to their former exaltation. Truly a worthy origin for Pope
Gregory’s ”Sevenfold Litany” and the Popish processions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
The Two Babylons<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter V<br />
Section II<br />
Relic Worship</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nothing is more characteristic of Rome than the worship of relics. Wherever
a chapel is opened, or a temple consecrated, it cannot be thoroughly complete
without some relic or other of he-saint or she-saint to give sanctity to it.
The relics of the saints and rotten bones of the martyrs form a great part of
the wealth of the Church. The grossest impostures have been practised in regard
to such relics; and the most drivelling tales have been told of their
wonder-working powers, and that too by Fathers of high name in the records of
Christendom. Even Augustine, with all his philosophical acuteness and zeal
against some forms of false doctrine, was deeply infected with the grovelling
spirit that led to relic worship. Let any one read the stuff with which he
concludes his famous ”City of God,” and he will in no wise wonder that Rome has
made a saint of him, and set him up for the worship of her devotees. Take only
a specimen or two of the stories with which he bolsters up the prevalent
delusions of his day: ”When the Bishop Projectius brought the relics of St.
Stephen to the town called Aquae Tibiltinae, the people came in great crowds to
honour them. Amongst these was a blind woman, who entreated the people to lead
her to the bishop who had the HOLY RELICS. They did so, and the bishop gave her
some flowers which he had in his hand. She took them, and put them to her eyes,
and immediately her sight was restored, so that she passed speedily on before
all the others, no longer requiring to be guided.” In Augustine’s day, the formal
”worship” of the relics was not yet established; but the martyrs to whom they
were supposed to have belonged were already invoked with prayers and
supplications, and that with the high approval of the Bishop of Hippo, as the
following story will abundantly show: Here, in Hippo, says he, there was a poor
and holy old man, by name Florentius, who obtained a living by tailoring. This
man once lost his coat, and not being able to purchase another to replace it,
he came to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, in this city, and prayed aloud to
them, beseeching that they would enable him to get another garment. A crowd of
silly boys who overheard him, followed him at his departure, scoffing at him,
and asking him whether he had begged fifty pence from the martyrs to buy a
coat. The poor man went silently on towards home, and as he passed near the
sea, he saw a large fish which had been cast up on the sand, and was still
panting. The other persons who were present allowed him to take up this fish,
which he brought to one Catosus, a cook, and a good Christian, who bought it
from him for three hundred pence. With this he meant to purchase wool, which
his wife might spin, and make into a garment for him. When the cook cut up the
fish, he found within its belly a ring of gold, which his conscience persuaded
him to give to the poor man from whom he bought the fish. He did so, saying, at
the same time, ”Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed you!” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* De Civitate. The story of the fish and the ring is an old Egyptian story.
(WILKINSON) Catosus, ”the good Christian,” was evidently a tool of the priests,
who could afford to give him a ring to put into the fish’s belly. The miracle
would draw worshippers to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, and thus bring
grist to their mill, and amply repay them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus did the great Augustine inculcate the worship of dead men, and the
honouring of their wonder-working relics. The ”silly children” who ”scoffed” at
the tailor’s prayer seem to have had more sense than either the ”holy old
tailor” or the bishop. Now, if men professing Christianity were thus, in the
fifth century, paving the way for the worship of all manner of rags and rotten
bones; in the realms of Heathendom the same worship had flourished for ages
before Christian saints or martyrs had appeared in the world. In Greece, the
superstitious regard to relics, and especially to the bones of the deified
heroes, was a conspicuous part of the popular idolatry. The work of Pausanias,
the learned Grecian antiquary, is full of reference to this superstition. Thus,
of the shoulder-blade of Pelops, we read that, after passing through divers
adventures, being appointed by the oracle of Delphi, as a divine means of
delivering the Eleans from a pestilence under which they suffered, it ”was committed,”
as a sacred relic, ”to the custody” of the man who had fished it out of the
sea, and of his posterity after him. The bones of the Trojan Hector were
preserved as a precious deposit at Thebes. ”They” [the Thebans], says
Pausanias, ”say that his [Hector's] bones were brought hither from Troy, in
consequence of the following oracle: ‘Thebans, who inhabit the city of Cadmus,
if you wish to reside in your country, blest with the possession of blameless
wealth, bring the bones of Hector, the son of Priam, into your dominions from
Asia, and reverence the hero agreeably to the mandate of Jupiter.’” Many other
similar instances from the same author might be adduced. The bones thus
carefully kept and reverenced were all believed to be miracle-working bones. From
the earliest periods, the system of Buddhism has been propped up by relics,
that have wrought miracles at least as well vouched as those wrought by the
relics of St. Stephen, or by the ”Twenty Martyrs.” In the ”Mahawanso,” one of
the great standards of the Buddhist faith, reference is thus made to the
enshrining of the relics of Buddha: ”The vanquisher of foes having perfected
the works to be executed within the relic receptacle, convening an assembly of
the priesthood, thus addressed them: ‘The works that were to be executed by me,
in the relic receptacle, are completed. Tomorrow, I shall enshrine the relics.
Lords, bear in mind the relics.’” Who has not heard of the Holy Coat of Treves,
and its exhibition to the people? From the following, the reader will see that
there was an exactly similar exhibition of the Holy Coat of Buddha: ”Thereupon
(the nephew of the Naga Rajah) by his supernatural gift, springing up into the
air to the height of seven palmyra trees, and stretching out his arm brought to
the spot where he was poised, the Dupathupo (or shrine) in which the DRESS laid
aside by Buddho, as Prince Siddhatto, on his entering the priesthood, was
enshrined…and EXHIBITED IT TO THE PEOPLE.” This ”Holy Coat” of Buddha was no
doubt as genuine, and as well entitled to worship, as the ”Holy Coat” of
Treves. The resemblance does not stop here. It is only a year or two ago since
the Pope presented to his beloved son, Francis Joseph of Austria, a ”TOOTH” of
”St. Peter,” as a mark of his special favour and regard. The teeth of Buddha
are in equal request among his worshippers. ”King of Devas,” said a Buddhist
missionary, who was sent to one of the principal courts of Ceylon to demand a
relic or two from the Rajah, ”King of Devas, thou possessest the right canine
tooth relic (of Buddha), as well as the right collar bone of the divine
teacher. Lord of Devas, demur not in matter involving the salvation of the land
of Lanka.” Then the miraculous efficacy of these relics is shown in the
following: ”The Saviour of the world (Buddha) even after he had attained to
Parinibanan or final emancipation (i.e., after his death), by means of a
corporeal relic, performed infinite acts to the utmost perfection, for the
spiritual comfort and mundane prosperity of mankind. While the Vanquisher
(Jeyus) yet lived, what must he not have done?” Now, in the Asiatic Researches,
a statement is made in regard to these relics of Buddha, which marvellously
reveals to us the real origin of this Buddhist relic worship. The statement is
this: ”The bones or limbs of Buddha were scattered all over the world, like
those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his
descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the
remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one,
with all possible marks of grief and sorrow till a priest announced that the
sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several
Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of
the Son of the Spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese and some tribes in
Tartary.” Here, then, it is evident that the worship of relics is just a part
of those ceremonies instituted to commemorate the tragic death of Osiris or
Nimrod, who, as the reader may remember, was divided into fourteen pieces,
which were sent into so many different regions infected by his apostacy and
false worship, to operate in terrorem upon all who might seek to follow his
example. When the apostates regained their power, the very first thing they did
was to seek for these dismembered relics of the great ringleader in idolatry,
and to entomb them with every mark of devotion. Thus does Plutarch describe the
search: ”Being acquainted with this even [viz., the dismemberment of Osiris],
Isis set out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband’s
body, using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order more easily to pass
through the lower and fenny parts of the country…And one reason assigned for
the different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any one of
his scattered limbs was discovered she buried it on the spot; though others
suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented each of
those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho should
overcome Horus in the approaching contest, he might be unable to find the real
sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different members, with the
exception of one, which had been devoured by the Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and
the Oxyrhynchus, for which reason these fish are held in abhorrence by the
Egyptians. To make amends, she consecrated the Phallus, and instituted a solemn
festival to its memory.” Not only does this show the real origin of relic
worship it shows also that the multiplication of relics can pretend to the most
venerable antiquity. If, therefore, Rome can boast that she has sixteen or
twenty holy coats, seven or eight arms of St. Matthew, two or three heads of
St. Peter, this is nothing more than Egypt could do in regard to the relics of
Osiris. Egypt was covered with sepulchres of its martyred god; and many a leg
and arm and skull, all vouched to be genuine, were exhibited in the rival
burying-places for the adoration of the Egyptian faithful. Nay, not only were
these Egyptian relics sacred themselves, they CONSECRATED THE VERY GROUND in
which they were entombed. This fact is brought out by Wilkinson, from a
statement of Plutarch: ”The Temple of this deity at Abydos,” says he, ”was also
particularly honoured, and so holy was the place considered by the Egyptians,
that persons living at some distance from it sought, and perhaps with
difficulty obtained, permission to possess a sepulchre within its Necropolis,
in order that, after death, they might repose in GROUND HALLOWED BY THE TOMB of
this great and mysterious deity.” If the places where the relics of Osiris were
buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally this
would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen. The reader
does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages to the
tombs of saints, and how, in the Middle Ages, one of the most favourite ways of
washing away sin was to undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Jago di
Compostella in Spain, or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Now, in the Scripture
there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as a pilgrimage to the tomb
of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle. The very way in which the Lord saw fit
to dispose of the body of Moses in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so
that no man should ever known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed
to rebuke every such feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise. And
considering whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were
infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence
they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing of his
body must be apparent. In the land where Israel had so long sojourned, there
were great and pompous pilgrimages at certain season of the year, and these
often attended with gross excesses. Herodotus tells us, that in his time the
multitude who went annually on pilgrimage to Bubastis amounted to 700,000
individuals, and that then more wine was drunk than at any other time in the
year. Wilkinson thus refers to a similar pilgrimage to Philae: ”Besides the
celebration of the great mysteries which took place at Philae, a grand ceremony
was performed at a particular time, when the priests, in solemn procession,
visited his tomb, and crowned it with flowers. Plutarch even pretends that all
access to the island was forbidden at every other period, and that no bird
would fly over it, or fish swim near this CONSECRATED GROUND.” This seems not
to have been a procession merely of the priests in the immediate neighbourhood
of the tomb, but a truly national pilgrimage; for, says Diodorus, ”the
sepulchre of Osiris at Philae is revered by all the priests throughout Egypt.”
We have not the same minute information about the relic worship in Assyria or
Babylon; but we have enough to show that, as it was the Babylonian god that was
worshipped in Egypt under the name of Osiris, so in his own country there was
the same superstitious reverence paid to his relics. We have seen already, that
when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given his
life as a sacrifice, and to have ”charged his countrymen to preserve his
remains,” assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this dying
command, the fate of their empire would hinge. And, accordingly, we learn from
Ovid, that the ”Busta Nini,” or ”Tomb of Ninus,” long ages thereafter, was one
of the monuments of Babylon. Now, in comparing the death and fabled
resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection of the true,
when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is a very remarkable
contrast. When the false Messiah died, limb was severed from limb, and his
bones were scattered over the country. When the death of the true Messiah took
place, Providence so arranged it that the body should be kept entire, and that
the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled–”a bone of Him shall not be
broken.” When, again, the false Messiah was pretended to have had a resurrection,
that resurrection was in a new body, while the old body, with all its members,
was left behind, thereby showing that the resurrection was nothing but a
pretence and a sham. When, however, the true Messiah was ”declared to be the
Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead,” the tomb, though
jealously watched by the armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be
absolutely empty, and no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or
even pretended to have been found. The resurrection of Christ, therefore,
stands on a very different footing from the resurrection of Osiris. Of the body
of Christ, of course, in the nature of the case, there could be no relics.
Rome, however to carry out the Babylonian system, has supplied the deficiency
by means of the relics of the saints; and now the relics of St. Peter and St.
Paul, of St. Thomas A’ Beckett and St. Lawrence O’Toole, occupy the very same
place in the worship of the Papacy as the relics of Osiris in Egypt, or of
Zoroaster in Babylon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter V<br />
Section III<br />
The Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Church of Rome, the clothing and crowning of images form no
insignificant part of the ceremonial. The sacred images are not represented,
like ordinary statues, with the garments formed of the same material as
themselves, but they have garments put on them from time to time, like ordinary
mortals of living flesh and blood. Great expense is often lavished on their
drapery; and those who present to them splendid robes are believed thereby to
gain their signal favour, and to lay up a large stock of merit for themselves.
Thus, in September, 1852, we find the duke and Duchess of Montpensier
celebrated in the Tablet, not only for their charity in ”giving 3000 reals in
alms to the poor,” but especially, and above all, for their piety in ”presenting
the Virgin with a magnificent dress of tissue of gold, with white lace and a
silver crown.” Somewhat about the same time the piety of the dissolute Queen of
Spain was testified by a similar benefaction, when she deposited at the feet of
the Queen of Heaven the homage of the dress and jewels she wore on a previous
occasion of solemn thanksgiving, as well as the dress in which she was attired
when she was stabbed by the assassin Merino. ”The mantle,” says the Spanish
journal Espana, ”exhibited the marks of the wound, and its ermine lining was
stained with the precious blood of Her Majesty. In the basket (that bore the
dresses) were likewise the jewels which adorned Her Majesty’s head and breast.
Among them was a diamond stomacher, so exquisitely wrought, and so dazzling,
that it appeared to be wrought of a single stone.” This is all sufficiently
childish, and presents human nature in a most humiliating aspect; but it is
just copied from the old Pagan worship. The same clothing and adorning of the gods
went on in Egypt, and there were sacred persons who alone could be permitted to
interfere with so high a function. Thus, in the Rosetta Stone we find these
sacred functionaries distinctly referred to: ”The chief priests and prophets,
and those who have access to the adytum to clothe the gods,…assembled in the
temple at Memphis, established the following decree.” The ”clothing of the
gods” occupied an equally important place in the sacred ceremonial of ancient
Greece. Thus, we find Pausanias referring to a present made to Minerva: ”In
after times Laodice, the daughter of Agapenor, sent a veil to Tegea, to Minerva
Alea.” The epigram [inscription] on this offering indicates, at the same time,
the origin of Laodice:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Laodice, from Cyprus, the
divine,<br />
To her paternal wide-extended land,<br />
This veil–an offering to Minerva–sent.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, also, when Hecuba, the Trojan queen, in the instance already referred
to, was directed to lead the penitential procession through the streets of Troy
to Minverva’s temple, she was commanded not to go empty-handed, but to carry
along with her, as her most acceptable offering:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The largest mantle your full
wardrobes hold,<br />
Most prized for art, and laboured o’er with gold.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The royal lady punctually obeyed:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The Phrygian queen to her rich
wardrobe went,<br />
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent;<br />
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art;<br />
Sidonian maids embroidered every part,<br />
Whom from soft Sydon youthful Paris bore,<br />
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.<br />
Here, as the Queen revolved with careful eyes<br />
The various textures and the various dyes,<br />
She chose a veil that shone superior far,<br />
And glowed refulgent as the morning star.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is surely a wonderful resemblance here between the piety of the Queen
of Troy and that of the Queen of Spain. Now, in ancient Paganism there was a
mystery couched under the clothing of the gods. If gods and goddesses were so
much pleased by being clothed, it was because there had once been a time in
their history when they stood greatly in need of clothing. Yes, it can be
distinctly established, as has been already hinted, that ultimately the great
god and great goddess of Heathenism, while the facts of their own history were
interwoven with their idolatrous system, were worshipped also as incarnations
of our great progenitors, whose disastrous fall stripped them of their primeval
glory, and made it needful that the hand Divine should cover their nakedness
with clothing specially prepared for them. I cannot enter here into an
elaborate proof of this point; but let the statement of Herodotus be pondered
in regard to the annual ceremony, observed in Egypt, of slaying a ram, and
clothing the FATHER OF THE GODS with its skin. Compare this statement with the
Divine record in Genesis about the clothing of the ”Father of Mankind” in a
coat of sheepskin; and after all that we have seen of the deification of dead
men, can there be a doubt what it was that was thus annually commemorated?
Nimrod himself, when he was cut in pieces, was necessarily stripped. That
exposure was identified with the nakedness of Noah, and ultimately with that of
Adam. His sufferings were represented as voluntarily undergone for the good of
mankind. His nakedness, therefore, and the nakedness of the ”Father of the
gods,” of whom he was an incarnation, was held to be a voluntary humiliation
too. When, therefore, his suffering was over, and his humiliation past, the
clothing in which he was invested was regarded as a meritorious clothing,
available not only for himself, but for all who were initiated in his
mysteries. In the sacred rites of the Babylonian god, both the exposure and the
clothing that were represented as having taken place, in his own history, were
repeated on all his worshippers, in accordance with the statement of Firmicus,
that the initiated underwent what their god had undergone. First, after being
duly prepared by magic rites and ceremonies, they were ushered, in a state of
absolute nudity, into the innermost recesses of the temple. This appears from
the following statement of Proclus: ”In the most holy of the mysteries, they
say that the mystics at first meet with the many-shaped genera [i.e., with evil
demons], which are hurled forth before the gods: but on entering the interior
parts of the temple, unmoved and guarded by the mystic rites, they genuinely
receive in their bosom divine illumination, and, DIVESTED OF THEIR GARMENTS,
participate, as they would say, of a divine nature.” When the initiated, thus
”illuminated” and made partakers of a ”divine nature,” after being ”divested of
their garments,” were clothed anew, the garments with which they were invested
were looked upon as ”sacred garments,” and possessing distinguished virtues.
”The coat of skin” with which the Father of mankind was divinely invested after
he was made so painfully sensible of his nakedness, was, as all intelligent
theologians admit, a typical emblem of the glorious righteousness of
Christ–”the garment of salvation,” which is ”unto all and upon all them that
believe.” The garments put upon the initiated after their disrobing of their
former clothes, were evidently intended as a counterfeit of the same. ”The
garments of those initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries,” says Potter, ”were
accounted sacred, and of no less efficacy to avert evils than charms and incantations.
They were never cast off till completely worn out.” And of course, if possible,
in these ”sacred garments” they were buried; for Herodotus, speaking of Egypt,
whence these mysteries were derived, tells us that ”religion” prescribed the
garments of the dead. The efficacy of ”sacred garments” as a means of salvation
and delivering from evil in the unseen and eternal world, occupies a foremost
place in many religions. Thus the Parsees, the fundamental elements of whose
system came from the Chaldean Zoroaster, believe that ”the sadra or sacred
vest” tends essentially to ”preserve the departed soul from the calamities
accruing from Ahriman,” or the Devil; and they represent those who neglect the
use of this ”sacred vest” as suffering in their souls, and ”uttering the most
dreadful and appalling cries,” on account of the torments inflicted on them ”by
all kinds of reptiles and noxious animals, who assail them with their teeth and
stings, and give them not a moment’s respite.” What could have ever led mankind
to attribute such virtue to a ”sacred vest”? If it be admitted that it is just
a perversion of the ”sacred garment” put on our first parents, all is clear.
This, too, accounts for the superstitious feeling in the Papacy, otherwise so
unaccountable, that led so many in the dark ages to fortify themselves against
the fears of the judgment to come, by seeking to be buried in a monk’s dress.
”To be buried in a friar’s cast-off habit, accompanied by letters enrolling the
deceased in a monastic order, was accounted a sure deliverance from eternal
condemnation! In ‘Piers the Ploughman’s Creed,’ a friar is described as
wheedling a poor man out of his money by assuring him that, if he will only
contribute to his monastery,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘St. Francis himself shall
fold thee in his cope,<br />
And present thee to the Trinity, and pray for thy sins.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In virtue of the same superstitious belief, King John of England was buried
in a monk’s cowl; and many a royal and noble personage besides, ”before life
and immortality” were anew ”brought to light” at the Reformation, could think
of no better way to cover their naked and polluted souls in prospect of death,
than by wrapping themselves in the garment of some monk or friar as unholy as
themselves. Now, all these refuges of lies, in Popery as well as Paganism,
taken in connection with the clothing of the saints of the one system, and of
the gods of the other, when traced to their source, show that since sin entered
the world, man has ever felt the need of a better righteousness than his own to
cover him, and that the time was when all the tribes of the earth knew that the
only righteousness that could avail for such a purpose was ”the righteousness
of God,” and that of ”God manifest in the flesh.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Intimately connected with the ”clothing of the images of the saints” is
also the ”crowning” of them. For the last two centuries, in the Popish
communion, the festivals for crowning the ”sacred images” have been more and
more celebrated. In Florence, a few years ago, the image of the Madonna with
the child in her arms was ”crowned” with unusual pomp and solemnity. Now, this
too arose out of the facts commemorated in the history of Bacchus or Osiris. As
Nimrod was the first king after the Flood, so Bacchus was celebrated as the
first who wore a crown. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* PLINY, Hist. Nat. Under the name of Saturn, also, the same thing was
attributed to Nimrod.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When, however, he fell into the hands of his enemies, as he was stripped of
all his glory and power, he was stripped also of his crown. The ”Falling of the
crown from the head of Osiris” was specially commemorated in Egypt. That crown
at different times was represented in different ways, but in the most famous
myth of Osiris it was represented as a ”Melilot garland.” Melilot is a species
of trefoil; and trefoil in the Pagan system was one of the emblems of the
Trinity. Among the Tractarians at this day, trefoil is used in the same
symbolical sense as it has long been in the Papacy, from which Puseyism has
borrowed it. Thus, in a blasphemous Popish representation of what is called God
the Father (of the fourteenth century), we find him represented as wearing a
crown with three points, each of which is surmounted with a leaf of white
clover. But long before Tractarianism or Romanism was known, trefoil was a
sacred symbol. The clover leaf was evidently a symbol of high import among the
ancient Persians; for thus we find Herodotus referring to it, in describing the
rites of the Persian Magi–”If any (Persian) intends to offer to a god, he leads
the animal to a consecrated spot. Then, dividing the victim into parts, he
boils the flesh, and lays it upon the most tender herbs, especially TREFOIL.
This done, a magus–without a magus no sacrifice can be performed–sings a sacred
hymn.” In Greece, the clover, or trefoil, in some form or other, had also
occupied an important place; for the rod of Mercury, the conductor of souls, to
which such potency was ascribed, was called ”Rabdos Tripetelos,” or ”the
three-leaved rod.” Among the British Druids the white clover leaf was held in
high esteem as an emblem of their Triune God, and was borrowed from the same
Babylonian source as the rest of their religion. The Melilot, or trefoil
garland, then, with which the head of Osiris was bound, was the crown of the
Trinity–the crown set on his head as the representative of the Eternal–”The
crown of all the earth,” in accordance with the voice divine at his birth, ”The
Lord of all the earth is born.” Now, as that ”Melilot garland,” that crown of
universal dominion, fell ”from his head” before his death, so, when he rose to
new life, the crown must be again set upon his head, and his universal dominion
solemnly avouched. Hence, therefore, came the solemn crowning of the statues of
the great god, and also the laying of the ”chaplet” on his altar, as a trophy
of his recovered ”dominion.” But if the great god was crowned, it was needful
also that the great goddess should receive a similar honour. Therefore it was
fabled that when Bacchus carried his wife Ariadne to heaven, in token of the
high dignity bestowed upon her, he set a crown upon her head; and the
remembrance of this crowning of the wife of the Babylonian god is perpetuated
to this hour by the well-known figure in the sphere called Ariadnoea corona, or
”Ariadne’s crown.” This is, beyond question, the real source of the Popish rite
of crowning the image of the Virgin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">From the fact that the Melilot garland occupied so conspicuous a place in
the myth of Osiris, and that the ”chaplet” was laid on his altar, and his tomb
was ”crowned” with flowers, arose the custom, so prevalent in heathenism, of
adorning the altars of the gods with ”chaplets” of all sorts, and with a gay
profusion of flowers. Side by side with this reason for decorating the altars
with flowers, there was also another. When in</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”That fair field<br />
Of Enna, Proserpine gathering flowers,<br />
Herself, a fairer flower, by gloom Dis,<br />
Was gathered;”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and all the flowers she had stored up in her lap were lost, the loss
thereby sustained by the world not only drew forth her own tears, but was
lamented in the Mysteries as a loss of no ordinary kind, a loss which not only
stripped her of her own spiritual glory, but blasted the fertility and beauty
of the earth itself. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* OVID, Metamorphoses. Ovid speaks of the tears which Proserpine shed when,
on her robe being torn from top to bottom, all the flowers which she had been
gathering up in it fell to the ground, as showing only the simplicity of a
girlish mind. But this is evidently only for the uninitiated. The lamentations
of Ceres, which were intimately connected with the fall of these flowers, and
the curse upon the ground that immediately followed, indicated something
entirely different. But on that I cannot enter here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That loss, however, the wife of Nimrod, under the name of Astarte, or
Venus, was believed to have more than repaired. Therefore, while the sacred
”chaplet” of the discrowned god was placed in triumph anew on his head and on
his altars, the recovered flowers which Proserpine had lost were also laid on
these altars along with it, in token of gratitude to that mother of grace and
goodness, for the beauty and temporal blessings that the earth owed to her
interposition and love. In Pagan Rome especially this was the case. The altars
were profusely adorned with flowers. From that source directly the Papacy has
borrowed the custom of adorning the altar with flowers; and from the Papacy,
Puseyism, in Protestant England, is labouring to introduce the custom among
ourselves. But, viewing it in connection with its source, surely men with the
slightest spark of Christian feeling may well blush to think of such a thing.
It is not only opposed to the genius of the Gospel dispensation, which requires
that they who worship God, who is a Spirit, ”worship Him in spirit and in
truth”; but it is a direct symbolising with those who rejoiced in the
re-establishment of Paganism in opposition to the worship of the one living and
true God.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter V<br />
Section IV<br />
The Rosary and the Worship of the Sacred Heart</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every one knows how thoroughly Romanist is the use of the rosary; and how
the devotees of Rome mechanically tell their prayers upon their beads. The
rosary, however, is no invention of the Papacy. It is of the highest antiquity,
and almost universally found among Pagan nations. The rosary was used as a
sacred instrument among the ancient Mexicans. It is commonly employed among the
Brahmins of Hindustan; and in the Hindoo sacred books reference is made to it
again and again. Thus, in an account of the death of Sati, the wife of Shiva,
we find the rosary introduced: ”On hearing of this event, Shiva fainted from
grief; then, having recovered, he hastened to the banks of the river of heaven,
where he beheld lying the body of his beloved Sati, arrayed in white garments,
holding a rosary in her hand, and glowing with splendour, bright as burnished
gold.” In Thibet it has been used from time immemorial, and among all the
millions in the East that adhere to the Buddhist faith. The following, from Sir
John F. Davis, will show how it is employed in China: ”From the Tartar religion
of the Lamas, the rosary of 108 beads has become a part of the ceremonial dress
attached to the nine grades of official rank. It consists of a necklace of
stones and coral, nearly as large as a pigeon’s egg, descending to the waist,
and distinguished by various beads, according to the quality of the wearer.
There is a small rosary of eighteen beads, of inferior size, with which the
bonzes count their prayers and ejaculations exactly as in the Romish ritual.
The laity in China sometimes wear this at the wrist, perfumed with musk, and
give it the name of Heang-choo, or fragrant beads.” In Asiatic Greece the
rosary was commonly used, as may be seen from the image of the Ephesian Diana.
In Pagan Rome the same appears to have been the case. The necklaces which the
Roman ladies wore were not merely ornamental bands about the neck, but hung
down the breast, just as the modern rosaries do; and the name by which they
were called indicates the use to which they were applied. ”Monile,” the
ordinary word for a necklace, can have no other meaning than that of a
”Remembrancer.” Now, whatever might be the pretence, in the first instance, for
the introduction of such ”Rosaries” or ”Remembrancers,” the very idea of such a
thing is thoroughly Pagan. * It supposes that a certain number of prayers must
be regularly gone over; it overlooks the grand demand which God makes for the
heart, and leads those who use them to believe that form and routine are
everything, and that ”they must be heard for their much speaking.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* ”Rosary” itself seems to be from the Chaldee ”Ro,” ”thought,” and
”Shareh,” ”director.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Church of Rome a new kind of devotion has of late been largely
introduced, in which the beads play an important part, and which shows what new
and additional strides in the direction of the old Babylonian Paganism the
Papacy every day is steadily making. I refer to the ”Rosary of the Sacred
Heart.” It is not very long since the worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was first
introduced; and now, everywhere it is the favourite worship. It was so in
ancient Babylon, as is evident from the Babylonian system as it appeared in
Egypt. There also a ”Sacred Heart” was venerated. The ”Heart” was one of the
sacred symbols of Osiris when he was born again, and appeared as Harpocrates,
or the infant divinity, * borne in the arms of his mother Isis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The name Harpocrates, as shown by Bunsen, signifies ”Horus, the child.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Therefore, the fruit of the Egyptian Persea was peculiarly sacred to him,
from its resemblance to the ”HUMAN HEART.” Hence this infant divinity was
frequently represented with a heart, or the heart-shaped fruit of the Persea,
in one of his hands. The following extract, from John Bell’s criticism on the
antiques in the Picture Gallery of Florence, will show that the boyish divinity
had been represented elsewhere also in ancient times in the same manner.
Speaking of a statue of Cupid, he says it is ”a fair, full, fleshy, round boy,
in fine and sportive action, tossing back a heart.” Thus the boy-god came to be
regarded as the ”god of the heart,” in other words, as Cupid, or the god of
love. To identify this infant divinity, with his father ”the mighty hunter,” he
was equipped with ”bow and arrows”; and in the hands of the poets, for the
amusement of the profane vulgar, this sportive boy-god was celebrated as taking
aim with his gold-tipped shafts at the hearts of mankind. His real character,
however, as the above statement shows, and as we have seen reason already to
conclude, was far higher and of a very different kind. He was the woman’s seed.
Venus and her son Cupid, then, were none other than the Madonna and the child.
Looking at the subject in this light, the real force and meaning of the
language will appear, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Venus, when
addressing the youthful Cupid:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”My son, my strength, whose
mighty power alone<br />
Controls the thunderer on his awful throne,<br />
To thee thy much afflicted mother flies,<br />
And on thy succour and thy faith relies.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">From what we have seen already as to the power and glory of the Goddess
Mother being entirely built on the divine character attributed to her Son, the
reader must see how exactly this is brought out, when the Son is called ”THE
STRENGTH” of his Mother. As the boy-god, whose symbol was the heart, was
recognised as the god of childhood, this very satisfactorily accounts for one
of the peculiar customs of the Romans. Kennett tells us, in his Antiquities,
that the Roman youths, in their tender years, used to wear a golden ornament
suspended from their necks, called bulla, which was hollow, and heart-shaped.
Barker, in his work on Cilicia, while admitting that the Roman bulla was
heart-shaped, further states, that ”it was usual at the birth of a child to
name it after some divine personage, who was supposed to receive it under his
care”; but that the ”name was not retained beyond infancy, when the bulla was
given up.” Who so likely to be the god under whose guardianship the Roman
children were put, as the god under one or other of his many names whose
express symbol they wore, and who, while he was recognised as the great and mighty
war-god, who also exhibited himself in his favourite form as a little child?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The veneration of the ”sacred heart” seems also to have extended to India,
for there Vishnu, the Mediatorial god, in one of his forms, with the mark of
the wound in his foot, in consequence of which he died, and for which such
lamentation is annually made, is represented as wearing a heart suspended on
his breast. It is asked, How came it that the ”Heart” became the recognised
symbol of the Child of the great Mother? The answer is, ”The Heart” in Chaldee
is ”BEL”; and as, at first, after the check given to idolatry, almost all the
most important elements of the Chaldean system were introduced under a veil, so
under that veil they continued to be shrouded from the gaze of the uninitiated,
after the first reason–the reason of fear–had long ceased to operate. Now, the
worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was just, under a symbol, the worship of the
”Sacred Bel,” that mighty one of Babylon, who had died a martyr for idolatry;
for Harpocrates, or Horus, the infant god, was regarded as Bel, born again.
That this was in very deed the case, the following extract from Taylor, in one
of his notes to his translation of the Orphic Hymns, will show. ”While
Bacchus,” says he, was ”beholding himself” with admiration ”in a mirror, he was
miserably torn to pieces by the Titans, who, not content with this cruelty,
first boiled his members in water, and afterwards roasted them in the fire; but
while they were tasting his flesh thus dressed, Jupiter, excited by the steam,
and perceiving the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunder at the Titans, but
committed his members to Apollo, the brother of Bacchus, that they might be
properly interred. And this being performed, Dionysius [i.e., Bacchus], (whose
HEART, during his laceration, was snatched away by Minerva and preserved) by a
new REGENERATION, again emerged, and he being restored to his pristine life and
integrity, afterwards filled up the number of the gods.” This surely shows, in
a striking light, the peculiar sacredness of the heart of Bacchus; and that the
regeneration of his heart has the very meaning I have attached to it–viz., the
new birth or new incarnation of Nimrod or Bel. When Bel, however was born again
as a child, he was, as we have seen, represented as an incarnation of the sun.
Therefore, to indicate his connection with the fiery and burning sun, the
”sacred heart” was frequently represented as a ”heart of flame.” So the ”Sacred
Heart” of Rome is actually worshipped as a flaming heart, as may be seen on the
rosaries devoted to that worship. Of what use, then, is it to say that the
”Sacred Heart” which Rome worships is called by the name of ”Jesus,” when not
only is the devotion given to a material image borrowed from the worship of the
Babylonian Antichrist, but when the attributes ascribed to that ”Jesus” are not
the attributes of the living and loving Saviour, but the genuine attributes of
the ancient Moloch or Bel?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter V<br />
Section V<br />
Lamps and Wax-Candles</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another peculiarity of the Papal worship is the use of lamps and wax-candles.
If the Madonna and child are set up in a niche, they must have a lamp to burn
before them; if mass is to be celebrated, though in broad daylight, there must
be wax-candles lighted on the altar; if a grand procession is to be formed, it
cannot be thorough and complete without lighted tapers to grace the goodly
show. The use of these lamps and tapers comes from the same source as all the
rest of the Papal superstition. That which caused the ”Heart,” when it became
an emblem of the incarnate Son, to be represented as a heart on fire, required
also that burning lamps and lighted candles should form part of the worship of
that Son; for so, according to the established rites of Zoroaster, was the
sun-god worshipped. When every Egyptian on the same night was required to light
a lamp before his house in the open air, this was an act of homage to the sun,
that had veiled its glory by enshrouding itself in a human form. When the
Yezidis of Koordistan, at this day, once a year celebrate their festival of
”burning lamps,” that, too, is to the honour of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun. Now,
what on these high occasions was done on a grand scale was also done on a
smaller scale, in the individual acts of worship to their god, by the lighting
of lamps and tapers before the favourite divinity. In Babylon, this practice
had been exceedingly prevalent, as we learn from the Apocryphal writer of the
Book of Baruch. ”They (the Babylonians),” says he, ”light up lamps to their
gods, and that in greater numbers, too, than they do for themselves, although
the gods cannot see one of them, and are senseless as the beams of their
houses.” In Pagan Rome, the same practice was observed. Thus we find Licinius,
the Pagan Emperor, before joining battle with Constantine, his rival, calling a
council of his friends in a thick wood, and there offering sacrifices to his
gods, ”lighting up wax-tapers” before them, and at the same time, in his
speech, giving his gods a hint, that if they did not give him the victory
against Constantine, his enemy and theirs, he would be under the necessity of
abandoning their worship, and lighting up no more ”wax-tapers to their honour.”
In the Pagan processions, also, at Rome, the wax-candles largely figured. ”At
these solemnities,” says Dr. Middleton, referring to Apuleius as his authority,
”at these solemnities, the chief magistrate used frequently to assist, in robes
of ceremony, attended by the priests in surplices, with wax-candles in their
hands, carrying upon a pageant or thensa, the images of their gods, dressed out
in their best clothes; these were usually followed by the principal youth of
the place, in white linen vestments or surplices, singing hymns in honour of
the gods whose festivals they were celebrating, accompanied by crowds of all
sorts that were initiated in the same religion, all with flambeaux or
wax-candles in their hands.” Now, so thoroughly and exclusively Pagan was this
custom of lighting up lamps and candles in daylight, that we find Christian
writers, such as Lactantius, in the fourth century, exposing the absurdity of
the practice, and deriding the Romans ”for lighting up candles to God, as if He
lived in the dark.” Had such a custom at that time gained the least footing
among Christians, Lactantius could never have ridiculed it as he does, as a
practice peculiar to Paganism. But what was unknown to the Christian Church in
the beginning of the fourth century, soon thereafter began to creep in, and now
forms one of the most marked peculiarities of that community that boasts that
it is the ”Mother and mistress of all Churches.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While Rome uses both lamps and wax-candles in her sacred rites, it is
evident, however, that she attributes some pre-eminent virtue to the latter
above all other lights. Up to the time of the Council of Trent, she thus prayed
on Easter Eve, at the blessing of the Easter candles: ”Calling upon thee in thy
works, this holy Eve of Easter, we offer most humbly unto thy Majesty this
sacrifice; namely, a fire not defiled with the fat of flesh, nor polluted with
unholy oil or ointment, nor attained with any profane fire; but we offer unto
thee with obedience, proceeding from perfect devotion, a fire of wrought WAX
and wick, kindled and made to burn in honour of thy name. This so great a
MYSTERY therefore, and the marvellous sacrament of this holy eve, must needs be
extolled with due and deserved praises.” That there was some occult ”Mystery,”
as is here declared, couched under the ”wax-candles,” in the original system of
idolatry, from which Rome derived its ritual, may be well believed, when it is
observed with what unanimity nations the most remote have agreed to use
wax-candles in their sacred rites. Among the Tungusians, near the Lake Baikal
in Siberia, ”wax-tapers are placed before the Burchans,” the gods or idols of
that country. In the Molucca Islands, wax-tapers are used in the worship of
Nito, or Devil, whom these islanders adore. ”Twenty or thirty persons having
assembled,” says Hurd, ”they summon the Nito, by beating a small consecrated
drum, whilst two or more of the company light up wax-tapers, and pronounce
several mysterious words, which they consider as able to conjure him up.” In
the worship of Ceylon, the use of wax-candles is an indispensable requisite.
”In Ceylon,” says the same author, ”some devotees, who are not priests, erect
chapels for themselves, but in each of them they are obliged to have an image
of Buddha, and light up tapers or wax-candles before it, and adorn it with
flowers.” A practice thus so general must have come from some primeval source,
and must have originally had some mystic reason at the bottom of it. The
wax-candle was, in fact, a hieroglyphic, like so many other things which we
have already seen, and was intended to exhibit the Babylonian god in one of the
essential characters of the Great Mediator. The classic reader may remember
that one of the gods of primeval antiquity was called Ouranos, * that is, ”The
Enlightener.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* For Aor or our, ”light,” and an, ”to act upon” or produce, the same as
our English particle en, ”to make.” Ouranos, then, is ”The Enlightener.” This
Ouranos is, by Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician, called the son of Elioun–i.e., as
he himself, or Philo-Byblius, interprets the name, ”The Most High.” (SANCH)
Ouranos, in the physical sense, is ”The Shiner”; and by Hesychius it is made
equivalent to Kronos, which also has the same meaning, for Krn, the verb from
which it comes, signifies either ”to put forth horns,” or ”to send forth rays
of light”; and, therefore, while the epithet Kronos, or ”The Horned One,” had
primarily reference to the physical power of Nimrod as a ”mighty” king; when
that king was deified, and made ”Lord of Heaven,” that name, Kronos, was still
applied to him in his new character as ”The Shiner or Lightgiver.” The
distinction made by Hesiod between Ouranos and Kronos, is no argument against
the real substantial identity of these divinities originally as Pagan
divinities; for Herodotus states that Hesiod had a hand in ”inventing a
theogony” for the Greeks, which implies that some at least of the details of
that theogony must have come from his own fancy; and, on examination, it will
be found, when the veil of allegory is removed, that Hesiod’s ”Ouranos,” though
introduced as one of the Pagan gods, was really at bottom the ”God of Heaven,”
the living and true God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In this very character was Nimrod worshipped when he was deified. As the
Sun-god he was regarded not only as the illuminator of the material world, but
as the enlightener of the souls of men, for he was recognised as the revealer
of ”goodness and truth.” It is evident, from the Old Testament, not less than
the New, that the proper and personal name of our Lord Jesus Christ is, ”The
Word of God,” as the Revealer of the heart and counsels of the Godhead. Now, to
identify the Sun-god with the Great Revealer of the Godhead, while under the
name of Mithra, he was exhibited in sculpture as a Lion; that Lion had a Bee
represented between his lips. The bee between the lips of the sun-god was
intended to point him out as ”the Word”; for Dabar, the expression which signifies
in Chaldee a ”Bee,” signifies also a ”Word”; and the position of that bee in
the mouth leaves no doubt as to the idea intended to be conveyed. It was
intended to impress the belief that Mithra (who, says Plutarch, was worshipped
as Mesites, ”The Mediator”), in his character as Ouranos, ”The Enlightener,”
was no other than that glorious one of whom the Evangelist John says, ”In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God…In Him was life; and the life was THE LIGHT
OF MEN.” The Lord Jesus Christ ever was the revealer of the Godhead, and must
have been known to the patriarchs as such; for the same Evangelist says, ”No
man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared,” that is, He hath revealed ”Him.” Before the
Saviour came, the ancient Jews commonly spoke of the Messiah, or the Son of
God, under the name of Dabar, or the ”Word.” This will appear from a
consideration of what is stated in the 3rd chapter of 1st Samuel. In the first
verse of that chapter it is said, ”The WORD of the Lord was precious in those
days; there was no open vision,” that is, in consequence of the sin of Eli, the
Lord had not, for a long time, revealed Himself in vision to him, as He did to
the prophets. When the Lord had called Samuel, this ”vision” of the God of
Israel was restored (though not to Eli), for it is said in the last verse (v
21), ”And the Lord APPEARED again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed Himself to
Samuel by the WORD of the Lord.” Although the Lord spake to Samuel, this
language implies more than speech, for it is said, ”The LORD appeared”–i.e.,
was seen. When the Lord revealed Himself, or was seen by Samuel, it is said
that it was ”by (Dabar) the Word of the Lord.” The ”Word of the Lord” to be
visible, must have been the personal ”Word of God,” that is, Christ. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* After the Babylonish captivity, as the Chaldee Targums or Paraphrases of
the Old Testament show, Christ was commonly called by the title ”The Word of
the Lord.” In these Targums of later Chaldee, the term for ”The Word” is
”Mimra”; but this word, though a synonym for that which is used in the Hebrew
Scriptures, is never used there. Dabar is the word employed. This is so well
recognised that, in the Hebrew translation of John’s Gospel in Bagster’s
Polyglott, the first verse runs thus: ”In the beginning was the Word (Dabar).”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This had evidently been a primitive name by which He was known; and
therefore it is not wonderful that Plato should speak of the second person of
his Trinity under the name of the Logos, which is just a translation of
”Dabar,” or ”the Word.” Now, the light of the wax-candle, as the light from
Dabar, ”the Bee,” was set up as the substitute of the light of Dabar, ”the
Word.” Thus the apostates turned away from the ”True Light,” and set up a
shadow in His stead. That this was really the case is plain; for, says Crabb,
speaking of Saturn, ”on his altars were placed wax-tapers lighted, because by
Saturn men were reduced from the darkness of error to the light of truth.” In
Asiatic Greece, the Babylonian god was evidently recognised as the Light-giving
”Word,” for there we find the Bee occupying such a position as makes it very
clear that it was a symbol of the great Revealer. Thus we find Muller referring
to the symbols connected with the worship of the Ephesian Diana: ”Her constant
symbol is the bee, which is not otherwise attributed to Diana…The chief priest
himself was called Essen, or the king-bee.” The character of the chief priest
shows the character of the god he represented. The contemplar divinity of
Diana, the tower-bearing goddess, was of course the same divinity as invariably
accompanied the Babylonian goddess: and this title of the priest shows that the
Bee which appeared on her medals was just another symbol for her child, as the
”Seed of the Woman,” in his assumed character, as Dabar, ”The Word” that
enlightened the souls of men. That this is the precise ”Mystery” couched under
the wax-candles burning on the altars of the Papacy, we have very remarkable
evidence from its own formularies; for, in the very same place in which the
”Mystery” of the wax-candle is spoken of, thus does Rome refer to the Bee, by
which the wax is produced: ”Forasmuch as we do marvellously wonder, in
considering the first beginning of this substance, to wit, wax-tapers, then
must we of necessity greatly extol the original of Bees, for…they gather the
flowers with their feet, yet the flowers are not injured thereby; they bring
forth no young ones, but deliver their young swarms through their mouths, like
as Christ (for a wonderful example) is proceeded from His Father’s MOUTH.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Review of Epistle of DR. GENTIANUS HARVET of Louvaine. This work, which
is commonly called The Beehive of the Roman Church, contains the original Latin
of the passage translated above. The passage in question is to be found in at
least two Roman Missals, which, however, are now very rare–viz., one printed at
Vienna in 1506, with which the quotation in the text has been compared and
verified; and one printed at Venice in 1522. These dates are antecedent to the
establishment of the Reformation; and it appears that this passage was expunged
from subsequent editions, as being unfit to stand the searching scrutiny to which
everything in regard to religion was subjected in consequence of that great
event. The ceremonial of blessing the candles, however, which has no place in
the Pontificale Romanum in the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library, is to be found in
the Pontificale Romanum, Venice, 1542, and in Pontificale Romanum, Venice,
1572. In the ceremony of blessing the candles, given in the Roman Missal,
printed at Paris, 1677, there is great praise of the Bee, strongly resembling
the passage quoted in the text. The introduction of such an extraordinary
formula into a religious ceremony is of very ancient date, and is distinctly
traced to an Italian source; for, in the words of the Popish Bishop Ennodius,
who occupied an Italian diocese in the sixth century, we find the counterpart
of that under consideration. Thus, in a prayer in regard to the ”Easter
Candle,” the reason for offering up the wax-candle is expressly declared to be,
because that through means of the bees that produce the wax of which it is
made, ”earth has an image of what is PECULIAR TO HEAVEN,” and that in regard to
the very subject of GENERATION; the bees being able, ”through the virtue of
herbs, to pour forth their young through their MOUTHS with less waste of time
than all other creatures do in the ordinary way.” This prayer contains the
precise idea of the prayer in the text; and there is only one way of accounting
for the origin of such an idea. It must have come from a Chaldean Liturgy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here it is evident that Christ is referred to as the ”Word of God”; and how
could any imagination ever have conceived such a parallel as is contained in
this passage, had it not been for the equivoque [wordplay, double meaning]
between ”Dabar,” ”the Bee,” and ”Dabar,” ”The Word.” In a Popish work already
quoted, the Pancarpium Marianum, I find the Lord Jesus expressly called by the
name of the Bee. Referring to Mary, under the title of ”The Paradise of
Delight,” the author thus speaks: ”In this Paradise that celestial Bee, that
is, the incarnate Wisdom, did feed. Here it found that dropping honeycomb, with
which the whole bitterness of the corrupted world has been turned into
sweetness.” This blasphemously represents the Lord Jesus as having derived
everything necessary to bless the world from His mother! Could this ever have come
from the Bible? No. It must have come only from the source where the writer
learned to call ”the incarnate Wisdom” by the name of the Bee. Now, as the
equivoque from which such a name applied to the Lord Jesus springs, is founded
only on the Babylonian tongue, it shows whence his theology has come, and it
proves also to demonstration that this whole prayer about the blessing of
wax-candles must have been drawn from a Babylonian prayer-book. Surely, at
every step, the reader must see more and more the exactitude of the Divine name
given to the woman on the seven mountains, ”Mystery, Babylon the Great”!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
The Two Babylons<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter V<br />
Section VI<br />
The Sign of the Cross</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is yet one more symbol of the Romish worship to be noticed, and that
is the sign of the cross. In the Papal system as is well known, the sign of the
cross and the image of the cross are all in all. No prayer can be said, no
worship engaged in, no step almost can be taken, without the frequent use of
the sign of the cross. The cross is looked upon as the grand charm, as the
great refuge in every season of danger, in every hour of temptation as the
infallible preservative from all the powers of darkness. The cross is adored
with all the homage due only to the Most High; and for any one to call it, in
the hearing of a genuine Romanist, by the Scriptural term, ”the accursed tree,”
is a mortal offence. To say that such superstitious feeling for the sign of the
cross, such worship as Rome pays to a wooden or a metal cross, ever grew out of
the saying of Paul, ”God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ”–that is, in the doctrine of Christ crucified–is a mere
absurdity, a shallow subterfuge and pretence. The magic virtues attributed to
the so-called sign of the cross, the worship bestowed on it, never came from
such a source. The same sign of the cross that Rome now worships was used in
the Babylonian Mysteries, was applied by Paganism to the same magic purposes,
was honoured with the same honours. That which is now called the Christian
cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the
Chaldeans and Egyptians–the true original form of the letter T–the initial of
the name of Tammuz–which, in Hebrew, radically the same as ancient Chaldee, was
found on coins. That mystic Tau was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those
initiated in the Mysteries, * and was used in every variety of way as a most
sacred symbol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* TERTULLIAN, De Proescript. Hoeret. The language of Tertullian implies
that those who were initiated by baptism in the Mysteries were marked on the
forehead in the same way, as his Christian countrymen in Africa, who had begun
by this time to be marked in baptism with the sign of the cross.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To identify Tammuz with the sun it was joined sometimes to the circle of
the sun; sometimes it was inserted in the circle. Whether the Maltese cross,
which the Romish bishops append to their names as a symbol of their episcopal
dignity, is the letter T, may be doubtful; but there seems no reason to doubt
that that Maltese cross is an express symbol of the sun; for Layard found it as
a sacred symbol in Nineveh in such a connection as led him to identify it with
the sun. The mystic Tau, as the symbol of the great divinity, was called ”the
sign of life”; it was used as an amulet over the heart; it was marked on the official
garments of the priests, as on the official garments of the priests of Rome; it
was borne by kings in their hand, as a token of their dignity or
divinely-conferred authority. The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it
suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now. The Egyptians did the same,
and many of the barbarous nations with whom they had intercourse, as the
Egyptian monuments bear witness. In reference to the adorning of some of these
tribes, Wilkinson thus writes: ”The girdle was sometimes highly ornamented; men
as well as women wore earrings; and they frequently had a small cross suspended
to a necklace, or to the collar of their dress. The adoption of this last was
not peculiar to them; it was also appended to, or figured upon, the robes of
the Rot-n-no; and traces of it may be seen in the fancy ornaments of the Rebo,
showing that it was already in use as early as the fifteenth century before the
Christian era.” There is hardly a Pagan tribe where the cross has not been
found. The cross was worshipped by the Pagan Celts long before the incarnation
and death of Christ. ”It is a fact,” says Maurice, ”not less remarkable than
well-attested, that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the
most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the Deity they adored, and
having cut the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the
highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those branches extended on
each side like the arms of a man, and, together with the body, presented the
appearance of a HUGE CROSS, and on the bark, in several places, was also
inscribed the letter Thau.” It was worshipped in Mexico for ages before the
Roman Catholic missionaries set foot there, large stone crosses being erected,
probably to the ”god of rain.” The cross thus widely worshipped, or regarded as
a sacred emblem, was the unequivocal symbol of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah,
for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses. This symbol of
the Babylonian god is reverenced at this day in all the wide wastes of Tartary,
where Buddhism prevails, and the way in which it is represented among them
forms a striking commentary on the language applied by Rome to the Cross. ”The
cross,” says Colonel Wilford, in the Asiatic Researches, ”though not an object
of worship among the Baud’has or Buddhists, is a favourite emblem and device
among them. It is exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers
springing from it. This cross, putting forth leaves and flowers (and fruit
also, as I am told), is called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree
of life and knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is
placed in the terrestrial paradise.” Compare this with the language of Rome
applied to the cross, and it will be seen how exact is the coincidence. In the
Office of the Cross, it is called the ”Tree of life,” and the worshippers are
taught thus to address it: ”Hail, O Cross, triumphal wood, true salvation of
the world, among trees there is none like thee in leaf, flower, and bud…O
Cross, our only hope, increase righteousness to the godly and pardon the
offences of the guilty.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The above was actually versified by the Romanisers in the Church of
England, and published along with much besides from the same source, some years
ago, in a volume entitled Devotions on the Passion. The London Record, of
April, 1842, gave the following as a specimen of the ”Devotions” provided by
these ”wolves in sheep’s clothing” for members of the Church of England:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”O faithful cross, thou
peerless tree,<br />
No forest yields the like of thee,<br />
Leaf, flower, and bud;<br />
Sweet is the wood, and sweet the weight,<br />
And sweet the nails that penetrate<br />
Thee, thou sweet wood.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Can any one, reading the gospel narrative of the crucifixion, possibly believe
that that narrative of itself could ever germinate into such extravagance of
”leaf, flower, and bud,” as thus appears in this Roman Office? But when it is
considered that the Buddhist, like the Babylonian cross, was the recognised
emblem of Tammuz, who was known as the mistletoe branch, or ”All-heal,” then it
is easy to see how the sacred Initial should be represented as covered with
leaves, and how Rome, in adopting it, should call it the ”Medicine which
preserves the healthful, heals the sick, and does what mere human power alone
could never do.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this Pagan symbol seems first to have crept into the Christian Church
in Egypt, and generally into Africa. A statement of Tertullian, about the
middle of the third century, shows how much, by that time, the Church of
Carthage was infected with the old leaven. Egypt especially, which was never
thoroughly evangelised, appears to have taken the lead in bringing in this
Pagan symbol. The first form of that which is called the Christian Cross, found
on Christian monuments there, is the unequivocal Pagan Tau, or Egyptian ”Sign
of life.” Let the reader peruse the following statement of Sir G. Wilkinson: ”A
still more curious fact may be mentioned respecting this hieroglyphical
character [the Tau], that the early Christians of Egypt adopted it in lieu of
the cross, which was afterwards substituted for it, prefixing it to
inscriptions in the same manner as the cross in later times. For, though Dr.
Young had some scruples in believing the statement of Sir A. Edmonstone, that
it holds that position in the sepulchres of the great Oasis, I can attest that
such is the case, and that numerous inscriptions, headed by the Tau, are
preserved to the present day on early Christian monuments.” The drift of this
statement is evidently this, that in Egypt the earliest form of that which has
since been called the cross, was no other than the ”Crux Ansata,” or ”Sign of
life,” borne by Osiris and all the Egyptian gods; that the ansa or ”handle” was
afterwards dispensed with, and that it became the simple Tau, or ordinary
cross, as it appears at this day, and that the design of its first employment
on the sepulchres, therefore, could have no reference to the crucifixion of the
Nazarene, but was simply the result of the attachment to old and long-cherished
Pagan symbols, which is always strong in those who, with the adoption of the
Christian name and profession, are still, to a large extent, Pagan in heart and
feeling. This, and this only, is the origin of the worship of the ”cross.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This, no doubt, will appear all very strange and very incredible to those
who have read Church history, as most have done to a large extent, even amongst
Protestants, through Romish spectacles; and especially to those who call to
mind the famous story told of the miraculous appearance of the cross to
Constantine on the day before the decisive victory at the Milvian bridge, that
decided the fortunes of avowed Paganism and nominal Christianity. That story,
as commonly told, if true, would certainly give a Divine sanction to the
reverence for the cross. But that story, when sifted to the bottom, according
to the common version of it, will be found to be based on a delusion–a
delusion, however, into which so good a man as Milner has allowed himself to
fall. Milner’s account is as follows: ”Constantine, marching from France into
Italy against Maxentius, in an expedition which was likely either to exalt or
to ruin him, was oppressed with anxiety. Some god he thought needful to protect
him; the God of the Christians he was most inclined to respect, but he wanted
some satisfactory proof of His real existence and power, and he neither
understood the means of acquiring this, nor could he be content with the
atheistic indifference in which so many generals and heroes since his time have
acquiesced. He prayed, he implored with such vehemence and importunity, and God
left him not unanswered. While he was marching with his forces in the
afternoon, the trophy of the cross appeared very luminous in the heavens,
brighter than the sun, with this inscription, ‘Conquer by this.’ He and his
soldiers were astonished at the sight; but he continued pondering on the event
till night. And Christ appeared to him when asleep with the same sign of the
cross, and directed him to make use of the symbol as his military ensign.” Such
is the statement of Milner. Now, in regard to the ”trophy of the cross,” a few
words will suffice to show that it is utterly unfounded. I do not think it
necessary to dispute the fact of some miraculous sign having been given. There
may, or there may not, have been on this occasion a ”dignus vindice nodus,” a
crisis worthy of a Divine interposition. Whether, however, there was anything
out of the ordinary course, I do not inquire. But this I say, on the
supposition that Constantine in this matter acted in good faith, and that there
actually was a miraculous appearance in the heavens, that it as not the sign of
the cross that was seen, but quite a different thing, the name of Christ. That
this was the case, we have at once the testimony of Lactantius, who was the
tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus–the earliest author who gives any account of
the matter, and the indisputable evidence of the standards of Constantine
themselves, as handed down to us on medals struck at the time. The testimony of
Lactantius is most decisive: ”Constantine was warned in a dream to make the
celestial sign of God upon his solders’ shields, and so to join battle. He did
as he was bid, and with the transverse letter X circumflecting the head of it,
he marks Christ on their shields. Equipped with this sign, his army takes the
sword.” Now, the letter X was just the initial of the name of Christ, being
equivalent in Greek to CH. If, therefore, Constantine did as he was bid, when
he made ”the celestial sign of God” in the form of ”the letter X,” it was that
”letter X,” as the symbol of ”Christ” and not the sign of the cross, which he
saw in the heavens. When the Labarum, or far-famed standard of Constantine
itself, properly so called, was made, we have the evidence of Ambrose, the
well-known Bishop of Milan, that that standard was formed on the very principle
contained in the statement of Lactantius–viz., simply to display the Redeemer’s
name. He calls it ”Labarum, hoc est Christi sacratum nomine signum.”–”The
Labarum, that is, the ensign consecrated by the NAME of Christ.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Epistle of Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius about the proposal to
restore the Pagan altar of Victory in the Roman Senate. The subject of the
Labarum has been much confused through ignorance of the meaning of the word.
Bryant assumes (and I was myself formerly led away by the assumption) that it
was applied to the standard bearing the crescent and the cross, but he produces
no evidence for the assumption; and I am now satisfied that none can be
produced. The name Labarum, which is generally believed to have come from the
East, treated as an Oriental word, gives forth its meaning at once. It
evidently comes from Lab, ”to vibrate,” or ”move to and fro,” and ar ”to be
active.” Interpreted thus, Labarum signifies simply a banner or flag, ”waving
to and fro” in the wind, and this entirely agrees with the language of Ambrose
”an ensign consecrated by the name of Christ,” which implies a banner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is not the slightest allusion to any cross–to anything but the simple
name of Christ. While we have these testimonies of Lactantius and Ambrose, when
we come to examine the standard of Constantine, we find the accounts of both
authors fully borne out; we find that that standard, bearing on it these very
words, ”Hoc signo victor eris,” ”In this sign thou shalt be a conqueror,” said
to have been addressed from heaven to the emperor, has nothing at all in the
shape of a cross, but ”the letter X.” In the Roman Catacombs, on a Christian
monument to ”Sinphonia and her sons,” there is a distinct allusion to the story
of the vision; but that allusion also shows that the X, and not the cross, was
regarded as the ”heavenly sign.” The words at the head of the inscription are
these: ”In Hoc Vinces [In this thou shalt overcome] X.” Nothing whatever but
the X is here given as the ”Victorious Sign.” There are some examples, no
doubt, of Constantine’s standard, in which there is a cross-bar, from which the
flag is suspended, that contains that ”letter X”; and Eusebius, who wrote when
superstition and apostacy were working, tries hard to make it appear that that
cross-bar was the essential element in the ensign of Constantine. But this is
obviously a mistake; that cross-bar was nothing new, nothing peculiar to Constantine’s
standard. Tertullian shows that that cross-bar was found long before on the
vexillum, the Roman Pagan standard, that carried a flag; and it was used simply
for the purpose of displaying that flag. If, therefore, that cross-bar was the
”celestial sign,” it needed no voice from heaven to direct Constantine to make
it; nor would the making or displaying of it have excited any particular
attention on the part of those who saw it. We find no evidence at all that the
famous legend, ”In this overcome,” has any reference to this cross-bar; but we
find evidence the most decisive that that legend does refer to the X. Now, that
that X was not intended as the sign of the cross, but as the initial of
Christ’s name, is manifest from this, that the Greek P, equivalent to our R, is
inserted in the middle of it, making by their union CHR. The standard of
Constantine, then, was just the name of Christ. Whether the device came from
earth or from heaven–whether it was suggested by human wisdom or Divine,
supposing that Constantine was sincere in his Christian profession, nothing
more was implied in it than a literal embodiment of the sentiment of the
Psalmist, ”In the name of the Lord will we display our banners.” To display
that name on the standards of Imperial Rome was a thing absolutely new; and the
sight of that name, there can be little doubt, nerved the Christian soldiers in
Constantine’s army with more than usual fire to fight and conquer at the
Milvian bridge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the above remarks I have gone on the supposition that Constantine acted
in good faith as a Christian. His good faith, however, has been questioned; and
I am not without my suspicions that the X may have been intended to have one
meaning to the Christians and another to the Pagans. It is certain that the X was
the symbol of the god Ham in Egypt, and as such was exhibited on the breast of
his image. Whichever view be taken, however, of Constantine’s sincerity, the
supposed Divine warrant for reverencing the sign of the cross entirely falls to
the ground. In regard to the X, there is no doubt that, by the Christians who
knew nothing of secret plots or devices, it was generally taken, as Lactantius
declares, as equivalent to the name of ”Christ.” In this view, therefore, it
had no very great attractions for the Pagans, who, even in worshipping Horus,
had always been accustomed to make use of the mystic tau or cross, as the ”sign
of life,” or the magical charm that secured all that was good, and warded off
everything that was evil. When, therefore, multitudes of the Pagans, on the
conversion of Constantine, flocked into the Church, like the semi-Pagans of
Egypt, they brought along with them their predilection for the old symbol. The
consequence was, that in no great length of time, as apostacy proceeded, the X
which in itself was not an unnatural symbol of Christ, the true Messiah, and
which had once been regarded as such, was allowed to go entirely into disuse,
and the Tau, the sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the false
Messiah, was everywhere substituted in its stead. Thus, by the ”sign of the
cross,” Christ has been crucified anew by those who profess to be His
disciples. Now, if these things be matter of historic fact, who can wonder
that, in the Romish Church, ”the sign of the cross” has always and everywhere
been seen to be such an instrument of rank superstition and delusion?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is more, much more, in the rites and ceremonies of Rome that might be
brought to elucidate our subject. But the above may suffice. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* If the above remarks be well founded, surely it cannot be right that this
sign of the cross, or emblem of Tammuz, should be used in Christian baptism. At
the period of the Revolution, a Royal Commission, appointed to inquire into the
Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England, numbering among its members
eight or ten bishops, strongly recommended that the use of the cross, as
tending to superstition, should be laid aside. If such a recommendation was
given then, and that by such authority as members of the Church of England must
respect, how much ought that recommendation to be enforced by the new light
which Providence has cast on the subject!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span>The Two Babylons</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VI<br />
Section I<br />
The Sovereign Pontiff</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The gift of the ministry is one of the greatest gifts which Christ has
bestowed upon the world. It is in reference to this that the Psalmist,
predicting the ascension of Christ, thus loftily speaks of its blessed results:
”Thou hast ascended up on high: Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast
received gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell
among them” (Eph 4:8-11). The Church of Rome, at its first planting, had the
divinely bestowed gift of a Scriptural ministry and government; and then ”its
faith was spoken of throughout the whole world”; its works of righteousness
were both rich and abundant. But, in an evil hour, the Babylonian element was
admitted into its ministry, and thenceforth, that which had been intended as a
blessing, was converted into a curse. Since then, instead of sanctifying men,
it has only been the means of demoralising them, and making them ”twofold more
the children of hell” than they would have been had they been left simply to
themselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If there be any who imagine that there is some occult and mysterious virtue
in an apostolic succession that comes through the Papacy, let them seriously
consider the real character of the Pope’s own orders, and of those of his
bishops and clergy. From the Pope downwards, all can be shown to be now
radically Babylonian. The College of Cardinals, with the Pope at its head, is
just the counterpart of the Pagan College of Pontiffs, with its ”Pontifex
Maximus,” or ”Sovereign Pontiff,” which had existed in Rome from the earliest
times, and which is known to have been framed on the model of the grand
original Council of Pontiffs at Babylon. The Pope now pretends to supremacy in
the Church as the successor of Peter, to whom it is alleged that our Lord
exclusively committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven. But here is the
important fact that, till the Pope was invested with the title, which for a
thousand years had had attached to it the power of the keys of Janus and
Cybele, * no such claim to pre-eminence, or anything approaching to it, was
ever publicly made on his part, on the ground of his being the possessor of the
keys bestowed on Peter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* It was only in the second century before the Christian era that the
worship of Cybele, under that name, was introduced into Rome; but the same
goddess, under the name of Cardea, with the ”power of the key,” was worshipped
in Rome, along with Janus, ages before. OVID’s Fasti</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Very early, indeed, did the bishop of Rome show a proud and ambitious
spirit; but, for the first three centuries, their claim for superior honour was
founded simply on the dignity of their see, as being that of the imperial city,
the capital of the Roman world. When, however, the seat of empire was removed
to the East, and Constantinople threatened to eclipse Rome, some new ground for
maintaining the dignity of the Bishop of Rome must be sought. That new ground
was found, when, about 378, the Pope fell heir to the keys that were the
symbols of two well-known Pagan divinities at Rome. Janus bore a key, and
Cybele bore a key; and these are the two keys that the Pope emblazons on his
arms as the ensigns of his spiritual authority. How the Pope came to be regarded
as wielding the power of these keys will appear in the sequel; but that he did,
in the popular apprehension, become entitled to that power at the period
referred to is certain. Now, when he had come, in the estimation of the Pagans,
to occupy the place of the representatives of Janus and Cybele, and therefore
to be entitled to bear their keys, the Pope saw that if he could only get it
believed among the Christians that Peter alone had the power of the keys, and
that he was Peter’s successor, then the sight of these keys would keep up the
delusion, and thus, though the temporal dignity of Rome as a city should decay,
his own dignity as the Bishop of Rome would be more firmly established than
ever. On this policy it is evident he acted. Some time was allowed to pass
away, and then, when the secret working of the Mystery of iniquity had prepared
the way for it, for the first time did the Pope publicly assert his
pre-eminence, as founded on the keys given to Peter. About 378 was he raised to
the position which gave him, in Pagan estimation, the power of the keys
referred to. In 432, and not before, did he publicly lay claim to the
possession of Peter’s keys. This, surely, is a striking coincidence. Does the
reader ask how it was possible that men could give credit to such a baseless
assumption? The words of Scripture, in regard to this very subject, give a very
solemn but satisfactory answer (2 Thess 2:10,11): ”Because they received not
the love of the truth, that they might be saved…For this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” Few lies could be more
gross; but, in course of time, it came to be widely believed; and now, as the
statue of Jupiter is worshipped at Rome as the veritable image of Peter, so the
keys of Janus and Cybele have for ages been devoutly believed to represent the
keys of the same apostle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While nothing but judicial infatuation can account for the credulity of the
Christians in regarding these keys as emblems of an exclusive power given by
Christ to the Pope through Peter, it is not difficult to see how the Pagans
would rally round the Pope all the more readily when they heard him found his
power on the possession of Peter’s keys. The keys that the Pope bore were the
keys of a ”Peter” well known to the Pagans initiated in the Chaldean Mysteries.
That Peter the apostle was ever Bishop of Rome has been proved again and again
to be an arrant fable. That he ever even set foot in Rome is at the best highly
doubtful. His visit to that city rests on no better authority than that of a
writer at the end of the second century or beginning of the third–viz., the
author of the work called The Clementines, who gravely tells us that on the
occasion of his visit, finding Simon Magus there, the apostle challenged him to
give proof of his miraculous or magical powers, whereupon the sorcerer flew up
into the air, and Peter brought him down in such hast that his leg was broken.
All historians of repute have at once rejected this story of the apostolic
encounter with the magician as being destitute of all contemporary evidence;
but as the visit of Peter to Rome rests on the same authority, it must stand or
fall along with it, or, at least, it must be admitted to be extremely doubtful.
But, while this is the case with Peter the Christian, it can be shown to be by
no means doubtful that before the Christian era, and downwards, there was a
”Peter” at Rome, who occupied the highest place in the Pagan priesthood. The
priest who explained the Mysteries to the initiated was sometimes called by a
Greek term, the Hierophant; but in primitive Chaldee, the real language of the
Mysteries, his title, as pronounced without the points, was ”Peter”–i.e., ”the
interpreter.” As the revealer of that which was hidden, nothing was more
natural than that, while opening up the esoteric doctrine of the Mysteries, he
should be decorated with the keys of the two divinities whose mysteries he
unfolded. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Turkish Mufties, or ”interpreters” of the Koran, derive that name
from the very same verb as that from which comes Miftah, a key.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus we may see how the keys of Janus and Cybele would come to be known as
the keys of Peter, the ”interpreter” of the Mysteries. Yea, we have the
strongest evidence that, in countries far removed from one another, and far distant
from Rome, these keys were known by initiated Pagans not merely as the ”keys of
Peter,” but as the keys of a Peter identified with Rome. In the Eleusinian
Mysteries at Athens, when the candidates for initiation were instructed in the
secret doctrine of Paganism, the explanation of that doctrine was read to them
out of a book called by ordinary writers the ”Book Petroma”; that is, as we are
told, a book formed of stone. But this is evidently just a play upon words,
according to the usual spirit of Paganism, intended to amuse the vulgar. The
nature of the case, and the history of the Mysteries, alike show that this book
could be none other than the ”Book Pet-Roma”; that is, the ”Book of the Grand
Interpreter,” in other words, of Hermes Trismegistus, the great ”Interpreter of
the Gods.” In Egypt, from which Athens derived its religion, the books of
Hermes were regarded as the divine fountain of all true knowledge of the
Mysteries. * In Egypt, therefore, Hermes was looked up to in this very
character of Grand Interpreter, or ”Peter-Roma.” ** In Athens, Hermes, as its
well known, occupied precisely the same place, *** and, of course, in the
sacred language, must have been known by the same title.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The following are the authorities for the statement in the text:
”Jamblichus says that Hermes [i.e., the Egyptian] was the god of all celestial
knowledge, which, being communicated by him to his priests, authorised them to
inscribe their commentaries with the name of Hermes” (WILKINSON). Again,
according to the fabulous accounts of the Egyptian Mercury, he was reported…to
have taught men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayers and
sacrifice (WILKINSON). Hermes Trismegistus seems to have been regarded as a new
incarnation of Thoth, and possessed of higher honours. The principal books of
this Hermes, according to Clemens of Alexandria, were treated by the Egyptians
with the most profound respect, and carried in their religious processions
(CLEM., ALEX., Strom.).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** In Egypt, ”Petr” was used in this very sense. See BUNSEN, Hieroglyph,
where Ptr is said to signify ”to show.” The interpreter was called
Hierophantes, which has the very idea of ”showing” in it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">*** The Athenian or Grecian Hermes is celebrated as ”The source of
invention…He bestows, too, mathesis on souls, by unfolding the will of the
father of Jupiter, and this he accomplishes as the angel or messenger of
Jupiter…He is the guardian of disciplines, because the invention of geometry,
reasoning, and language is referred to this god. He presides, therefore, over
every species of erudition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this
mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls” (PROCLUS in Commentary on
First Alcibiades, TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns). The Grecian Hermes was so essentially
the revealer or interpreter of divine things, that Hermeneutes, an interpreter,
was currently said to come from his name (HYGINUS).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The priest, therefore, that in the name of Hermes explained the Mysteries,
must have been decked not only with the keys of Peter, but with the keys of
”Peter-Roma.” Here, then, the famous ”Book of Stone” begins to appear in a new
light, and not only so, but to shed new light on one of the darkest and most
puzzling passages of Papal history. It has always been a matter of amazement to
candid historical inquirers how it could ever have come to pass that the name
of Peter should be associated with Rome in the way in which it is found from
the fourth century downwards–how so many in different countries had been led to
believe that Peter, who was an ”apostle of the circumcision,” had apostatised
from his Divine commission, and become bishop of a Gentile Church, and that he
should be the spiritual ruler in Rome, when no satisfactory evidence could be
found for his ever having been in Rome at all. But the book of ”Peter-Roma”
accounts for what otherwise is entirely inexplicable. The existence of such a
title was too valuable to be overlooked by the Papacy; and, according to its
usual policy, it was sure, if it had the opportunity, to turn it to the account
of its own aggrandisement. And that opportunity it had. When the Pope came, as
he did, into intimate connection with the Pagan priesthood; when they came at
last, as we shall see they did, under his control, what more natural than to
seek not only to reconcile Paganism and Christianity, but to make it appear
that the Pagan ”Peter-Roma,” with his keys, meant ”Peter of Rome,” and that
that ”Peter of Rome” was the very apostle to whom the Lord Jesus Christ gave
the ”keys of the kingdom of heaven”? Hence, from the mere jingle of words,
persons and things essentially different were confounded; and Paganism and
Christianity jumbled together, that the towering ambition of a wicked priest
might be gratified; and so, to the blinded Christians of the apostacy, the Pope
was the representative of Peter the apostle, while to the initiated pagans, he
was only the representative of Peter, the interpreter of their well known
Mysteries. Thus was the Pope the express counterpart of ”Janus, the
double-faced.” Oh! what an emphasis of meaning in the Scriptural expression, as
applied to the Papacy, ”The Mystery of Iniquity”!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reader will now be prepared to understand how it is that the Pope’s
Grand Council of State, which assists him in the government of the Church, comes
to be called the College of Cardinals. The term Cardinal is derived from Cardo,
a hinge. Janus, whose key the Pope bears, was the god of doors and hinges, and
was called Patulcius, and Clusius ”the opener and the shutter.” This had a
blasphemous meaning, for he was worshipped at Rome as the grand mediator.
Whatever important business was in hand, whatever deity was to be invoked, an
invocation first of all must be addressed to Janus, who was recognised as the
”God of gods,” in whose mysterious divinity the characters of father and son
were combined, and without that no prayer could be heard–the ”door of heaven”
could not be opened. It was this same god whose worship prevailed so
exceedingly in Asia Minor at the time when our Lord sent, by his servant John,
the seven Apocalyptic messages to the churches established in that region. And,
therefore, in one of these messages we find Him tacitly rebuking the profane
ascription of His own peculiar dignity to that divinity, and asserting His
exclusive claim to the prerogative usually attributed to His rival. Thus,
Revelation 3:7 ”And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These
things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David,
he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” Now,
to this Janus, as Mediator, worshipped in Asia Minor, and equally, from very
early times, in Rome, belonged the government of the world; and, ”all power in
heaven, in earth, and the sea,” according to Pagan ideas, was vested in him. In
this character he was said to have ”jus vertendi cardinis”–the ”power of
turning the hinge”–of opening the doors of heaven, or of opening or shutting
the gates of peace or war upon earth. The Pope, therefore, when he set up as
the High-priest of Janus, assumed also the ”jus vertendi cardinis,” ”the power
of turning the hinge,”–of opening and shutting in the blasphemous Pagan sense.
Slowly and cautiously at first was this power asserted; but the foundation
being laid, steadily, century after century, was the grand superstructure of
priestly power erected upon it. The Pagans, who saw what strides, under Papal
directions, Christianity, as professed in Rome, was making towards Paganism,
were more than content to recognise the Pope as possessing this power; they
gladly encouraged him to rise, step by step, to the full height of the
blasphemous pretensions befitting the representative of Janus–pretensions
which, as all men know, are now, by the unanimous consent of Western Apostate
Christendom, recognised as inherent in the office of the Bishop of Rome. To
enable the Pope, however, to rise to the full plenitude of power which he now
asserts, the co-operation of others was needed. When his power increased, when
his dominion extended, and especially after he became a temporal sovereign, the
key of Janus became too heavy for his single hand–he needed some to share with
him the power of the ”hinge.” Hence his privy councillors, his high
functionaries of state, who were associated with him in the government of the
Church and the world, got the now well known title of ”Cardinals”–the priests
of the ”hinge.” This title had been previously borne by the high officials of
the Roman Emperor, who, as ”Pontifex Maximus,” had been himself the
representative of Janus, and who delegated his powers to servants of his own.
Even in the reign of Theodosius, the Christian Emperor of Rome, the title of
Cardinal was borne by his Prime Minister. But now both the name and the power
implied in the name have long since disappeared from all civil functionaries of
temporal sovereigns; and those only who aid the Pope in wielding the key of
Janus–in opening and shutting–are known by the title of Cardinals, or priests
of the ”hinge.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have said that the Pope became the representative of Janus, who, it is
evident, was none other than the Babylonian Messiah. If the reader only
considers the blasphemous assumptions of the Papacy, he will see how exactly it
has copied from its original. In the countries where the Babylonian system was
most thoroughly developed, we find the Sovereign Pontiff of the Babylonian god
invested with the very attributes now ascribed to the Pope. Is the Pope called
”God upon earth,” the ”Vice-God,” and ”Vicar of Jesus Christ”? The King in
Egypt, who was Sovereign Pontiff, * was, says Wilkinson, regarded with the
highest reverence as ”THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DIVINITY ON EARTH.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Wilkinson shows that the king had the right of enacting laws, and of
managing all the affairs of religion and the State, which proves him to have
been Sovereign Pontiff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is the Pope ”Infallible,” and does the Church of Rome, in consequence,
boast that it has always been ”unchanged and unchangeable”? The same was the
case with the Chaldean Pontiff, and the system over which he presided. The
Sovereign Pontiff, says the writer just quoted, was believed to be ”INCAPABLE
OF ERROR,” * and, in consequence, there was ”the greatest respect for the
sanctity of old edicts”; and hence, no doubt, also the origin of the custom
that ”the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be altered.” Does the Pope
receive the adorations of the Cardinals? The king of Babylon, as Sovereign
Pontiff, was adored in like manner. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* WILKINSON’S Egyptians. ”The Infallibility” was a natural result of the
popular belief in regard to the relation in which the Sovereign stood to the
gods: for, says Diodorus Siculus, speaking of Egypt, the king was believed to
be ”a partaker of the divine nature.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** From the statement of LAYARD (Nineveh and its Remains and Nineveh and
Babylon), it appears that as the king of Egypt was the ”Head of the religion
and the state,” so was the king of Assyria, which included Babylon. Then we
have evidence that he was worshipped. The sacred images are represented as
adoring him, which could not have been the case if his own subjects did not pay
their homage in that way. Then the adoration claimed by Alexander the Great
evidently came from this source. It was directly in imitation of the adoration
paid to the Persian kings that he required such homage. From Xenophon we have
evidence that this Persian custom came from Babylon. It was when Cyrus had
entered Babylon that the Persians, for the first time, testified their homage
to him by adoration; for, ”before this,” says Xenophon (Cyropoed), ”none of the
Persians had given adoration to Cyrus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Are kings and ambassadors required to kiss the Pope’s slipper? This, too,
is copied from the same pattern; for, says Professor Gaussen, quoting Strabo
and Herodotus, ”the kings of Chaldea wore on their feet slippers which the
kings they conquered used to kiss.” In kind, is the Pope addressed by the title
of ”Your Holiness”? So also was the Pagan Pontiff of Rome. The title seems to
have been common to all Pontiffs. Symmachus, the last Pagan representative of
the Roman Emperor, as Sovereign Pontiff, addressing one of his colleagues or
fellow-pontiffs, on a step of promotion he was about to obtain, says, ”I hear
that YOUR HOLINESS (sanctitatem tuam) is to be called out by the sacred
letters.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Peter’s keys have now been restored to their rightful owner. Peter’s chair
must also go along with them. That far-famed chair came from the very same
quarter as the cross-keys. The very same reason that led the Pope to assume the
Chaldean keys naturally led him also to take possession of the vacant chair of
the Pagan Pontifex Maximus. As the Pontifex, by virtue of his office, had been
the Hierophant, or Interpreter of the Mysteries, his chair of office was as
well entitled to be called ”Peter’s” chair as the Pagan keys to be called ”the
keys of Peter”; and so it was called accordingly. The real pedigree of the
far-famed chair of Peter will appear from the following fact: ”The Romans had,”
says Bower, ”as they thought, till the year 1662, a pregnant proof, not only of
Peter’s erecting their chair, but of his sitting in it himself; for, till that
year, the very chair on which they believed, or would make others believe, he
had sat, was shown and exposed to public adoration on the 18th of January, the
festival of the said chair. But while it was cleaning, in order to set it up in
some conspicuous place of the Vatican, the twelve labours of Hercules unluckily
appeared on it!” and so it had to be laid aside. The partisans of the Papacy
were not a little disconcerted by this discovery; but they tried to put the
best face on the matter they could. ”Our worship,” said Giacomo Bartolini, in
his Sacred Antiquities of Rome, while relating the circumstances of the
discovery, ”Our worship, however, was not misplaced, since it was not to the
wood we paid it, but to the prince of the apostles, St. Peter,” that had been
supposed to sit in it. Whatever the reader may think of this apology for
chair-worship, he will surely at least perceive, taking this in connection with
what we have already seen, that the hoary fable of Peter’s chair is fairly
exploded. In modern times, Rome seems to have been rather unfortunate in regard
to Peter’s chair; for, even after that which bore the twelve labours of
Hercules had been condemned and cast aside, as unfit to bear the light that the
Reformation had poured upon the darkness of the Holy See, that which was chosen
to replace it was destined to reveal still more ludicrously the barefaced
impostures of the Papacy. The former chair was borrowed from the Pagans; the
next appears to have been purloined from the Mussulmans; for when the French
soldiers under General Bonaparte took possession of Rome in 1795, they found on
the back of it, in Arabic, this well known sentence of the Koran, ”There is no
God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Pope has not merely a chair to sit in; but he has a chair to be carried
in, in pomp and state, on men’s shoulders, when he pays a visit to St. Peter’s,
or any of the churches of Rome. Thus does an eye-witness describe such a
pageant on the Lord’s Day, in the headquarters of Papal idolatry: ”The drums
were heard beating without. The guns of the soldiers rung on the stone pavement
of the house of God, as, at the bidding of their officer, they grounded,
shouldered, and presented arms. How unlike the Sabbath–how unlike religion–how
unlike the suitable preparation to receive a minister of the meek and lowly
Jesus! Now, moving slowly up, between the two armed lines of soldiers, appeared
a long procession of ecclesiastics, bishops, canons, and cardinals, preceding
the Roman pontiff, who was borne on a gilded chair, clad in vestments
resplendent as the sun. His bearers were twelve men clad in crimson, being
immediately preceded by several persons carrying a cross, his mitre, his triple
crown, and other insignia of his office. As he was borne along on the shoulders
of men, amid the gaping crowds, his head was shaded or canopied by two immense
fans, made of peacocks’ feathers, which were borne by two attendants.” Thus it
is with the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome at this day; only that, frequently, over
and above being shaded by the fan, which is just the ”Mystic fan of Bacchus,”
his chair of state is also covered with a regular canopy. Now, look back
through the vista of three thousand years, and see how the Sovereign Pontiff of
Egypt used to pay a visit to the temple of his god. ”Having reached the
precincts of the temple,” says Wilkinson, ”the guards and royal attendants
selected to be the representatives of the whole army entered the
courts…Military bands played the favourite airs of the country; and the
numerous standards of the different regiments, the banners floating on the
wind, the bright lustre of arms, the immense concourse of people, and the
imposing majesty of the lofty towers of the propylaea, decked with their
bright-coloured flags, streaming above the cornice, presented a scene seldom,
we may say, equalled on any occasion, in any country. The most striking feature
of this pompous ceremony was the brilliant cortege of the monarch, who was
either borne in his chair of state by the principal officers of state, under a
rich canopy, or walked on foot, overshadowed with rich flabella and fans of
waving plumes.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So much for Peter’s chair and Peter’s keys. Now Janus, whose key the Pope
usurped with that of his wife or mother Cybele, was also Dagon. Janus, the
two-headed god, ”who had lived in two worlds,” was the Babylonian divinity as
an incarnation of Noah. Dagon, the fish-god, represented that deity as a
manifestation of the same patriarch who had lived so long in the waters of the
deluge. As the Pope bears the key of Janus, so he wears the mitre of Dagon. The
excavations of Nineveh have put this beyond all possibility of doubt. The Papal
mitre is entirely different from the mitre of Aaron and the Jewish high priests.
That mitre was a turban. The two-horned mitre, which the Pope wears, when he
sits on the high altar at Rome and receives the adoration of the Cardinals, is
the very mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians.
There were two ways in which Dagon was anciently represented. The one was when
he was depicted as half-man half-fish; the upper part being entirely human, the
under part ending in the tail of a fish. The other was, when, to use the words
of Layard, ”the head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, while
its scaly, fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and
feet exposed.” Of Dagon in this form Layard gives a representation in his last
work; and no one who examines his mitre, and compares it with the Pope’s as
given in Elliot’s Horoe, can doubt for a moment that from that, and no other
source, has the pontifical mitre been derived. The gaping jaws of the fish
surmounting the head of the man at Nineveh are the unmistakable counterpart of
the horns of the Pope’s mitre at Rome. Thus was it in the East, at least five
hundred years before the Christian era. The same seems to have been the case
also in Egypt; for Wilkinson, speaking of a fish of the species of Siluris,
says ”that one of the Genii of the Egyptian Pantheon appears under a human
form, with the head of this fish.” In the West, at a later period, we have
evidence that the Pagans had detached the fish-head mitre from the body of the
fish, and used that mitre alone to adorn the head of the great Mediatorial god;
for on several Maltese Pagan coins that god, with the well-known attributes of
Osiris, is represented with nothing of the fish save the mitre on his head;
very nearly in the same form as the mitre of the Pope, or of a Papal bishop at
this day. Even in China, the same practice of wearing the fish-head mitre had
evidently once prevailed; for the very counterpart of the Papal mitre, as worn
by the Chinese Emperor, has subsisted to modern times. ”Is it known,” asks a
well-read author of the present day, in a private communication to me, ”that
the Emperor of China, in all ages, even to the present year, as high priest of
the nation, once a year prays for and blesses the whole nation, having his
priestly robes on and his mitre on his head, the same, the very same, as that
worn by the Roman Pontiff for near 1200 years? Such is the fact.” The reader
must bear in mind, that even in Japan, still farther distant from Babel than
China itself, one of the divinities is represented with the same symbol of
might as prevailed in Assyria–even the bull’s horns, and is called ”The
ox-headed Prince of Heaven.” If the symbol of Nimrod, as Kronos, ”The Horned
one,” is thus found in Japan, it cannot be surprising that the symbol of Dagon
should be found in China.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But there is another symbol of the Pope’s power which must not be
overlooked, and that is the pontifical crosier. Whence came the crosier? The
answer to this, in the first place, is, that the Pope stole it from the Roman
augur. The classical reader may remember, that when the Roman augurs consulted
the heavens, or took prognostics from the aspect of the sky, there was a
certain instrument with which it was indispensable that they should be
equipped. That instrument with which they described the portion of the heavens
on which their observations were to be made, was curved at the one end, and was
called ”lituus.” Now, so manifestly was the ”lituus,” or crooked rod of the
Roman augurs, identical with the pontifical crosier, that Roman Catholic
writers themselves, writing in the Dark Ages, at a time when disguise was
thought unnecessary, did not hesitate to use the term ”lituus” as a synonym for
the crosier. Thus a Papal writer describes a certain Pope or Papal bishop as
”mitra lituoque decorus,” adorned with the mitre and the augur’s rod, meaning
thereby that he was ”adorned with the mitre and the crosier.” But this lituus,
or divining-rod, of the Roman augurs, was, as is well known, borrowed from the
Etruscans, who, again, had derived it, along with their religion, from the
Assyrians. As the Roman augur was distinguished by his crooked rod, so the
Chaldean soothsayers and priests, in the performance of their magic rites, were
generally equipped with a crook or crosier. This magic crook can be traced up
directly to the first king of Babylon, that is, Nimrod, who, as stated by
Berosus, was the first that bore the title of a Shepherd-king. In Hebrew, or
the Chaldee of the days of Abraham, ”Nimrod the Shepherd,” is just Nimrod
”He-Roe”; and from this title of the ”mighty hunter before the Lord,” have no
doubt been derived, both the name of Hero itself, and all that Hero-worship
which has since overspread the world. Certain it is that Nimrod’s deified
successors have generally been represented with the crook or crosier. This was
the case in Babylon and Nineveh, as the extant monuments show. In Layard, it
may be seen in a more ornate form, and nearly resembling the papal crosier as
borne at this day. * This was the case in Egypt, after the Babylonian power was
established there, as the statues of Osiris with his crosier bear witness, **
Osiris himself being frequently represented as a crosier with an eye above it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Nineveh and Babylon. Layard seems to think the instrument referred to,
which is borne by the king, ”attired as high priest in his sacrificial robes,”
a sickle; but any one who attentively examines it will see that it is a
crosier, adorned with studs, as is commonly the case even now with the Roman
crosiers, only, that instead of being held erect, it is held downwards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** The well known name Pharaoh, the title of the Pontiff-kings of Egypt, is
just the Egyptian form of the Hebrew He-Roe. Pharaoh in Genesis, without the
points, is ”Phe-Roe.” Phe is the Egyptian definite article. It was not
shepherd-kings that the Egyptians abhorred, but Roi-Tzan, ”shepherds of cattle”
(Gen 46:34). Without the article Roe, a ”shepherd,” is manifestly the original
of the French Roi, a king, whence the adjective royal; and from Ro, which
signifies to ”act the shepherd,” which is frequently pronounced Reg–(with Sh,
which signifies ”He who is,” or ”who does,” affixed)–comes Regah, ”He who acts
the shepherd,” whence the Latin Rex, and Regal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is the case among the Negroes of Africa, whose god, called the
Fetiche, is represented in the form of a crosier, as is evident from the
following words of Hurd: ”They place Fetiches before their doors, and these
titular deities are made in the form of grapples or hooks, which we generally
make use of to shake our fruit trees.” This is the case at this hour in Thibet,
where the Lamas or Theros bear, as stated by the Jesuit Huc, a crosier, as the
ensign of their office. This is the case even in the far-distant Japan, where,
in a description of the idols of the great temple of Miaco, the spiritual capital,
we find this statement: ”Their heads are adorned with rays of glory, and some
of them have shepherds’ crooks in their hands, pointing out that they are the
guardians of mankind against all the machinations of evil spirits.” The crosier
of the Pope, then, which he bears as an emblem of his office, as the great
shepherd of the sheep, is neither more nor less than the augur’s crooked staff,
or magic rod of the priests of Nimrod.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, what say the worshippers of the apostolic succession to all this? What
think they now of their vaunted orders as derived from Peter of Rome? Surely
they have much reason to be proud of them. But what, I further ask, would even
the old Pagan priests say who left the stage of time while the martyrs were
still battling against their gods, and, rather than symbolise with them, ”loved
not their lives unto the death,” if they were to see the present aspect of the
so-called Church of European Christendom? What would Belshazzar himself say, if
it were possible for him to ”revisit the glimpses of the moon,” and enter St.
Peter’s at Rome, and see the Pope in his pontificals, in all his pomp and
glory? Surely he would conclude that he had only entered one of his own well
known temples, and that all things continued as they were at Babylon, on that
memorable night, when he saw with astonished eyes the handwriting on the wall:
”Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin.”</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
The Two Babylons<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VI<br />
Section II<br />
Priests, Monks, and Nuns</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the head be corrupt, so also must be the
members</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <u>If the Pope be essentially Pagan, what else can be the character
of his clergy</u>? If they derive their orders from a radically corrupted
source, these orders must partake of the corruption of the source from which
they flow. This might be inferred independently of any special evidence; but
the evidence in regard to the Pagan character of the Pope’s clergy is as
complete as that in regard to the Pope himself. In whatever light the subject
is viewed, this will be very apparent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is a direct contrast between the character of the ministers of
Christ, and that of the Papal priesthood. When Christ commissioned His
servants, it was ”to feed His sheep, to feed His lambs,” and that with the Word
of God, which testifies of Himself, and contains the words of eternal life.
When the Pope ordains his clergy, he takes them bound to prohibit, except in
special circumstances, the reading of the Word of God ”in the vulgar tongue,”
that is, in a language which the people can understand. He gives them, indeed,
a commission; and what is it? It is couched in these astounding words: ”Receive
the power of sacrificing for the living and the dead.” What blasphemy could be
worse than this? What more derogatory to the one sacrifice of Christ, whereby
”He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified”? (Heb 10:14) This is the
real distinguishing function of the popish priesthood. At the remembrance that
this power, in these very words, had been conferred on him, when ordained to
the priesthood, Luther used, in after years, with a shudder, to express his
astonishment that ”the earth had not opened its mouth and swallowed up both him
who uttered these words, and him to whom they were addressed.” The sacrifice
which the papal priesthood are empowered to offer, as a ”true propitiatory
sacrifice” for the sins of the living and the dead, is just the ”unbloody sacrifice”
of the mass, which was offered up in Babylon long before it was ever heard of
in Rome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, while Semiramis, the real original of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven, to
whom the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass was first offered, was in her own
person, as we have already seen, the very paragon of impurity, she at the same
time affected the greatest favour for that kind of sanctity which looks down
with contempt on God’s holy ordinance of marriage. The Mysteries over which she
presided were scenes of the rankest pollution; and yet the higher orders of the
priesthood were bound to a life of celibacy, as a life of peculiar and
pre-eminent holiness. Strange though it may seem, yet the voice of antiquity
assigns to that abandoned queen the invention of clerical celibacy, and that in
the most stringent form. In some countries, as in Egypt, human nature asserted
its rights, and though the general system of Babylon was retained, the yoke of
celibacy was abolished, and the priesthood were permitted to marry. But every
scholar knows that when the worship of Cybele, the Babylonian goddess, was
introduced into Pagan Rome, it was introduced in its primitive form, with its
celibate clergy. When the Pope appropriated to himself so much that was
peculiar to the worship of that goddess, from the very same source, also, he
introduced into the priesthood under his authority the binding obligation of
celibacy. The introduction of such a principle into the Christian Church had
been distinctly predicted as one grand mark of the apostacy, when men should
”depart from the faith, and speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their
consciences seared with a hot iron, should forbid to marry.” The effects of its
introduction were most disastrous. The records of all nations where priestly celibacy
has been introduced have proved that, instead of ministering to the purity of
those condemned to it, it has only plunged them in the deepest pollution. The
history of Thibet, and China, and Japan, where the Babylonian institute of
priestly celibacy has prevailed from time immemorial, bears testimony to the
abominations that have flowed from it. The excesses committed by the celibate
priests of Bacchus in Pagan Rome in their secret Mysteries, were such that the
Senate felt called upon to expel them from the bounds of the Roman republic. In
Papal Rome the same abominations have flowed from priestly celibacy, in
connection with the corrupt and corrupting system of the confessional, insomuch
that all men who have examined the subject have been compelled to admire the
amazing significance of the name divinely bestowed on it, both in a literal and
figurative sense, ”Babylon the Great, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF
THE EARTH.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Revelation 17:5. The Rev. M. H. Seymour shows that in 1836 the whole number
of births in Rome was 4373, while of these no fewer than 3160 were foundlings!
What enormous profligacy does this reveal!–”Moral Results of the Romish
System,” in Evenings with Romanists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Out of a thousand facts of a similar kind, let one only be adduced, vouched
for by the distinguished Roman Catholic historian De Thou. When Pope Paul V
meditated the suppression of the licensed brothels in the ”Holy City,” the
Roman Senate petitioned against his carrying his design into effect, on the
ground that the existence of such places was the only means of hindering the
priests from seducing their wives and daughters!!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These celibate priests have all a certain mark set upon them at their
ordination; and that is the clerical tonsure. The tonsure is the first part of
the ceremony of ordination; and it is held to be a most important element in
connection with the orders of the Romish clergy. When, after long contendings,
the Picts were at last brought to submit to the Bishop of Rome, the acceptance
of this tonsure as the tonsure of St. Peter on the part of the clergy was the
visible symbol of that submission. Naitan, the Pictish king, having assembled
the nobles of his court and the pastors of his church, thus addressed them: ”I
recommend all the clergy of my kingdom to receive the tonsure.” Then, without
delay, as Bede informs us, this important revolution was accomplished by royal
authority. He sent agents into every province, and caused all the ministers and
monks to receive the circular tonsure, according to the Roman fashion, and thus
to submit to Peter, ”the most blessed Prince of the apostles.” ”It was the
mark,” says Merle D’Aubigne, ”that Popes stamped not on the forehead, but on
the crown. A royal proclamation, and a few clips of the scissors, placed the Scotch,
like a flock of sheep, beneath the crook of the shepherd of the Tiber.” Now, as
Rome set so much importance on this tonsure, let it be asked what was the
meaning of it? It was the visible inauguration of those who submitted to it as
the priests of Bacchus. This tonsure cannot have the slightest pretence to
Christian authority. It was indeed the ”tonsure of Peter,” but not of the Peter
of Galilee, but of the Chaldean ”Peter” of the Mysteries. He was a tonsured
priest, for so was the god whose Mysteries he revealed. Centuries before the
Christian era, thus spoke Herodotus of the Babylonian tonsure: ”The Arabians
acknowledge no other gods than Bacchus and Urania [i.e., the Queen of Heaven],
and they say that their hair was cut in the same manner as Bacchus’ is cut;
now, they cut it in a circular form, shaving it around the temples.” What,
then, could have led to this tonsure of Bacchus? Everything in his history was
mystically or hieroglyphically represented, and that in such a way as none but
the initiated could understand. One of the things that occupied the most
important place in the Mysteries was the mutilation to which he was subjected
when he was put to death. In memory of that, he was lamented with bitter
weeping every year, as ”Rosh-Gheza,” ”the mutilated Prince.” But ”Rosh-Gheza”
also signified the ”clipped or shaved head.” Therefore he was himself
represented either with the one or the other form of tonsure; and his priests,
for the same reason, at their ordination had their heads either clipped or
shaven. Over all the world, where the traces of the Chaldean system are found,
this tonsure or shaving of the head is always found along with it. The priests
of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, were always distinguished by the shaving of
their heads. In Pagan Rome, in India, and even in China, the distinguishing
mark of the Babylonian priesthood was the shaven head. Thus Gautama Buddha, who
lived at least 540 years before Christ, when setting up the sect of Buddhism in
India which spread to the remotest regions of the East, first shaved his own
head, in obedience, as he pretended, to a Divine command, and then set to work
to get others to imitate his example. One of the very titles by which he was
called was that of the ”Shaved-head.” ”The shaved-head,” says one of the
Purans, ”that he might perform the orders of Vishnu, formed a number of
disciples, and of shaved-heads like himself.” The high antiquity of this
tonsure may be seen from the enactment in the Mosaic law against it. The Jewish
priests were expressly forbidden to make any baldness upon their heads (Lev
21:5), which sufficiently shows that, even so early as the time of Moses, the
”shaved-head” had been already introduced. In the Church of Rome the heads of
the ordinary priests are only clipped, the heads of the monks or regular clergy
are shaven, but both alike, at their consecration, receive the circular
tonsure, thereby identifying them, beyond all possibility of doubt, with
Bacchus, ”the mutilated Prince.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* It has been already shown that among the Chaldeans the one term ”Zero”
signified at once ”a circle” and ”the seed.” ”Suro,” ”the seed,” in India, as
we have seen, was the sun-divinity incarnate. When that seed was represented in
human form, to identify him with the sun, he was represented with the circle,
the well known emblem of the sun’s annual course, on some part of his person.
Thus our own god Thor was represented with a blazing circle on his breast.
(WILSON’S Parsi Religion) In Persia and Assyria the circle was represented
sometimes on the breast, sometimes round the waist, and sometimes in the hand
of the sun-divinity. (BRYANT and LAYARD’S Nineveh and Babylon) In India it is
represented at the tip of the finger. (MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Vishnu”) Hence the
circle became the emblem of Tammuz born again, or ”the seed.” The circular
tonsure of Bacchus was doubtless intended to point him out as ”Zero,” or ”the
seed,” the grand deliverer. And the circle of light around the head of the
so-called pictures of Christ was evidently just a different form of the very
same thing, and borrowed from the very same source. The ceremony of tonsure,
says Maurice, referring to the practice of that ceremony in India, ”was an old
practice of the priests of Mithra, who in their tonsures imitated the solar
disk.” (Antiquities) As the sun-god was the great lamented god, and had his
hair cut in a circular form, and the priests who lamented him had their hair
cut in a similar manner, so in different countries those who lamented the dead
and cut off their hair in honour of them, cut it in a circular form. There were
traces of that in Greece, as appears from the Electra of Sophocles; and
Herodotus particularly refers to it as practised among the Scythians when
giving an account of a royal funeral among that people. ”The body,” says he,
”is enclosed in wax. They then place it on a carriage, and remove it to another
district, where the persons who receive it, like the Royal Scythians, cut off a
part of their ear, shave their heads in a circular form,” &c. (Hist.) Now,
while the Pope, as the grand representative of the false Messiah, received the
circular tonsure himself, so all his priests to identify them with the same
system are required to submit to the same circular tonsure, to mark them in
their measure and their own sphere as representatives of that same false
Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if the priests of Rome take away the key of knowledge, and lock up the
Bible from the people; if they are ordained to offer the Chaldean sacrifice in
honour of the Pagan Queen of Heaven; if they are bound by the Chaldean law of
celibacy, that plunges them in profligacy; if, in short, they are all marked at
their consecration with the distinguishing mark of the priests of the Chaldean
Bacchus, what right, what possible right, can they have to be called ministers
of Christ?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But Rome has not only her ordinary secular clergy, as they are called; she
has also, as every one knows, other religious orders of a different kind. She
has innumerable armies of monks and nuns all engaged in her service. Where can
there be shown the least warrant for such an institution in Scripture? In the
religion of the Babylonian Messiah their institution was from the earliest
times. In that system there were monks and nuns in abundance. In Thibet and
Japan, where the Chaldean system was early introduced, monasteries are still to
be found, and with the same disastrous results to morals as in Papal Europe. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* There are some, and Protestants, too, who begin to speak of what they
call the benefits of monasteries in rude times, as if they were hurtful only
when they fall into ”decrepitude and corruption”! Enforced celibacy, which lies
at the foundation of the monastic system, is of the very essence of the
Apostacy, which is divinely characterised as the ”Mystery of Iniquity.” Let
such Protestants read 1 Timothy 4:1-3, and surely they will never speak more of
the abominations of the monasteries as coming only from their ”decrepitude”!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In Scandinavia, the priestesses of Freya, who were generally kings’
daughters, whose duty it was to watch the sacred fire, and who were bound to
perpetual virginity, were just an order of nuns. In Athens there were virgins
maintained at the public expense, who were strictly bound to single life. In
Pagan Rome, the Vestal virgins, who had the same duty to perform as the
priestesses of Freya, occupied a similar position. Even in Peru, during the
reign of the Incas, the same system prevailed, and showed so remarkable an
analogy, as to indicate that the Vestals of Rome, the nuns of the Papacy, and
the Holy Virgins of Peru, must have sprung from a common origin. Thus does
Prescott refer to the Peruvian nunneries: ”Another singular analogy with Roman
Catholic institutions is presented by the virgins of the sun, the elect, as
they were called. These were young maidens dedicated to the service of the
deity, who at a tender age were taken from their homes, and introduced into
convents, where they were placed under the care of certain elderly matrons,
mamaconas, * who had grown grey within their walls. It was their duty to watch
over the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi. From the moment they
entered the establishment they were cut off from all communication with the
world, even with their own family and friends…Woe to the unhappy maiden who was
detected in an intrigue! by the stern law of the Incas she was to be buried
alive.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Mamacona, ”Mother Priestess,” is almost pure Hebrew, being derived from
Am a ”mother,” and Cohn, ”a priest,” only with the feminine termination. Our
own Mamma, as well as that of Peru, is just the Hebrew Am reduplicated. It is
singular that the usual style and title of the Lady Abbess in Ireland is the
”Reverend Mother.” The term Nun itself is a Chaldean word. Ninus, the son in
Chaldee is either Nin or Non. Now, the feminine of Non, a ”son,” is Nonna, a
”daughter,” which is just the Popish canonical name for a ”Nun,” and Nonnus, in
like manner, was in early times the designation for a monk in the East.
(GIESELER)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This was precisely the fate of the Roman Vestal who was proved to have
violated her vow. Neither in Peru, however, nor in Pagan Rome was the
obligation to virginity so stringent as in the Papacy. It was not perpetual,
and therefore not so exceedingly demoralising. After a time, the nuns might be
delivered from their confinement, and marry; from all hopes of which they are
absolutely cut off in the Church of Rome. In all these cases, however, it is
plain that the principle on which these institutions were founded was
originally the same. ”One is astonished,” adds Prescott, ”to find so close a
resemblance between the institutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman,
and the modern Catholic.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Prescott finds it difficult to account for this resemblance; but the one
little sentence from the prophet Jeremiah, which was quoted at the commencement
of this inquiry, accounts for it completely: ”Babylon hath been a golden cup in
the Lord’s hand, that hath made ALL THE EARTH drunken” (Jer 51:7). This is the
Rosetta stone that has helped already to bring to light so much of the secret
iniquity of the Papacy, and that is destined still further to decipher the dark
mysteries of every system of heathen mythology that either has been or that is.
The statement of this text can be proved to be a literal fact. It can be proved
that the idolatry of the whole earth is one, that the sacred language of all
nations is radically Chaldean–that the GREAT GODS of every country and clime
are called by Babylonian names–and that all the Paganisms of the human race are
only a wicked and deliberate, but yet most instructive corruption of the
primeval gospel first preached in Eden, and through Noah, afterwards conveyed
to all mankind. The system, first concocted in Babylon, and thence conveyed to
the ends of the earth, has been modified and diluted in different ages and countries.
In Papal Rome only is it now found nearly pure and entire. But yet, amid all
the seeming variety of heathenism, there is an astonishing oneness and
identity, bearing testimony to the truth of God’s Word. The overthrow of all
idolatry cannot now be distant. But before the idols of the heathens shall be
finally cast to the moles and to the bats, I am persuaded that they will be
made to fall down and worship ”the Lord the king,” to bear testimony to His
glorious truth, and with one loud and united acclaim, ascribe salvation, and
glory, and honour, and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the
Lamb, for ever and ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
The Two Babylons<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VII<br />
The Two Developments Historically and Prophetically Considered</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hitherto we have considered the history of the Two Babylons chiefly in
detail. Now we are to view them as organised systems. The idolatrous system of
the ancient Babylon assumed different phases in different periods of its
history. In the prophetic description of the modern Babylon, there is evidently
also a development of different powers at different times. Do these two
developments bear any typical relation to each other? Yes, they do. When we
bring the religious history of the ancient Babylonian Paganism to bear on the
prophetic symbols that shadow forth the organised working of idolatry in Rome,
it will be found that it casts as much light on this view of the subject as on
that which has hitherto engaged our attention. The powers of iniquity at work
in the modern Babylon are specifically described in chapters 12 and 13 of the
Revelation; and they are as follows:–I. The Great Red Dragon; II. The Beast
that comes up out of the sea; III. The Beast that ascendeth out of the earth;
and IV. The Image of the Beast. In all these respects it will be found, on
inquiry, that, in regard to succession and order of development, the Paganism
of the Old Testament Babylon was the exact type of the Paganism of the new.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">____________________</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Section I<br />
The Great Red Dragon</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This formidable enemy of the truth is particularly described in Revelation
12:3–”And there appeared another wonder in heaven, a great red dragon.” It is
admitted on all hands that this is the first grand enemy that in Gospel times
assaulted the Christian Church. If the terms in which it is described, and the
deeds attributed to it, are considered, it will be found that there is a great
analogy between it and the first enemy of all, that appeared against the
ancient Church of God soon after the Flood. The term dragon, according to the
associations currently connected with it, is somewhat apt to mislead the
reader, by recalling to his mind the fabulous dragons of the Dark Ages,
equipped with wings. At the time this Divine description was given, the term
dragon had no such meaning among either profane or sacred writers. ”The dragon
of the Greeks,” says Pausanias, ”was only a large snake”; and the context shows
that this is the very case here; for what in the third verse is called a
”dragon,” in the fourteenth is simply described as a ”serpent.” Then the word
rendered ”Red” properly means ”Fiery”; so that the ”Red Dragon” signifies the
”Fiery Serpent” or ”Serpent of Fire.” Exactly so does it appear to have been in
the first form of idolatry, that, under the patronage of Nimrod, appeared in
the ancient world. The ”Serpent of Fire” in the plains of Shinar seems to have
been the grand object of worship. There is the strongest evidence that apostacy
among the sons of Noah began in fire-worship, and that in connection with the
symbol of the serpent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We have seen already, on different occasions, that fire was worshipped as
the enlightener and the purifier. Now, it was thus at the very beginning; for
Nimrod is singled out by the voice of antiquity as commencing this
fire-worship. The identity of Nimrod and Ninus has already been proved; and
under the name of Ninus, also, he is represented as originating the same
practice. In a fragment of Apollodorus it is said that ”Ninus taught the
Assyrians to worship fire.” The sun, as the great source of light and heat, was
worshipped under the name of Baal. Now, the fact that the sun, under that name,
was worshipped in the earliest ages of the world, shows the audacious character
of these first beginnings of apostacy. Men have spoken as if the worship of the
sun and of the heavenly bodies was a very excusable thing, into which the human
race might very readily and very innocently fall. But how stands the fact?
According to the primitive language of mankind, the sun was called
”Shemesh”–that is, ”the Servant”–that name, no doubt, being divinely given, to
keep the world in mind of the great truth that, however glorious was the orb of
day, it was, after all, the appointed Minister of the bounty of the great
unseen Creator to His creatures upon earth. Men knew this, and yet with the
full knowledge of it, they put the servant in the place of the Master; and
called the sun Baal–that is, the Lord–and worshipped him accordingly. What a
meaning, then, in the saying of Paul, that, ”when they knew God, they glorified
Him not as God”; but ”changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed for
ever.” The beginning, then, of sun-worship, and of the worship of the host of
heaven, was a sin against the light–a presumptuous, heaven-daring sin. As the
sun in the heavens was the great object of worship, so fire was worshipped as
its earthly representative. To this primeval fire-worship Vitruvius alludes
when he says that ”men were first formed into states and communities by meeting
around fires.” And this is exactly in conformity with what we have already seen
in regard to Phoroneus, whom we have identified with Nimrod, that while he was
said to be the ”inventor of fire,” he was also regarded as the first that
”gathered mankind into communities.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Along with the sun, as the great fire-god, and, in due time, identified
with him, was the serpent worshipped. ”In the mythology of the primitive
world,” says Owen, ”the serpent is universally the symbol of the sun.” In
Egypt, one of the commonest symbols of the sun, or sun-god, is a disc with a
serpent around it. The original reason of that identification seems just to
have been that, as the sun was the great enlightener of the physical world, so
the serpent was held to have been the great enlightener of the spiritual, by
giving mankind the ”knowledge of good and evil.” This, of course, implies
tremendous depravity on the part of the ring-leaders in such a system,
considering the period when it began; but such appears to have been the real
meaning of the identification. At all events, we have evidence, both Scriptural
and profane, for the fact, that the worship of the serpent began side by side
with the worship of fire and the sun. The inspired statement of Paul seems
decisive on the subject. It was, he says, ”when men knew God, but glorified Him
not as God,” that they changed the glory of God, not only into an image made
like to corruptible man, but into the likeness of ”creeping things”–that is, of
serpents (Rom 1:23). With this profane history exactly coincides. Of profane
writers, Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician, who is believed to have lived about the
time of Joshua, says–”Thoth first attributed something of the divine nature to
the serpent and the serpent tribe, in which he was followed by the Phoenicians
and Egyptians. For this animal was esteemed by him to be the most spiritual of
all the reptiles, and of a FIERY nature, inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible
celerity, moving by its spirit, without either hands or feet…Moreover, it is
long-lived, and has the quality of RENEWING ITS YOUTH…as Thoth has laid down in
the sacred books; upon which accounts this animal is introduced in the sacred
rites and Mysteries.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, Thoth, it will be remembered, was the counsellor of Thamus, that is,
Nimrod. From this statement, then, we are led to the conclusion that
serpent-worship was a part of the primeval apostacy of Nimrod. The ”FIERY
NATURE” of the serpent, alluded to in the above extract, is continually
celebrated by the heathen poets. Thus Virgil, ”availing himself,” as the author
of Pompeii remarks, ”of the divine nature attributed to serpents,” describes
the sacred serpent that came from the tomb of Anchises, when his son Aeneas had
been sacrificing before it, in such terms as illustrate at once the language of
the Phoenician, and the ”Fiery Serpent” of the passage before us:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Scarce had he finished, when,
with speckled pride,<br />
A serpent from the tomb began to glide;<br />
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled,<br />
Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold.<br />
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass<br />
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is not wonderful, then, the fire-worship and serpent-worship should be
conjoined. The serpent, also, as ”renewing its youth” every year, was plausibly
represented to those who wished an excuse for idolatry as a meet emblem of the
sun, the great regenerator, who every year regenerates and renews the face of
nature, and who, when deified, was worshipped as the grand Regenerator of the
souls of men.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the chapter under consideration, the ”great fiery serpent” is
represented with all the emblems of royalty. All its heads are encircled with
”crowns or diadems”; and so in Egypt, the serpent of fire, or serpent of the
sun, in Greek was called the Basilisk, that is, the ”royal serpent,” to identify
it with Moloch, which name, while it recalls the ideas both of fire and blood,
properly signifies ”the King.” The Basilisk was always, among the Egyptians,
and among many nations besides, regarded as ”the very type of majesty and
dominion.” As such, its image was worn affixed to the head-dress of the
Egyptian monarchs; and it was not lawful for any one else to wear it. The sun
identified with this serpent was called ”P’ouro,” which signifies at one ”the
Fire” and ”the King,” and from this very name the epithet ”Purros,” the
”Fiery,” is given to the ”Great seven-crowned serpent” of our text. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The word Purros in the text does not exclude the idea of ”Red,” for the
sun-god was painted red to identify him with Moloch, at once the god of fire
and god of blood.–(WILKINSON). The primary leading idea, however, is that of
Fire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus was the Sun, the Great Fire-god, identified with the Serpent. But he
had also a human representative, and that was Tammuz, for whom the daughters of
Israel lamented, in other words Nimrod. We have already seen the identity of
Nimrod and Zoroaster. Now, Zoroaster was not only the head of the Chaldean
Mysteries, but, as all admit, the head of the fire-worshippers.(see</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)
The title given to Nimrod, as the first of the Babylonian kings, by Berosus,
indicates the same thing. That title is Alorus, that is, ”the god of fire.” As
Nimrod, ”the god of fire,” was Molk-Gheber, or, ”the Mighty king,” inasmuch as he
was the first who was called Moloch, or King, and the first who began to be
”mighty” (Gheber) on the earth, we see at once how it was that the ”passing
through the fire to Moloch” originated, and how the god of fire among the
Romans came to be called ”Mulkiber.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Commonly spelled Mulciber (OVID, Art. Am.); but the Roman c was hard.
From the epithet ”Gheber,” the Parsees, or fire-worshippers of India, are still
called ”Guebres.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was only after his death, however, that he appears to have been deified.
Then, retrospectively, he was worshipped as the child of the Sun, or the Sun
incarnate. In his own life-time, however, he set up no higher pretensions than
that of being Bol-Khan, or Priest of Baal, from which the other name of the
Roman fire-god Vulcan is evidently derived. Everything in the history of Vulcan
exactly agrees with that of Nimrod. Vulcan was ”the most ugly and deformed” of
all the gods. Nimrod, over all the world, is represented with the features and
complexion of a negro. Though Vulcan was so ugly, that when he sought a wife,
”all the beautiful goddesses rejected him with horror”; yet ”Destiny, the
irrevocable, interposed, and pronounced the decree, by which [Venus] the most
beautiful of the goddesses, was united to the most unsightly of the gods.” So,
in spite of the black and Cushite features of Nimrod, he had for his queen
Semiramis, the most beautiful of women. The wife of Vulcan was noted for her
infidelities and licentiousness; the wife of Nimrod was the very same. * Vulcan
was the head and chief of the Cyclops, that is, ”the kings of flame.” **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Nimrod, as universal king, was Khuk-hold, ”King of the world.” As such,
the emblem of his power was the bull’s horns. Hence the origin of the
Cuckhold’s horns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Kuclops, from Khuk, ”king,” and Lohb, ”flame.” The image of the great
god was represented with three eyes–one in the forehead; hence the story of the
Cyclops with the one eye in the forehead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nimrod was the head of the fire-worshippers. Vulcan was the forger of the
thunderbolts by which such havoc was made among the enemies of the gods. Ninus,
or Nimrod, in his wars with the king of Bactria, seems to have carried on the
conflict in a similar way. From Arnobius we learn, that when the Assyrians
under Ninus made war against the Bactrians, the warfare was waged not only by
the sword and bodily strength, but by magic and by means derived from the
secret instructions of the Chaldeans. When it is known that the historical
Cyclops are, by the historian Castor, traced up to the very time of Saturn or
Belus, the first king of Babylon, and when we learn that Jupiter (who was
worshipped in the very same character as Ninus, ”the child”), when fighting
against the Titans, ”received from the Cyclops aid” by means of ”dazzling
lightnings and thunders,” we may have some pretty clear idea of the magic arts
derived from the Chaldean Mysteries, which Ninus employed against the Bactrian
king. There is evidence that, down to a late period, the priests of the
Chaldean Mysteries knew the composition of the formidable Greek fire, which
burned under water, and the secret of which has been lost; and there can be
little doubt that Nimrod, in erecting his power, availed himself of such or
similar scientific secrets, which he and his associates alone possessed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In these, and other respects yet to be noticed, there is an exact
coincidence between Vulcan, the god of fire of the Romans, and Nimrod, the
fire-god of Babylon. In the case of the classic Vulcan, it is only in his
character of the fire-god as a physical agent that he is popularly represented.
But it was in his spiritual aspects, in cleansing and regenerating the souls of
men, that the fire-worship told most effectually on the world. The power, the
popularity, and skill of Nimrod, as well as the seductive nature of the system
itself, enabled him to spread the delusive doctrine far and wide, as he was
represented under the well-known name of Phaethon, (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#noteb"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)
as on the point of ”setting the whole world on fire,” or (without the poetical
metaphor) of involving all mankind in the guilt of fire-worship. The
extraordinary prevalence of the worship of the fire-god in the early ages of
the world, is proved by legends found over all the earth, and by facts in
almost every clime. Thus, in Mexico, the natives relate, that in primeval
times, just after the first age, the world was burnt up with fire. As their
history, like the Egyptian, was written in Hieroglyphics, it is plain that this
must be symbolically understood. In India, they have a legend to the very same
effect, though somewhat varied in its form. The Brahmins say that, in a very
remote period of the past, one of the gods shone with such insufferable
splendour, ”inflicting distress on the universe by his effulgent beams,
brighter than a thousand worlds,” * that, unless another more potent god had
interposed and cut off his head, the result would have been most disastrous.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* SKANDA PURAN, and PADMA PURAN, apud KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology, p. 275.
In the myth, this divinity is represented as the fifth head of Brahma; but as
this head is represented as having gained the knowledge that made him so
insufferably proud by perusing the Vedas produced by the other four heads of
Brahma, that shows that he must have been regarded as having a distinct
individuality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Druidic Triads of the old British Bards, there is distinct reference
to the same event. They say that in primeval times a ”tempest of fire arose,
which split the earth asunder to the great deep,” from which none escaped but
”the select company shut up together in the enclosure with the strong door,”
with the great ”patriarch distinguished for his integrity,” that is evidently
with Shem, the leader of the faithful–who preserved their ”integrity” when so
many made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. These stories all point to
one and the same period, and they show how powerful had been this form of
apostacy. The Papal purgatory and the fires of St. John’s Eve, which we have already
considered, and many other fables or practices still extant, are just so many
relics of the same ancient superstition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It will be observed, however, that the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery
Serpent, is represented as standing before the Woman with the crown of twelve
stars, that is, the true Church of God, ”To devour her child as soon as it
should be born.” Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the
Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the
devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in
sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer. Though, at his first
deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child, yet, as the first of
mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual father of all the
Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards
universally regarded. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Phaethon, though the child of the sun, is also called the Father of the
gods. (LACTANTIUS, De Falsa Religione) In Egypt, too, Vulcan was the Father of
the gods. (AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and
every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, ”he
devoured his sons as soon as they were born.” Such is the analogy between type
and antitype. This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to
Nimrod, or ”The Horned One,” it just refers to the fact, that, as the
representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at
his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the
records of antiquity. ”The Phenicians,” says Eusebius, ”every year sacrificed
their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn, and the Rhodians
also often did the same.” Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians, on
one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore pressed, in order to
rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat departed from the
ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily ”chose out two hundred of
the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them” to this god. There
is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the
times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody
gods. We have evidence that they made ”their children pass through the fire to
Moloch,” and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in
sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we find that
these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids
worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage
proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When ”the fruit of the
body” was thus offered, it was ”for the sin of the soul.” And it was a
principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal
faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering
(Num 18:9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required
to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that ”Cahna-Bal,”
* the ”Priest of Baal,” is the established word in our own tongue for a
devourer of human flesh. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The word Cahna is the emphatic form of Cahn. Cahn is ”a priest,” Cahna is
”the priest.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** From the historian Castor (in Armenian translation of EUSEBIUS) we learn
that it was under Bel, or Belus, that is Baal, that the Cyclops lived; and the
Scholiast on Aeschylus states that these Cyclops were the brethren of Kronos,
who was also Bel or Bal, as we have elsewhere seen. The eye in their forehead
shows that originally this name was a name of the great god; for that eye in
India and Greece is found the characteristic of the supreme divinity. The
Cyclops, then, had been representatives of that God–in other words, priests,
and priests of Bel or Bal. Now, we find that the Cyclops were well-known as
cannibals, Referre ritus Cyclopum, ”to bring back the rites of the Cyclops,”
meaning to revive the practice of eating human flesh. (OVID, Metam.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the ancient traditions relate that the apostates who joined in the
rebellion of Nimrod made war upon the faithful among the sons of Noah. Power
and numbers were on the side of the fire-worshippers. But on the side of Shem
and the faithful was the mighty power of God’s Spirit. Therefore many were
convinced of their sin, arrested in their evil career; and victory, as we have
already seen, declared for the saints. The power of Nimrod came to an end, *
and with that, for a time, the worship of the sun, and the fiery serpent
associated with it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The wars of the giants against heaven, referred to in ancient heathen
writers, had primary reference to this war against the saints; for men cannot
make war upon God except by attacking the people of God. The ancient writer
Eupolemus, as quoted by Eusebius (Praeparatio Evang.), states, that the
builders of the tower of Babel were these giants; which statement amounts
nearly to the same thing as the conclusion to which we have already come, for
we have seen that the ”mighty ones” of Nimrod were ”the giants” of antiquity.
Epiphanius records that Nimrod was a ringleader among these giants, and that
”conspiracy, sedition, and tyranny were carried on under him.” From the very
necessity of the case, the faithful must have suffered most, as being most
opposed to his ambitious and sacrilegious schemes. That Nimrod’s reign
terminated in some very signal catastrophe, we have seen abundant reason
already to conclude. The following statement of Syncellus confirms the
conclusions to which we have already come as to the nature of that catastrophe;
referring to the arresting of the tower-building scheme, Syncellus
(Chronographia) proceeds thus: ”But Nimrod would still obstinately stay (when
most of the other tower-builders were dispersed), and reside upon the spot; nor
could he be withdrawn from the tower, still having the command over no
contemptible body of men. Upon this, we are informed, that the tower, being
beat upon by violent winds, gave way, and by the just judgment of God, crushed
him to pieces.” Though this could not be literally true, for the tower stood
for many ages, yet there is a considerable amount of tradition to the effect
that the tower in which Nimrod gloried was overthrown by wind, which gives
reason to suspect that this story, when properly understood, had a real meaning
in it. Take it figuratively, and remembering that the same word which signifies
the wind signifies also the Spirit of God, it becomes highly probable that the
meaning is, that his lofty and ambitious scheme, by which, in Scriptural
language, he was seeking to ”mount up to heaven,” and ”set his nest among the
stars,” was overthrown for a time by the Spirit of God, as we have already
concluded, and that, in that overthrow he himself perished.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The case was exactly as stated here in regard to the antitype (Rev 12:9):
”The great dragon,” or fiery serpent, was ”cast out of heaven to the earth, and
his angels were cast out with him”; that is, the Head of the fire-worship, and all
his associates and underlings, were cast down from the power and glory to which
they had been raised. Then was the time when the whole gods of the classic
Pantheon of Greece were fain to flee and hide themselves from the wrath of
their adversaries. Then it was, that, in India, Indra, the king of the gods,
Surya, the god of the sun, Agni, the god of fire, and all the rabble rout of
the Hindu Olympus, were driven from heaven, wandered over the earth, or hid
themselves, in forests, disconsolate, and ready to ”perish of hunger.” Then it
was that Phaethon, while driving the chariot of the sun, when on the point of
setting the world on fire, was smitten by the Supreme God, and cast headlong to
the earth, while his sisters, the daughters of the sun, inconsolably lamented
him, as, ”the women wept for Tammuz.” Then it was, as the reader must be
prepared to see, that Vulcan, or Molk-Gheber, the classic ”god of fire,” was so
ignominiously hurled down from heaven, as he himself relates in Homer, speaking
of the wrath of the King of Heaven, which in this instance must mean God Most
High:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”I felt his matchless might,<br />
Hurled headlong downwards from the ethereal height;<br />
Tossed all the day in rapid circles round,<br />
Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground.<br />
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost.<br />
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The lines, in which Milton refers to this same downfall, though he gives it
another application, still more beautifully describe the greatness of the
overthrow:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”In Ausonian land<br />
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell<br />
From heaven, they fabled. Thrown by angry Jove<br />
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn<br />
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,<br />
A summer’s day; and, with the setting sun,<br />
Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star.<br />
On Lemnos, the Aegean isle.”<br />
Paradise Lost</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These words very strikingly show the tremendous fall of Molk-Gheber, or
Nimrod, ”the Mighty King,” when ”suddenly he was cast down from the height of
his power, and was deprived at once of his kingdom and his life.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Greek poets speak of two downfalls of Vulcan. In the one case he was
cast down by Jupiter, in the other by Juno. When Jupiter cast him down, it was
for rebellion; when Juno did so, one of the reasons specially singled out for
doing so was his ”malformation,” that is, his ugliness. (HOMER’S Hymn to
Apollo) How exactly does this agree with the story of Nimrod: First he was
personally cast down, when, by Divine authority, he was slain. Then he was cast
down, in effigy, by Juno, when his image was degraded from the arms of the
Queen of Heaven, to make way for the fairer child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, to this overthrow there is very manifest allusion in the prophetic
apostrophe of Isaiah to the king of Babylon, exulting over his approaching
downfall: ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning”! The
Babylonian king pretended to be a representative of Nimrod or Phaethon; and the
prophet, in these words, informs him, that, as certainly as the god in whom he
gloried had been cast down from his high estate, so certainly should he. In the
classic story, Phaethon is said to have been consumed with lightning (and, as
we shall see by-and-by, Aesculapius also died the same death); but the
lightning is a mere metaphor for the wrath of God, under which his life and his
kingdom had come to an end. When the history is examined, and the figure
stripped off, it turns out, as we have already seen, that he was judicially
slain with the sword. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Though Orpheus was commonly represented as having been torn in pieces, he
too was fabled to have been killed by lightning. (PAUSANIAS, Boeotica) When
Zoroaster died, he also is said in the myth to have perished by lightning
(SUIDAS); and therefore, in accordance with that myth, he is represented as
charging his countrymen to preserve not his body, but his ”ashes.” The death by
lightning, however, is evidently a mere figure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such is the language of the prophecy, and so exactly does it correspond
with the character, and deeds, and fate of the ancient type. How does it suit the
antitype? Could the power of Pagan Imperial Rome–that power that first
persecuted the Church of Christ, that stood by its soldiers around the tomb of
the Son of God Himself, to devour Him, if it had been possible, when He should
be brought forth, as the first-begotten from the dead, * to rule all nations–be
represented by a ”Fiery Serpent”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The birth of the Man-child, as given above, is different from that
usually given: but let the reader consider if the view which I have taken does
not meet all the requirements of the case. I think there will be but few who
will assent to the opinion of Mr. Elliot, which in substance amounts to this,
that the Man-child was Constantine the Great, and that when Christianity, in
his person sat down on the throne of Imperial Rome, that was the fulfilment of
the saying, that the child brought forth by the woman, amid such pangs of
travail, was ”caught up to God and His throne.” When Constantine came to the
empire, the Church indeed, as foretold in Daniel 11:34, ”was holpen with a
little help”; but that was all. The Christianity of Constantine was but of a
very doubtful kind, the Pagans seeing nothing in it to hinder but that when he
died, he should be enrolled among their gods. (EUTROPIUS) But even though it
had been better, the description of the woman’s child is far too high for
Constantine, or any Christian emperor that succeeded him on the imperial
throne. ”The Man-child, born to rule all nations with a rod of iron,” is
unequivocally Christ (see Psalms 2:9; Rev 19:15). True believers, as one with
Him in a subordinate sense, share in that honour (Rev 2:27); but to Christ
alone, properly, does that prerogative belong; and I think it must be evident
that it is His birth that is here referred to. But those who have contended for
this view have done injustice to their cause by representing this passage as
referring to His literal birth in Bethlehem. When Christ was born in Bethlehem,
no doubt Herod endeavoured to cut Him off, and Herod was a subject of the Roman
Empire. But it was not from any respect to Caesar that he did so, but simply
from fear of danger to his own dignity as King of Judea. So little did Caesar
sympathise with the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, that it is recorded
that Augustus, on hearing of it, remarked that it was ”better to be Herod’s hog
than to be his child.” (MACROBIUS, Saturnalia) Then, even if it were admitted
that Herod’s bloody attempt to cut off the infant Saviour was symbolised by the
Roman dragon, ”standing ready to devour the child as soon as it should be
born,” where was there anything that could correspond to the statement that the
child, to save it from that dragon, ”was caught up to God and His Throne”? The
flight of Joseph and Mary with the Child into Egypt could never answer to such
language. Moreover, it is worthy of special note, that when the Lord Jesus was
born in Bethlehem, He was born, in a very important sense only as ”King of the
Jews.” ”Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” was the inquiry of the wise
men that came from the East to seek Him. All His life long, He appeared in no
other character; and when He died, the inscription on His cross ran in these
terms: ”This is the King of the Jews.” Now, this was no accidental thing. Paul
tells us (Rom 15:8) that ”Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for
the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.” Our Lord
Himself plainly declared the same thing. ”I am not sent,” said He to the
Syrophoenician woman, ”save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; and, in
sending out His disciples during His personal ministry, this was the charge
which He gave them: ”Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of
the Samaritans enter ye not.” It was only when He was ”begotten from the dead,”
and ”declared to be the Son of God with power,” by His victory over the grave,
that He was revealed as ”the Man-child, born to rule all nations.” Then said He
to His disciples, when He had risen, and was about to ascend on high: ”All
power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and teach
allnations.” To this glorious ”birth” from the tomb, and to the birth-pangs of
His Church that preceded it, our Lord Himself made distinct allusion on the
night before He was betrayed (John 16:20-22). ”Verily, verily, I say unto you,
That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be
sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in
travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a MAN is born
into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and
your heart shall rejoice.” Here the grief of the apostles, and, of course, all
the true Church that sympathised with them during the hour and power of
darkness, is compared to the pangs of a travailing woman; and their joy, when
the Saviour should see them again after His resurrection, to the joy of a
mother when safely delivered of a Man-child. Can there be a doubt, then, what
the symbol before us means, when the woman is represented as travailing in pain
to be delivered of a ”Man-child, that was to rule all nations,” and when it is
said that that ”Man-child was caught up to God and His Throne”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nothing could more lucidly show it forth. Among the lords many, and the
gods many, worshipped in the imperial city, the two grand objects of worship
were the ”Eternal Fire,” kept perpetually burning in the temple of Vesta, and
the sacred Epidaurian Serpent. In Pagan Rome, this fire-worship and
serpent-worship were sometimes separate, sometimes conjoined; but both occupied
a pre-eminent place in Roman esteem. The fire of Vesta was regarded as one of
the grand safeguards of the empire. It was pretended to have been brought from
Troy by Aeneas, who had it confided to his care by the shade of Hector, and was
kept with the most jealous care by the Vestal virgins, who, for their charge of
it, were honoured with the highest honours. The temple where it was kept, says
Augustine, ”was the most sacred and most reverenced of all the temples of
Rome.” The fire that was so jealously guarded in that temple, and on which so
much was believed to depend, was regarded in the very same light as by the old
Babylonian fire-worshippers. It was looked upon as the purifier, and in April
every year, at the Palilia, or feast of Pales, both men and cattle, for this
purpose, were made to pass through the fire. The Epidaurian snake, that the
Romans worshipped along with the fire, was looked on as the divine
representation of Aesculapius, the child of the Sun. Aesculapius, whom that
sacred snake represented, was evidently, just another name for the great
Babylonian god. His fate was exactly the same as that of Phaethon. He was said
to have been smitten with lightning for raising the dead. It is evident that
this could never have been the case in a physical sense, nor could it easily
have been believed to be so. But view it in a spiritual sense, and then the
statement is just this, that he was believed to raise men who were dead in
trespasses and sins to newness of life. Now, this was exactly what Phaethon was
pretending to do, when he was smitten for setting the world on fire. In the
Babylonian system there was a symbolical death, that all the initiated had to
pass through, before they got the new life which was implied in regeneration,
and that just to declare that they had passed from death unto life. As the
passing through the fire was both a purgation from sin and the means of
regeneration, so it was also for raising the dead that Phaethon was smitten.
Then, as Aesculapius was the child of the Sun, so was Phaethon. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The birth of Aesculapius in the myth was just the same as that of
Bacchus. His mother was consumed by lightning, and the infant was rescued from
the lightning that consumed her, as Bacchus was snatched from the flames that
burnt up his mother.–LEMPRIERE</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To symbolise this relationship, the head of the image of Aesculapius was
generally encircled with rays. The Pope thus encircles the heads of the
pretended images of Christ; but the real source of these irradiations is patent
to all acquainted either with the literature or the art of Rome. Thus speaks
Virgil of Latinus:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”And now, in pomp, the
peaceful kings appear,<br />
Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear,<br />
Twelve golden beams around his temples play,<br />
To mark his lineage from the god of day.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The ”golden beams” around the head of Aesculapius were intended to mark the
same, to point him out as the child of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. The ”golden
beams” around the heads of pictures and images called by the name of Christ,
were intended to show the Pagans that they might safely worship them, as the
images of their well-known divinities, though called by a different name. Now
Aesculapius, in a time of deadly pestilence, had been invited from Epidaurus to
Rome. The god, under the form of a larger serpent, entered the ship that was
sent to convey him to Rome, and having safely arrived in the Tiber, was
solemnly inaugurated as the guardian god of the Romans. From that time forth,
in private as well as in public, the worship of the Epidaurian snake, the
serpent that represented the Sun-divinity incarnate, in other words, the
”Serpent of Fire,” became nearly universal. In almost every house the sacred serpent,
which was a harmless sort, was to be found. ”These serpents nestled about the
domestic altars,” says the author of Pompeii, ”and came out, like dogs or cats,
to be patted by the visitors, and beg for something to eat. Nay, at table, if
we may build upon insulated passages, they crept about the cups of the guests,
and, in hot weather, ladies would use them as live boas, and twist them round
their necks for the sake of coolness…These sacred animals made war on the rats
and mice, and thus kept down one species of vermin; but as they bore a charmed
life, and no one laid violent hands on them, they multiplied so fast, that,
like the monkeys of Benares, they became an intolerable nuisance. The frequent
fires at Rome were the only things that kept them under.” Some pictures
represent Roman fire-worship and serpent-worship at once separate and
conjoined. The reason of the double representation of the god I cannot here
enter into, but it must be evident, from the words of Virgil already quoted,
that the figures having their heads encircled with rays, represent the
fire-god, or Sun-divinity; and what is worthy of special note is, that these
fire-gods are black, * the colour thereby identifying them with the Ethiopian
or black Phaethon; while, as the author of Pompeii himself admits, these same
black fire-gods are represented by two huge serpents.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* ”All the faces in his (MAZOIS’) engraving are quite black.” (Pompeii) In
India, the infant Crishna (emphatically the black god), in the arms of the
goddess Devaki, is represented with the woolly hair and marked features of the
Negro or African race.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if this worship of the sacred serpent of the Sun, the great fire-god,
was so universal in Rome, what symbol could more graphically portray the
idolatrous power of Pagan Imperial Rome than the ”Great Fiery Serpent”? No
doubt it was to set forth this very thing that the Imperial standard itself–the
standard of the Pagan Emperor of Rome, as Pontifex Maximus, Head of the great
system of fire-worship and serpent-worship–was a serpent elevated on a lofty
pole, and so coloured, as to exhibit it as a recognised symbol of
fire-worship. (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#notec"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, the powers of light and
darkness came into collision (Rev 12:7,8): ”Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast
out;…he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
The ”great serpent of fire” was cast out, when, by the decree of Gratian,
Paganism throughout the Roman empire was abolished–when the fires of Vesta were
extinguished, and the revenues of the Vestal virgins were confiscated–when the
Roman Emperor (who though for more than a century and a half a professor of
Christianity, had been ”Pontifex Maximus,” the very head of the idolatry of
Rome, and as such, on high occasions, appearing invested with all the
idolatrous insignia of Paganism), through force of conscience abolished his own
office. While Nimrod was personally and literally slain by the sword, it was
through the sword of the Spirit that Shem overcame the system of fire-worship,
and so bowed the hearts of men, as to cause it for a time to be utterly
extinguished. In like manner did the Dragon of fire, in the Roman Empire,
receive a deadly wound from a sword, and that the sword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God. There is thus far an exact analogy between the type and the
antitype.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But not only is there this analogy. It turns out, when the records of
history are searched to the bottom, that when the head of the Pagan idolatry of
Rome was slain with the sword by the extinction of the office of Pontifex
Maximus, the last Roman Pontifex Maximus was the ACTUAL, LEGITIMATE, SOLE
REPRESENTATIVE OF NIMROD and his idolatrous system then existing. To make this
clear, a brief glance at the Roman history is necessary. In common with all the
earth, Rome at a very early prehistoric period, had drunk deep of Babylon’s
”golden cup.” But above and beyond all other nations, it had had a connection
with the idolatry of Babylon that put it in a position peculiar and alone. Long
before the days of Romulus, a representative of the Babylonian Messiah, called
by his name, had fixed his temple as a god, and his palace as a king, on one of
those very heights which came to be included within the walls of that city
which Remus and his brother were destined to found. On the Capitoline hill, so
famed in after-days as the great high place of Roman worship, Saturnia, or the
city of Saturn, the great Chaldean god, had in the days of dim and distant
antiquity been erected. Some revolution had then taken place–the graven images
of Babylon had been abolished–the erecting of any idol had been sternly
prohibited, * and when the twin founders of the now world-renowned city reared
its humble walls, the city and the palace of their Babylonian predecessor had
long lain in ruins.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* PLUTARCH (in Hist. Numoe) states, that Numa forbade the making of images,
and that for 170 years after the founding of Rome, no images were allowed in
the Roman temples.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The ruined state of this sacred city, even in the remote age of Evander, is
alluded to by Virgil. Referring to the time when Aeneas is said to have visited
that ancient Italian king, thus he speaks:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Then saw two heaps of ruins;
once they stood<br />
Two stately towns on either side the flood;<br />
Saturnia and Janicula’s remains;<br />
And either place the founder’s name retains.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The deadly wound, however, thus given to the Chaldean system, was destined
to be healed. A colony of Etruscans, earnestly attached to the Chaldean
idolatry, had migrated, some say from Asia Minor, others from Greece, and
settled in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. They were ultimately
incorporated in the Roman state, but long before this political union took
place they exercised the most powerful influence on the religion of the Romans.
From the very first their skill in augury, soothsaying, and all science, real
or pretended, that the augurs or soothsayers monopolised, made the Romans look
up to them with respect. It is admitted on all hands that the Romans derived
their knowledge of augury, which occupied so prominent a place in every public
transaction in which they engaged, chiefly from the Tuscans, that is, the
people of Etruria, and at first none but natives of that country were permitted
to exercise the office of a Haruspex, which had respect to all the rites
essentially involved in sacrifice. Wars and disputes arose between Rome and the
Etruscans; but still the highest of the noble youths of Rome were sent to
Etruria to be instructed in the sacred science which flourished there. The
consequence was, that under the influence of men whose minds were moulded by
those who clung to the ancient idol-worship, the Romans were brought back again
to much of that idolatry which they had formerly repudiated and cast off.
Though Numa, therefore, in setting up his religious system, so far deferred to
the prevailing feeling of his day and forbade image-worship, yet in consequence
of the alliance subsisting between Rome and Etruria in sacred things, matters
were put in train for the ultimate subversion of that prohibition. The college
of Pontiffs, of which he laid the foundation, in process of time came to be
substantially an Etruscan college, and the Sovereign Pontiff that presided over
that college, and that controlled all the public and private religious rites of
the Roman people in all essential respects, became in spirit and in practice an
Etruscan Pontiff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Still the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome, even after the Etruscan idolatry was
absorbed into the Roman system, was only an offshoot from the grand original
Babylonian system. He was a devoted worshipper of the Babylonian god; but he
was not the legitimate representative of that God. The true legitimate
Babylonian Pontiff had his seat beyond the bounds of the Roman empire. That
seat, after the death of Belshazzar, and the expulsion of the Chaldean
priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos, where
afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia. * There, in consequence, for
many centuries was ”Satan’s seat” (Rev 2:13). There, under favour of the
deified ** kings of Pergamos, was his favourite abode, there was the worship of
Aesculapius, under the form of the serpent, celebrated with frantic orgies and
excesses, that elsewhere were kept under some measure of restraint.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* BARKER and AINSWORTH’S Lares and Penates of Cilicia. Barker says, ”The
defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at
Pergamos.” Phrygia, that was so remarkable for the worship of Cybele and Atys,
formed part of the Kingdom of Pergamos. Mysia also was another, and the
Mysians, in the Paschal Chronicle, are said to be descended from Nimrod. The
words are, ”Nebrod, the huntsman and giant–from whence came the Mysians.”
Lydia, also, from which Livy and Herodotus say the Etrurians came, formed part
of the same kingdom. For the fact that Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia were
constituent parts of the kingdom of Pergamos, see SMITH’s Classical Dictionary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** The kings of Pergamos, in whose dominions the Chaldean Magi found an
asylum, were evidently by them, and by the general voice of Paganism that
sympathised with them, put into the vacant place which Belshazzar and his
predecessors had occupied. They were hailed as the representatives of the old
Babylonian god. This is evident from the statements of Pausanias. First, he
quotes the following words from the oracle of a prophetess called Phaennis, in
reference to the Gauls: ”But divinity will still more seriously afflict those
that dwell near the sea. However, in a short time after, Jupiter will send them
a defender, the beloved son of a Jove-nourished bull, who will bring
destruction on all the Gauls.” Then on this he comments as follows: ”Phaennis,
in this oracle, means by the son of a bull, Attalus, king of Pergamos, whom the
oracle of Apollo called Taurokeron,” or bull-horned. This title given by the
Delphian god, proves that Attalus, in whose dominions the Magi had their seat,
had been set up and recognised in the very character of Bacchus, the Head of
the Magi. Thus the vacant seat of Belshazzar was filled, and the broken chain
of the Chaldean succession renewed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">At first, the Roman Pontiff had no immediate connection with Pergamos and
the hierarchy there; yet, in course of time, the Pontificate of Rome and the
Pontificate of Pergamos came to be identified. Pergamos itself became part and
parcel of the Roman empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his
death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people, BC 133. For some
time after the kingdom of Pergamos was merged in the Roman dominions, there was
no one who could set himself openly and advisedly to lay claim to all the
dignity inherent in the old title of the kings of Pergamos. The original powers
even of the Roman Pontiffs seem to have been by that time abridged, but when
Julius Caesar, who had previously been elected Pontifex Maximus, became also,
as Emperor, the supreme civil ruler of the Romans, then, as head of the Roman
state, and head of the Roman religion, all the powers and functions of the true
legitimate Babylonian Pontiff were supremely vested in him, and he found himself
in a position to assert these powers. Then he seems to have laid claim to the
divine dignity of Attalus, as well as the kingdom that Attalus had bequeathed
to the Romans, as centering in himself; for his well-known watchword, ”Venus
Genetrix,” which meant that Venus was the mother of the Julian race, appears to
have been intended to make him ”The Son” of the great goddess, even as the
”Bull-horned” Attalus had been regarded. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The deification of the emperors that continued in succession from the
days of Divus Julius, or the ”Deified Julius,” can be traced to no cause so
likely as their representing the ”Bull-horned” Attalus both as Pontiff and
Sovereign.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then, on certain occasions, in the exercise of his high pontifical office,
he appeared of course in all the pomp of the Babylonian costume, as Belshazzar
himself might have done, in robes of scarlet, with the crosier of Nimrod in his
hand, wearing the mitre of Dagon and bearing the keys of Janus and Cybele. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* That the key was one of the symbols used in the Mysteries, the reader
will find on consulting TAYLOR’S Note on Orphic Hymn to Pluto, where that
divinity is spoken of as ”keeper of the keys.” Now the Pontifex, as
”Hierophant,” was ”arrayed in the habit and adorned with the symbols of the
great Creator of the world, of whom in these Mysteries he was supposed to be
the substitute.” (MAURICE’S Antiquities) The Primeval or Creative god was
mystically represented as Androgyne, as combining in his own person both sexes
(Ibid.), being therefore both Janus and Cybele at the same time. In opening up
the Mysteries, therefore, of this mysterious divinity, it was natural that the
Pontifex should bear the key of both these divinities. Janus himself, however,
as well as Pluto, was often represented with more than one key.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus did matter continue, as already stated, even under so-called Christian
emperors; who, as a salve to their consciences, appointed a heathen as their
substitute in the performance of the more directly idolatrous functions of the
pontificate (that substitute, however, acting in their name and by their
authority), until the reign of Gratian, who, as shown by Gibbon, was the first
that refused to be arrayed in the idolatrous pontifical attire, or to act as
Pontifex. Now, from all this it is evident that, when Paganism in the Roman
empire was abolished, when the office of Pontifex Maximus was suppressed, and
all the dignitaries of paganism were cast down from their seats of influence
and of power, which they had still been allowed in some measure to retain, that
was not merely the casting down of the Fiery Dragon of Rome, but the casting
down of the Fiery Dragon of Babylon. It was just the enacting over again, in a
symbolical sense, upon the true and sole legitimate successor of Nimrod, what
had taken place upon himself, when the greatness of his downfall gave rise to
the exclamation, ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning”!</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Notes</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Zoroaster, the Head of the
Fire-Worshippers</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers, the following, among other
evidence, may prove. Not to mention that the name Zoroaster is almost a synonym
for a fire-worshipper, the testimony of Plutarch is of weight: ”Plutarch
acknowledges that Zoroaster among the Chaldeans instituted the Magi, in
imitation of whom the Persians also had their (Magi). * The Arabian History
also relates that Zaradussit, or Zerdusht, did not for the first time
institute, but (only) reform the religion of the Persians and Magi, who had
been divided into many sects.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The great antiquity of the institution of the Magi is proved from the
statement of Aristotle already referred to, as preserved in Theopompus, which
makes them to have been ”more ancient than the Egyptians,” whose antiquity is
well known. (Theopompi Fragmenta in MULLER).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The testimony of Agathias is to the same effect. He gives it as his opinion
that the worship of fire came from the Chaldeans to the Persians. That the Magi
among the Persians were the guardians of ”the sacred and eternal fire” may be
assumed from Curtius, who says that fire was carried before them ”on silver
altars”; from the statement of Strabo (Geograph.), that ”the Magi kept upon the
altar a quantity of ashes and an immortal fire,” and of Herodotus, that
”without them, no sacrifice could be offered.” The fire-worship was an
essential part of the system of the Persian Magi (WILSON, Parsee Religion).
This fire-worship the Persian Magi did not pretend to have invented; but their
popular story carried the origin of it up to the days of Hoshang, the father of
Tahmurs, who founded Babylon (WILSON)–i.e., the time of Nimrod. In confirmation
of this, we have seen that a fragment of Apollodorus makes Ninus the head of
the fire-worshipper, Layard, quoting this fragment, supposes Ninus to be
different from Zoroaster (Nineveh and its Remains); but it can be proved, that
though many others bore the name of Zoroaster, the lines of evidence all
converge, so as to demonstrate that Ninus and Nimrod and Zoroaster were one.
The legends of Zoroaster show that he was known not only as a Magus, but as a
Warrior (ARNOBIUS). Plato says that Eros Armenius (whom CLERICUS, De Chaldaeis,
states to have been the same as the fourth Zoroaster) died and rose again after
ten days, having been killed in battle; and that what he pretended to have
learned in Hades, he communicated to men in his new life (PLATO, De Republica).
We have seen the death of Nimrod, the original Zoroaster, was not that of a warrior
slain in battle; but yet this legend of the warrior Zoroaster is entirely in
favour of the supposition that the original Zoroaster, the original Head of the
Magi, was not a priest merely, but a warrior-king. Everywhere are the
Zoroastrians, or fire-worshippers, called Guebres or Gabrs. Now, Genesis 10:8
proves that Nimrod was the first of the ”Gabrs.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers, so Tammuz was evidently the
same. We have seen evidence already that sufficiently proves the identity of
Tammuz and Nimrod; but a few words may still more decisively prove it, and cast
further light on the primitive fire-worship. 1. In the first place, Tammuz and
Adonis are proved to be the same divinity. Jerome, who lived in Palestine when
the rites of Tammuz were observed, up to the very time when he wrote, expressly
identifies Tammuz and Adonis, in his Commentary on Ezekiel, where the Jewish
women are represented as weeping for Tammuz; and the testimony of Jerome on
this subject is universally admitted. Then the mode in which the rites of
Tammuz or Adonis were celebrated in Syria was essentially the same as the rites
of Osiris. The statement of Lucian (De Dea Syria) strikingly shows this, and
Bunsen distinctly admits it. The identity of Osiris and Nimrod has been largely
proved in the body of this work. When, therefore, Tammuz or Adonis is
identified with Osiris, the identification of Tammuz with Nimrod follows of
course. And then this entirely agrees with the language of Bion, in his Lament
for Adonis, where he represents Venus as going in a frenzy of grief, like a
Bacchant, after the death of Adonis, through the woods and valleys, and
”calling upon her Assyrian husband.” It equally agrees with the statement of
Maimonides, that when Tammuz was put to death, the grand scene of weeping for
that death was in the temple of Babylon. 2. Now, if Tammuz was Nimrod, the
examination of the meaning of the name confirms the connection of Nimrod with
the first fire-worship. After what has already been advanced, there needs no
argument to show that, as the Chaldeans were the first who introduced the name
and power of kings (SYNCELLUS), and as Nimrod was unquestionably the first of
these kings, and the first, consequently, that bore the title of Moloch, or
king, so it was in honour of him that the ”children were made to pass through
the fire to Moloch.” But the intention of that passing through the fire was
undoubtedly to purify. The name Tammuz has evidently reference to this, for it
signifies ”to perfect,” that is, ”to purify” * ”by fire”; and if Nimrod was, as
the Paschal Chronicle, and the general voice of antiquity, represent him to
have been, the originator of fire-worship, this name very exactly expresses his
character in that respect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From tam, ”to perfect,” and muz, ”to burn.” To be ”pure in heart” in
Scripture is just the same as to be ”perfect in heart.” The well-known name
Deucalion, as connected with the flood, seems to be a correlative term of the
water-worshippers. Dukh-kaleh signifies ”to purify by washing,” from Dikh, ”to
wash” (CLAVIS STOCKII), and Khaleh, ”to complete,” or ”perfect.” The noun from
the latter verb, found in 2 Chronicles 4:21, shows that the root means ”to
purify,” ”perfect gold” being in the Septuagint justly rendered ”pure gold.”
There is a name sometimes applied to the king of the gods that has some bearing
on this subject. That name is ”Akmon.” What is the meaning of it? It is
evidently just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew Khmn, ”the burner,” which becomes
Akmon in the same way as the Hebrew Dem, ”blood,” in Chaldee becomes ”Adem.”
Hesychius says that Akmon is Kronos, sub voce ”Akmon.” In Virgil (Aeneid) we
find this name compounded so as to be an exact synonym for Tammuz, Pyracmon
being the name of one of the three famous Cyclops whom the poet introduces. We
have seen that the original Cyclops were Kronos and his brethren, and deriving
the name from ”Pur,” the Chaldee form of Bur, ”to purify,” and ”Akmon,” it just
signifies ”The purifying burner.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is evident, however, from the Zoroastrian verse, elsewhere quoted, that
fire itself was worshipped as Tammuz, for it is called the ”Father that
perfected all things.” In one respect this represented fire as the Creative
god; but in another, there can be no doubt that it had reference to the
”perfecting” of men by ”purifying” them. And especially it perfected those whom
it consumed. This was the very idea that, from time immemorial until very
recently, led so many widows in India to immolate themselves on the funeral
piles of their husbands, the woman who thus burned herself being counted
blessed, because she became Suttee *–i.e., ”Pure by burning.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Siva.” The epithet for a woman that burns herself is
spelled ”Sati,” but is pronounced ”Suttee,” as above.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And this also, no doubt, reconciled the parents who actually sacrificed
their children to Moloch, to the cruel sacrifice, the belief being cherished
that the fire that consumed them also ”perfected” them, and made them meet for
eternal happiness. As both the passing through the fire, and the burning in the
fire, were essential rites in the worship of Moloch or Nimrod, this is an
argument that Nimrod was Tammuz. As the priest and representative of the
perfecting or purifying fire, it was he that carried on the work of perfecting
or purifying by fire, and so he was called by its name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When we turn to the legends of India, we find evidence to the very same
effect as that which we have seen with regard to Zoroaster and Tammuz as head
of the fire-worshippers. The fifth head of Brahma, that was cut off for
inflicting distress on the three worlds, by the ”effulgence of its dazzling
beams,” referred to in the text of this work, identifies itself with Nimrod.
The fact that that fifth head was represented as having read the Vedas, or
sacred books produced by the other four heads, shows, I think, a succession. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Indian Vedas that now exist do not seem to be of very great antiquity
as written documents; but the legend goes much further back than anything that
took place in India. The antiquity of writing seems to be very great, but
whether or not there was any written religious document in Nimrod’s day, a Veda
there must have been; for what is the meaning of the word ”Veda”? It is
evidently just the same as the Anglo-Saxon Edda with the digamma prefixed, and
both alike evidently come from ”Ed” a ”Testimony,” a ”Religious Record,” or
”confession of Faith.” Such a ”Record” or ”Confession,” either ”oral” or
”written,” must have existed from the beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, coming down from Noah, what would that succession be? We have evidence
from Berosus, that, in the days of Belus–that is, Nimrod–the custom of making
representations like that of two-headed Janus, had begun. Assume, then, that
Noah, as having lived in two worlds, has his two heads. Ham is the third, Cush
the fourth, and Nimrod is, of course, the fifth. And this fifth head was cut
off for doing the very thing for which Nimrod actually was cut off. I suspect
that this Indian myth is the key to open up the meaning of a statement of
Plutarch, which, according to the terms of it, as it stands, is visibly absurd.
It is as follows: Plutarch (in the fourth book of his Symposiaca) says that
”the Egyptians were of the opinion that darkness was prior to light, and that
the latter [viz. light] was produced from mice, in the fifth generation, at the
time of the new moon.” In India, we find that ”a new moon” was produced in a
different sense from the ordinary meaning of that term, and that the production
of that new moon was not only important in Indian mythology, but evidently
agreed in time with the period when the fifth head of Brahma scorched the world
with its insufferable splendour. The account of its production runs thus: that
the gods and mankind were entirely discontented with the moon which they had got,
”Because it gave no light,” and besides the plants were poor and the fruits of
no use, and that therefore they churned the White sea [or, as it is commonly
expressed, "they churned the ocean"], when all things were
mingled–i.e., were thrown into confusion, and that then a new moon, with a new
regent, was appointed, which brought in an entirely new system of things
(Asiatic Researches). From MAURICE’s Indian Antiquities, we learn that at this
very time of the churning of the ocean, the earth was set on fire, and a great
conflagration was the result. But the name of the moon in India is Soma, or Som
(for the final a is only a breathing, and the word is found in the name of the
famous temple of Somnaut, which name signifies ”Lord of the Moon”), and the
moon in India is male. As this transaction is symbolical, the question
naturally arises, who could be meant by the moon, or regent of the moon, who
was cast off in the fifth generation of the world? The name Som shows at once
who he must have been. Som is just the name of Shem; for Shem’s name comes from
Shom, ”to appoint,” and is legitimately represented either by the name Som, or
Sem, as it is in Greek; and it was precisely to get rid of Shem (either after
his father’s death, or when the infirmities of old age were coming upon him) as
the great instructor of the world, that is, as the great diffuser of spiritual
light, that in the fifth generation the world was thrown into confusion and the
earth set on fire. The propriety of Shem’s being compared to the moon will
appear if we consider the way in which his father Noah was evidently
symbolised. The head of a family is divinely compared to the sun, as in the
dream of Joseph (Gen 37:9), and it may be easily conceived how Noah would, by
his posterity in general, be looked up to as occupying the paramount place as
the Sun of the world; and accordingly Bryant, Davies, Faber, and others, have
agreed in recognising Noah as so symbolised by Paganism. When, however, his
younger son–for Shem was younger than Japhet–(Gen 10:21) was substituted for
his father, to whom the world had looked up in comparison of the ”greater
light,” Shem would naturally, especially by those who disliked him and rebelled
against him, be compared to ”the lesser light,” or the moon. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* ”As to the kingdom, the Oriental Oneirocritics, jointly say, that the sun
is the symbol of the king, and the moon of the next to him in power.” This
sentence extracted from DAUBUZ’s Symbolical Dictionary, illustrated with
judicious notes by my learned friend, the Rev. A. Forbes, London, shows that
the conclusion to which I had come before seeing it, in regard to the
symbolical meaning of the moon, is entirely in harmony with Oriental modes of
thinking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, the production of light by mice at this period, comes in exactly to
confirm this deduction. A mouse in Chaldee is ”Aakbar”; and Gheber, or Kheber,
in Arabic, Turkish, and some of the other eastern dialects, becomes ”Akbar,” as
in the well-known Moslem saying, ”Allar Akbar,” ”God is Great.” So that the
whole statement of Plutarch, when stripped of its nonsensical garb, just
amounts to this, that light was produced by the Guebres or fire-worshippers,
when Nimrod was set up in opposition to Shem, as the representative of Noah,
and the great enlightener of the world.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">____________________</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#backb"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Story of Phaethon</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The identity of Phaethon and Nimrod has much to support it besides the
prima facie evidence arising from the statement that Phaethon was an Ethiopian
or Cushite, and the resemblance of his fate, in being cast down from heaven
while driving the chariot of the sun, as ”the child of the Sun,” to the casting
down of Molk-Gheber, whose very name, as the god of fire, identifies him with
Nimrod. 1. Phaethon is said by Apollodorus to have been the son of Tithonus;
but if the meaning of the name Tithonus be examined, it will be evident that he
was Tithonus himself. Tithonus was the husband of Aurora (DYMOCK). In the
physical sense, as we have already seen, Aur-ora signifies ”The awakener of the
light”; to correspond with this Tithonus signifies ”The kindler of light,” or
”setter on fire.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Tzet or Tzit, ”to kindle,” or ”set on fire,” which in Chaldee
becomes Tit, and Thon, ”to give.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now ”Phaethon, the son of Tithonus,” is in Chaldee ”Phaethon Bar Tithon.”
But this also signifies ”Phaethon, the son that set on fire.” Assuming, then,
the identity of Phaethon and Tithonus, this goes far to identify Phaethon with
Nimrod; for Homer, as we have seen (Odyssey), mentions the marriage of Aurora
with Orion, the mighty Hunter, whose identity with Nimrod is established. Then
the name of the celebrated son that sprang from the union between Aurora and
Tithonus, shows that Tithonus, in his original character, must have been indeed
the same as ”the mighty hunter” of Scripture, for the name of that son was
Memnon (MARTIAL and OVID, Metam.), which signifies ”The son of the spotted
one,” * thereby identifying the father with Nimrod, whose emblem was the
spotted leopard’s skin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From Mem or Mom, ”spotted,” and Non, ”a son.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Ninus or Nimrod, was worshipped as the son of his own wife, and that
wife Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, we see how exact is the reference to
Phaethon, when Isaiah, speaking of the King of Babylon, who was his
representative, says, ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning” (Isa 14:12). The marriage of Orion with Aurora; in other words, his
setting up as ”The kindler of light,” or becoming the ”author of fire-worship,”
is said by Homer to have been the cause of his death, he having in consequence
perished under the wrath of the gods. 2. That Phaethon was currently
represented as the son of Aurora, the common story, as related by Ovid,
sufficiently proves. While Phaethon claimed to be the son of Phoebus, or the
sun, he was reproached with being only the son of Merops–i.e., of the mortal
husband of his mother Clymene (OVID, Metam.). The story implies that that
mother gave herself out to be Aurora, not in the physical sense of that term,
but in its mystical sense; as ”The woman pregnant with light”; and,
consequently, her son was held up as the great ”Light-bringer” who was to
enlighten the world,–”Lucifer, the son of the morning,” who was the pretended
enlightener of the souls of men. The name Lucifer, in Isaiah, is the very word
from which Eleleus, one of the names of Bacchus, evidently comes. It comes from
”Helel,” which signifies ”to irradiate” or ”to bring light,” and is equivalent
to the name Tithon. Now we have evidence that Lucifer, the son of Aurora, or
the morning, was worshipped in the very same character as Nimrod, when he
appeared in his new character as a little child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This Phaethon, or Lucifer, who was cast down is further proved to be Janus;
for Janus is called ”Pater Matutinus” (HORACE); and the meaning of this name
will appear in one of its aspects when the meaning of the name of the Dea
Matuta is ascertained. Dea Matuta signifies ”The kindling or Light-bringing
goddess,” * and accordingly, by Priscian, she is identified with Aurora.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Matuta comes from the same word as Tithonus–i.e., Tzet, Tzit, or Tzut,
which in Chaldee becomes Tet, Tit, or Tut, ”to light” or ”set on fire.” From
Tit, ”to set on fire,” comes the Latin Titio, ”a firebrand”; and from Tut, with
the formative M prefixed, comes Matuta–just as from Nasseh, ”to forget,” with
the same formative prefixed, comes Manasseh, ”forgetting,” the name of the
eldest son of Joseph (Gen 41:51). The root of this verb is commonly given as
”Itzt”; but see BAKER’S Lexicon, where it is also given as ”Tzt.” It is
evidently from this root that the Sanscrit ”Suttee” already referred to comes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Matutinus is evidently just the correlate of Matuta, goddess of the
morning; Janus, therefore, as Matutinus, is ”Lucifer, son of the morning.” But
further, Matuta is identified with Ino, after she had plunged into the sea, and
had, along with her son Melikerta, been changed into a sea-divinity.
Consequently her son Melikerta, ”king of the walled city,” is the same as Janus
Matutinus, or Lucifer, Phaethon, or Nimrod.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is still another link by which Melikerta, the sea-divinity, or Janus
Matutinus, is identified with the primitive god of the fire-worshippers. The
most common name of Ino, or Matuta, after she had passed through the waters,
was Leukothoe (OVID, Metam.). Now, Leukothoe or Leukothea has a double meaning,
as it is derived either from ”Lukhoth,” which signifies ”to light,” or ”set on
fire,” or from Lukoth ”to glean.” In the Maltese medal, the ear of corn, at the
side of the goddess, which is more commonly held in her hand, while really
referring in its hidden meaning to her being the Mother of Bar, ”the son,” to
the uninitiated exhibits her as Spicilega, or ”The Gleaner,”–”the popular
name,” says Hyde, ”for the female with the ear of wheat represented in the
constellation Virgo.” In Bryant, Cybele is represented with two or three ears
of corn in her hand; for as there were three peculiarly distinguished
Bacchuses, there were consequently as many ”Bars,” and she might therefore be
represented with one, two, or three ears in her hand. But to revert to the
Maltese medal just referred to, the flames coming out of the head of Lukothea,
the ”Gleaner,” show that, though she has passed through the waters, she is
still Lukhothea, ”the Burner,” or ”Light-giver.” And the rays around the mitre
of the god on the reverse entirely agree with the character of that god as
Eleleus, or Phaethon–in other words, as ”The Shining Bar.” Now, this ”Shining
Bar,” as Melikerta, ”king of the walled city,” occupies the very place of
”Ala-Mahozim,” whose representative the Pope is elsewhere proved to be. But he
is equally the sea-divinity, who in that capacity wears the mitre of Dagon. The
fish-head mitre which the Pope wears shows that, in this character also, as the
”Beast from the sea,” he is the unquestionable representative of Melikerta.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Roman Imperial Standard of
the Dragon a Symbol of Fire- worship</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The passage of Ammianus Marcellinus, that speaks of that standard, calls it
”purpureum signum draconis.” On this may be raised the question, Has the
epithet purpureum, as describing the colour of the dragon, any reference to
fire? The following extract from Salverte may cast some light upon it: ”The
dragon figured among the military ensigns of the Assyrians. Cyrus caused it to
be adopted by the Persians and Medes. Under the Roman emperors, and under the
emperors of Byzantium, each cohort or centuria bore for an ensign a dragon.”
There is no doubt that the dragon or serpent standard of the Assyrians and
Persians had reference to fire-worship, the worship of fire and the serpent
being mixed up together in both these countries. As the Romans, therefore, borrowed
these standards evidently from these sources, it is to be presumed that they
viewed them in the very same light as those from whom they borrowed them,
especially as that light was so exactly in harmony with their own system of
fire-worship. The epithet purpureus or ”purple” does not indeed naturally
convey the idea of fire-colour to us. But it does convey the idea of red; and
red in one shade or another, among idolatrous nations, has almost with one
consent been used to represent fire. The Egyptians (BUNSEN), the Hindoos
(MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Brahma”), the Assyrians (LAYARD’S Nineveh), all represented
fire by red. The Persians evidently did the same, for when Quintus Curtius
describes the Magi as following ”the sacred and eternal fire,” he describes the
365 youths, who formed the train of these Magi, as clad in ”scarlet garments,”
the colour of these garments, no doubt, having reference to the fire whose
ministers they were. Puniceus is equivalent to purpureus, for it was in
Phenicia [six] that the purpura, or purple-fish, was originally found. The
colour derived from that purple-fish was scarlet, and it is the very name of
that Phoenician purple-fish, ”arguna,” that is used in Daniel 5:16 and 19,
where it is said that he that should interpret the handwriting on the wall
should ”be clothed in scarlet.” The Tyrians had the art of making true purples,
as well as scarlet; and there seems no doubt that purpureus is frequently used
in the ordinary sense attached to our word purple. But the original meaning of
the epithet is scarlet; and as bright scarlet colour is a natural colour to
represent fire, so we have reason to believe that that colour, when used for
robes of state among the Tyrians, had special reference to fire; for the Tyrian
Hercules, who was regarded as the inventor of purple (BRYANT), was regarded as
”King of Fire,” (NONNUS, Dionysiaca). Now, when we find that the purpura of
Tyre produced the scarlet colour which naturally represented fire, and that
puniceus, which is equivalent to purpureus, is evidently used for scarlet,
there is nothing that forbids us to understand purpureus in the same sense
here, but rather requires it. But even though it were admitted that the tinge
was deeper, and purpureus meant the true purple, as red, of which it is a shade,
is the established colour of fire, and as the serpent was the universally
acknowledged symbol of fire-worship, the probability is strong that the use of
a red dragon as the Imperial standard of Rome was designed as an emblem of that
system of fire-worship on which the safety of the empire was believed so
vitally to hinge.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VII<br />
Section II<br />
The Beast from the Sea</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The next great enemy introduced to our notice is the Beast from the Sea
(Rev 13:1): ”I stood,” says John, ”upon the sand of the sea-shore, and saw a
beast rise up out of the sea.” The seven heads and ten horns on this beast, as
on the great dragon, show that this power is essentially the same beast, but
that it has undergone a circumstantial change. In the old Babylonian system,
after the worship of the god of fire, there speedily followed the worship of
the god of water or the sea. As the world formerly was in danger of being burnt
up, so now it was in equal danger of being drowned. In the Mexican story it is
said to have actually been so. First, say they, it was destroyed by fire, and
then it was destroyed by water. The Druidic mythology gives the same account;
for the Bards affirm that the dreadful tempest of fire that split the earth
asunder, was rapidly succeeded by the bursting of the Lake Llion, when the
waters of the abyss poured forth and ”overwhelmed the whole world.” In Greece
we meet with the very same story. Diodorus Siculus tells us that, in former
times, ”a monster called Aegides, who vomited flames, appeared in Phrygia;
hence spreading along Mount Taurus, the conflagration burnt down all the woods
as far as India; then, with a retrograde course, swept the forests of Mount
Lebanon, and extended as far as Egypt and Africa; at last a stop was put to it
by Minerva. The Phrygians remembered well this CONFLAGRATION and the FLOOD
which FOLLOWED it.” Ovid, too, has a clear allusion to the same fact of the
fire-worship being speedily followed by the worship of water, in his fable of
the transformation of Cycnus. He represents King Cycnus, an attached friend of
Phaethon, and consequently of fire-worship, as, after his friend’s death,
hating the fire, and taking to the contrary element that of water, through
fear, and so being transformed into a swan. In India, the great deluge, which
occupies so conspicuous a place in its mythology, evidently has the same
symbolical meaning, although the story of Noah is mixed up with it; for it was
during that deluge that ”the lost Vedas,” or sacred books, were recovered, by
means of the great god, under the form of a FISH. The ”loss of the Vedas” had
evidently taken place at that very time of terrible disaster to the gods, when,
according to the Purans, a great enemy of these gods, called Durgu, ”abolished
all religious ceremonies, the Brahmins, through fear, forsook the reading of
the Veda,…fire lost its energy, and the terrified stars retired from sight”; in
other words, when idolatry, fire-worship, and the worship of the host of heaven
had been suppressed. When we turn to Babylon itself, we find there also
substantially the same account. In Berosus, the deluge is represented as coming
after the time of Alorus, or the ”god of fire,” that is, Nimrod, which shows
that there, too, this deluge was symbolical. Now, out of this deluge emerged
Dagon, the fish-god, or god of the sea. The origin of the worship of Dagon, as
shown by Berosus, was founded upon a legend, that, at a remote period of the
past, when men were sunk in barbarism, there came up a BEAST CALLED OANNES FROM
THE RED SEA, or Persian Gulf–half-man, half-fish–that civilised the
Babylonians, taught them arts and sciences, and instructed them in politics and
religion. The worship of Dagon was introduced by the very parties–Nimrod, of
course, excepted–who had previously seduced the world into the worship of fire.
In the secret Mysteries that were then set up, while in the first instance, no
doubt, professing the greatest antipathy to the prescribed worship of fire,
they sought to regain their influence and power by scenic representations of
the awful scenes of the Flood, in which Noah was introduced under the name of
Dagon, or the Fish-god–scenes in which the whole family of man, both from the
nature of the event and their common connection with the second father of the
human race, could not fail to feel a deep interest. The concocters of these Mysteries
saw that if they could only bring men back again to idolatry in any shape, they
could soon work that idolatry so as substantially to re-establish the very
system that had been put down. Thus it was, that, as soon as the way was
prepared for it, Tammuz was introduced as one who had allowed himself to be
slain for the good of mankind. A distinction was made between good serpents and
bad serpents, one kind being represented as the serpent of Agathodaemon, or the
good divinity, another as the serpent of Cacodaemon, or the evil one. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* WILKINSON. In Egypt, the Uraeus, or the Cerastes, was the good serpent,
the Apophis the evil one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was easy, then, to lead men on by degrees to believe that, in spite of
all appearances to the contrary, Tammuz, instead of being the patron of
serpent-worship in any evil sense, was in reality the grand enemy of the
Apophis, or great malignant serpent that envied the happiness of mankind, and
that in fact he was the very seed of the woman who was destined to bruise the
serpent’s head. By means of the metempsychosis, it was just as easy to identify
Nimrod and Noah, and to make it appear that the great patriarch, in the person
of this his favoured descendant, had graciously condescended to become
incarnate anew, as Dagon, that he might bring mankind back again to the
blessings they had lost when Nimrod was slain. Certain it is, that Dagon was
worshipped in the Chaldean Mysteries, wherever they were established, in a
character that represented both the one and the other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the previous system, the grand mode of purification had been by fire.
Now, it was by water that men were to be purified. Then began the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration, connected, as we have seen, with the passing of Noah
through the waters of the Flood. Then began the reverence for holy wells, holy
lakes, holy rivers, which is to be found wherever these exist on the earth;
which is not only to be traced among the Parsees, who, along with the worship
of fire, worship also the Zereparankard, or Caspian Sea, and among the Hindoos,
who worship the purifying waters of the Ganges, and who count it the grand
passport to heaven, to leave their dying relatives to be smothered in its
stream; but which is seen in full force at this day in Popish Ireland, in the
universal reverence for holy wells, and the annual pilgrimages to Loch Dergh,
to wash away sin in its blessed waters; and which manifestly lingers also among
ourselves, in the popular superstition about witches which shines out in the
well-known line of Burns–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”A running stream they daurna
cross.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">So much for the worship of water. Along with the water-worship, however,
the old worship of fire was soon incorporated again. In the Mysteries, both
modes of purification were conjoined. Though water-baptism was held to regenerate,
yet purification by fire was still held to be indispensable; * and, long ages
after baptismal regeneration had been established, the children were still made
”to pass through the fire to Moloch.” This double purification both by fire and
water was practised in Mexico, among the followers of Wodan. This double
purification was also commonly practised among the old Pagan Romans; ** and, in
course of time, almost everywhere throughout the Pagan world, both the
fire-worship and serpent-worship of Nimrod, which had been put down, was
re-established in a new form, with all its old and many additional abominations
besides.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The name Tammuz, as applied to Nimrod or Osiris, was equivalent to Alorus
or the ”god of fire,” and seems to have been given to him as the great purifier
by fire. Tammuz is derived from tam, ”to make perfect,” and muz, ”fire,” and
signifies ”Fire the perfecter,” or ”the perfecting fire.” To this meaning of
the name, as well as to the character of Nimrod as the Father of the gods, the
Zoroastrian verse alludes when it says: ”All things are the progeny of ONE
FIRE. The Father perfected all things, and delivered them to the second mind,
whom all nations of men call the first.” (CORY’S Fragments) Here Fire is
declared to be the Father of all; for all things are said to be its progeny,
and it is also called the ”perfecter of all things.” The second mind is
evidently the child who displaced Nimrod’s image as an object of worship; but
yet the agency of Nimrod, as the first of the gods, and the fire-god, was held
indispensable for ”perfecting” men. And hence, too, no doubt, the necessity of
the fire of Purgatory to ”perfect” men’s souls at last, and to purge away all
the sins that they have carried with them into the unseen world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** OVID, Fasti. It was not a little interesting to me, after being led by
strict induction from circumstantial evidence to the conclusion that the
purgation by fire was derived from the fire-worship of Adon or Tammuz, and that
by water had reference to Noah’s Flood, to find an express statement in Ovid,
that such was the actual belief at Rome in his day. After mentioning, in the
passage to which the above citation refers, various fanciful reasons for the
twofold purgation by fire and water, he concludes thus: ”For my part, I do not
believe them; there are some (however) who say that the one is intended to
commemorate Phaethon, and the other the flood of Deucalion.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If, however, any one should still think it unlikely that the worship of
Noah should be mingled in the ancient world with the worship of the Queen of
Heaven and her son, let him open his eyes to what is taking place in Italy at
this hour [in 1856] in regard to the worship of that patriarch and the Roman
Queen of Heaven. The following, kindly sent me by Lord John Scott, as
confirmatory of the views propounded in these pages, appeared in the Morning
Herald, October 26, 1855: ”AN ARCHBISHOP’S PRAYER TO THE PATRIARCH NOAH.-POPERY
IN TURIN.–For several consecutive years the vintage has been almost entirely
destroyed in Tuscany, in consequence of the prevalent disease. The Archbishop
of Florence has conceived the idea of arresting this plague by directing
prayers to be offered, not to God, but to the patriarch Noah; and he has just
published a collection, containing eight forms of supplication, addressed to
this distinguished personage of the ancient covenant. ‘Most holy patriarch
Noah!’ is the language of one of these prayers, ‘who didst employ thyself in
thy long career in cultivating the vine, and gratifying the human race with
that precious beverage, which allays the thirst, restores the strength, and
enlivens the spirits of us all, deign to regard our vines, which, following
thine example, we have cultivated hitherto; and, while thou beholdest them
languishing and blighted by that disastrous visitation, which, before the
vintage, destroys the fruit (in severe punishment for many blasphemies and
other enormous sins we have committed), have compassion on us, and, prostrate
before the lofty throne of God, who has promised to His children the fruits of
the earth, and an abundance of corn and wine, entreat Him on our behalf;
promise Him in our name, that, with the aid of Divine grace, we will forsake
the ways of vice and sin, that we will no longer abuse His sacred gifts, and will
scrupulously observe His holy law, and that of our holy Mother, the Catholic
Church,’ &c. The collection concludes with a new prayer, addressed to the
Virgin Mary, who is invoked in these words: ‘O immaculate Mary, behold our
fields and vineyards! and, should it seem to thee that we merit so great a
favour, stay, we beseech thee, this terrible plague, which, inflicted for our
sins, renders our fields unfruitful, and deprives our vines of the honours of
the vintage,’ &c. The work contains a vignette, representing the patriarch
Noah presiding over the operations of the vintage, as well as a notification
from the Archbishop, granting an indulgence of forty days to all who shall
devoutly recite the prayers in question.–Christian Times” In view of such rank
Paganism as this, well may the noble Lord already referred to remark, that
surely here is the world turned backwards, and the worship of the old god
Bacchus unmistakably restored!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, this god of the sea, when his worship had been firmly re-established,
and all formidable opposition had been put down, was worshipped also as the
great god of war, who, though he had died for the good of mankind, now that he
had risen again, was absolutely invincible. In memory of this new incarnation,
the 25th of December, otherwise Christmas Day, was, as we have already seen,
celebrated in Pagan Rome as ”Natalis Solis invicti,” ”the birth-day of the
Unconquered Sun.” We have equally seen that the very name of the Roman god of
war is just the name of Nimrod; for Mars and Mavors, the two well-known names
of the Roman war-god, are evidently just the Roman forms of the Chaldee ”Mar”
or ”Mavor,” the Rebel. Thus terrible and invincible was Nimrod when he
reappeared as Dagon, the beast from the sea. If the reader looks at what is said
in Revelation 13:3, he will see precisely the same thing: ”And I saw one of his
heads as it were wounded unto death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all
the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave
power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto
the beast? who is able to make war with him?” Such, in all respects, is the
analogy between the language of the prophecy and the ancient Babylonian type.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Do we find, then, anything corresponding to this in the religious history
of the Roman empire after the fall of the old Paganism of that empire? Exactly
in every respect. No sooner was Paganism legally abolished, the eternal fire of
Vesta extinguished, and the old serpent cast down from the seat of power, where
so long he had sat secure, than he tried the most vigorous means to regain his
influence and authority. Finding that persecution of Christianity, as such, in
the meantime would not do to destroy the church symbolised by the sun-clothed
Woman, he made another tack (Rev 12:15): ”And the serpent cast out of his mouth
a flood of water after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of
the flood.” The symbol here is certainly very remarkable. If this was the
dragon of fire, it might have been expected that it would have been
represented, according to popular myths, as vomiting fire after the woman. But
it is not so. It was a flood of water that he cast out of his mouth. What could
this mean? As the water came out of the mouth of the dragon–that must mean
doctrine, and of course, false doctrine. But is there nothing more specific
than this? A single glance at the old Babylonian type will show that the water
cast out of the mouth of the serpent must be the water of baptismal regeneration.
Now, it was precisely at this time, when the old Paganism was suppressed, that
the doctrine of regenerating men by baptism, which had been working in the
Christian Church before, threatened to spread like a deluge over the face of
the Roman empire. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* From about AD 360, to the time of the Emperor Justinian, about 550, we
have evidence both of the promulgation of this doctrine, and also of the deep
hold it came at last to take of professing Christians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was then precisely that our Lord Jesus Christ began to be popularly
called Ichthys, that is, ”the Fish,” manifestly to identify him with Dagon. At
the end of the fourth century, and from that time forward, it was taught, that
he who had been washed in the baptismal font was thereby born again, and made pure
as the virgin snow.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This flood issued not merely from the mouth of Satan, the old serpent, but
from the mouth of him who came to be recognised by the Pagans of Rome as the
visible head of the old Roman Paganism. When the Roman fire-worship was
suppressed, we have seen that the office of Pontifex Maximus, the head of that
Paganism, was abolished. That was ”the wounding unto death” of the head of the
Fiery Dragon. But scarcely had that head received its deadly wound, when it
began to be healed again. Within a few years after the Pagan title of Pontifex
had been abolished, it was revived, and that by the very Emperor that had
abolished it, and was bestowed, with all the Pagan associations clustering
around it, upon the Bishop of Rome, who, from that time forward, became the
grand agent in pouring over professing Christendom, first the ruinous doctrine
of baptismal regeneration, and then all the other doctrines of Paganism derived
from ancient Babylon. When this Pagan title was bestowed on the Roman bishop, it
was not as a mere empty title of honour it was bestowed, but as a title to
which formidable power was annexed. To the authority of the Bishop of Rome in
this new character, as Pontifex, when associated ”with five or seven other
bishops” as his counsellors, bishops, and even metropolitans of foreign
churches over extensive regions of the West, in Gaul not less than in Italy,
were subjected; and civil pains were attached to those who refused to submit to
his pontifical decisions. Great was the danger to the cause of truth and
righteousness when such power was, by imperial authority, vested in the Roman
bishop, and that a bishop so willing to give himself to the propagation of
false doctrine. Formidable, however, as the danger was, the true Church, the
Bride, the Lamb’s wife (so far as that Church was found within the bounds of
the Western Empire), was wonderfully protected from it. That Church was for a
time saved from the peril, not merely by the mountain fastnesses in which many
of its devoted members found an asylum, as Jovinian, Vigilantius, and the
Waldenses, and such-like faithful ones, in the wilderness among the Cottian
Alps, and other secluded regions of Europe, but also not a little, by a signal
interposition of Divine Providence in its behalf. That interposition is
referred to in these words (Rev 12:16): ”The earth opened her mouth and
swallowed up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth.” What means the
symbol of the ”earth’s opening its mouth”? In the natural world, when the earth
opens its mouth, there is an earthquake; and an ”earthquake,” according to the
figurative language of the Apocalypse, as all admit, just means a great
political convulsion. Now, when we examine the history of the period in
question, we find that the fact exactly agrees with the prefiguration; that
soon after the Bishop of Rome because Pontiff, and, as Pontiff, set himself so
zealously to bring in Paganism into the Church, those political convulsions
began in the civil empire of Rome, which never ceased till the framework of
that empire was broken up, and it was shattered to pieces. But for this the
spiritual power of the Papacy might have been firmly established over all the
nations of the West, long before the time it actually was so. It is clear, that
immediately after Damasus, the Roman bishop, received his pontifical power, the
predicted ”apostacy” (1 Tim 4:3), so far as Rome was concerned, was broadly
developed. Then were men ”forbidden to marry,” * and ”commanded to abstain from
meats.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The celibacy of the clergy was enacted by Syricius, Bishop of Rome, AD
385. (GIESELER)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then, with a factitious doctrine of sin, a factitious holiness also was
inculcated, and people were led to believe that all baptised persons were
necessarily regenerated. Had the Roman Empire of the West remained under one
civil head, backed by that civil head, the Bishop of Rome might very soon have
infected all parts of that empire with the Pagan corruption he had evidently
given himself up to propagate. Considering the cruelty with which Jovinian, and
all who opposed the Pagan doctrines in regard to marriage and abstinence, were
treated by the Pontifex of Rome, under favour of the imperial power, it may
easily be seen how serious would have been the consequences to the cause of
truth in the Western Empire had this state of matters been allowed to pursue
its natural course. But now the great Lord of the Church interfered. The
”revolt of the Goths,” and the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410, gave
that shock to the Roman Empire which issued, by 476, in its complete upbreaking
and the extinction of the imperial power. Although, therefore, in pursuance of
the policy previously inaugurated, the Bishop of Rome was formally recognised,
by an imperial edict in 445, as ”Head of all the Churches of the West,” all
bishops being commanded ”to hold and observe as a law whatever it should please
the Bishop of Rome to ordain or decree”; the convulsions of the empire, and the
extinction, soon thereafter, of the imperial power itself, to a large extent
nullified the disastrous effects of this edict. The ”earth’s opening its
mouth,” then–in other words, the breaking up of the Roman Empire into so many
independent sovereignties–was a benefit to true religion, and prevented the
flood of error and corruption, that had its source in Rome, from flowing as
fast and as far as it would otherwise have done. When many different wills in
the different countries were substituted for the one will of the Emperor, on
which the Sovereign Pontiff leaned, the influence of that Pontiff was greatly
neutralised. ”Under these circumstances,” says Gieseler, referring to the
influence of Rome in the different kingdoms into which the empire was divided,
”under these circumstances, the Popes could not directly interfere in
ecclesiastical matters; and their communications with the established Church of
the country depended entirely on the royal pleasure.” The Papacy at last
overcame the effects of the earthquake, and the kingdoms of the West were
engulfed in that flood of error that came out of the mouth of the dragon. But
the overthrow of the imperial power, when so zealously propping up the
spiritual despotism of Rome, gave the true Church in the West a lengthened
period of comparative freedom, which otherwise it could not have had. The Dark
Ages would have come sooner, and the darkness would have been more intense, but
for the Goths and Vandals, and the political convulsions that attended their
irruptions. They were raised up to scourge an apostatising community, not to
persecute the saints of the Most High, though these, too, may have occasionally
suffered in the common distress. The hand of Providence may be distinctly seen,
in that, at so critical a moment, the earth opened its mouth and helped the
woman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To return, however, to the memorable period when the pontifical title was
bestowed on the Bishop of Rome. The circumstances in which that Pagan title was
bestowed upon Pope Damasus, were such as might have been not a little trying to
the faith and integrity of a much better man than he. Though Paganism was
legally abolished in the Western Empire of Rome, yet in the city of the Seven
Hills it was still rampant, insomuch that Jerome, who knew it well, writing of
Rome at this very period, calls it ”the sink of all superstitions.” The consequence
was, that, while everywhere else throughout the empire the Imperial edict for
the abolition of Paganism was respected, in Rome itself it was, to a large
extent, a dead letter. Symmachus, the prefect of the city, and the highest
patrician families, as well as the masses of the people, were fanatically
devoted to the old religion; and, therefore, the Emperor found it necessary, in
spite of the law, to connive at the idolatry of the Romans. How strong was the
hold that Paganism had in the Imperial city, even after the fire of Vesta was
extinguished, and State support was withdrawn from the Vestals, the reader may
perceive from the following words of Gibbon: ”The image and altar of Victory
were indeed removed from the Senate-house; but the Emperor yet spared the
statues of the gods which were exposed to public view; four hundred and
twenty-four temples or chapels still remained to satisfy the devotion of the
people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was
offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice.” Thus strong was Paganism in
Rome, even after State support was withdrawn about 376. But look forward only
about fifty years, and see what has become of it. The name of Paganism has
almost entirely disappeared; insomuch that the younger Theodosius, in an edict
issued AD 423, uses these words: ”The Pagans that remain, although now we may
believe there are none.” The words of Gibbon in reference to this are very
striking. While fully admitting that, notwithstanding the Imperial laws made against
Paganism, ”no peculiar hardships” were imposed on ”the sectaries who
credulously received the fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles
of the Gospel,” he expresses his surprise at the rapidity of the revolution
that took place among the Romans from Paganism to Christianity. ”The ruin of
Paganism,” he says–and his dates are from AD 378, the year when the Bishop of
Rome was made Pontifex, to 395–”The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius,
is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular
superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in
the history of the human mind.”…After referring to the hasty conversion of the
senate, he thus proceeds: ”The edifying example of the Anician family [in
embracing Christianity] was soon imitated by the rest of the nobility…The
citizens who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace who were
supported by the public liberality, filled the churches of the Lateran and
Vatican with an incessant throng of devout proselytes. The decrees of the
senate, which proscribed the worship of idols, were ratified by the general
consent of the Romans; the splendour of the capitol was defaced, and the
solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. Rome submitted to the
yoke of the Gospel…The generation that arose in the world, after the
promulgation of Imperial laws, was ATTRACTED within the pale of the Catholic
Church, and so RAPID, yet so GENTLE was the fall of Paganism, that only
twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius [the elder], the faint and
minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the legislator.” Now, how
can this great and rapid revolution be accounted for? Is it because the Word of
the Lord has had free course and been glorified? Then, what means the new
aspect that the Roman Church has now begun to assume? In exact proportion as
Paganism has disappeared from without the Church, in the very same proportion
it appears within it. Pagan dresses for the priests, Pagan festivals for the
people, Pagan doctrines and ideas of all sorts, are everywhere in vogue. The
testimony of the same historian, who has spoken so decisively about the rapid
conversion of the Romans to the profession of the Gospel, is not less decisive
on this point. In his account of the Roman Church, under the head of
”Introduction of Pagan Ceremonies,” he thus speaks: ”As the objects of religion
were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and
ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to effect the senses of
the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius
had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some
popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation
on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship
of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown
open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of
flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noon-day a gaudy,
superfluous, and, in their opinion, sacrilegious light.” Gibbon has a great
deal more to the same effect. Now, can any one believe that this was
accidental? No. It was evidently the result of that unprincipled policy, of
which, in the course of this inquiry, we have already seen such innumerable
instances on the part of the Papacy. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Gibbon distinctly admits this. ”It must ingenuously be confessed,” says
he, ”that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model they
were so impatient to destroy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Pope Damasus saw that, in a city pre-eminently given to idolatry, if he was
to maintain the Gospel pure and entire, he must be willing to bear the cross,
to encounter hatred and ill-will, to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. On the other hand, he could not but equally see, that if bearing the
title, around which, for so many ages, all the hopes and affections of Paganism
had clustered, he should give its votaries reason to believe that he was
willing to act up to the original spirit of that title, he might count on
popularity, aggrandisement and glory. Which alternative, then, was Damasus
likely to choose? The man that came into the bishopric of Rome, as a thief and
a robber, over the dead bodies of above a hundred of his opponents, could not
hesitate as to the election he should make. The result shows that he had acted
in character, that, in assuming the Pagan title of Pontifex, he had set himself
at whatever sacrifice of truth to justify his claims to that title in the eyes
of the Pagans, as the legitimate representative of their long line of pontiffs.
There is no possibility of accounting for the facts on any other supposition.
It is evident also that he and his successors were ACCEPTED in that character
by the Pagans, who, in flocking into the Roman Church, and rallying around the
new Pontiff, did not change their creed or worship, but brought both into the
Church along with them. The reader has seen how complete and perfect is the
copy of the old Babylonian Paganism, which, under the patronage of the Popes,
has been introduced into the Roman Church. He has seen that the god whom the
Papacy worships as the Son of the Highest, is not only, in spite of a Divine
command, worshipped under the form of an image, made, as in the days of avowed
Paganism, by art and man’s device, but that attributes are ascribed to Him
which are the very opposite of those which belong to the merciful Saviour, but
which attributes are precisely those which were ascribed to Moloch, the
fire-god, or Ala Mahozim, ”the god of fortifications.” He has seen that, about
the very time when the Bishop of Rome was invested with the Pagan title of
Pontifex, the Saviour began to be called Ichthys, or ”the Fish,” thereby
identifying Him with Dagon, or the Fish-god; and that, ever since, advancing
step by step, as circumstances would permit, what has gone under the name of
the worship of Christ, has just been the worship of that same Babylonian
divinity, with all its rites and pomps and ceremonies, precisely as in ancient
Babylon. Lastly, he has seen that the Sovereign Pontiff of the so-called
Christian Church of Rome has so wrought out the title bestowed upon him in the
end of the fourth century, as to be now dignified, as for centuries he has
been, with the very ”names of blasphemy” originally bestowed on the old
Babylonian pontiffs. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The reader who has seen the first edition of this work, will perceive
that, in the above reasoning, I found nothing upon the formal appointment by
Gratian of the Pope as Pontifex, with direct authority over the Pagans, as was
done in that edition. That is not because I do not believe that such an
appointment was made, but because, at the present moment, some obscurity rests
on the subject. The Rev. Barcroft Boake, a very learned minister of the Church
of England in Ceylon, when in this country, communicated to me his researches
on the subject, which have made me hesitate to assert that there was any formal
authority given to the Bishop of Rome over the Pagans by Gratian. At the same
time, I am still convinced that the original statement was substantially true.
The late Mr. Jones, in the Journal of Prophecy, not only referred to the
Appendix to the Codex Theodosianus, in proof of such an appointment, but, in
elucidation of the words of the Codex, asserted in express terms that there was
a contest for the office of Pontifex, and that there were two candidates, the
one a Pagan, Symmachus, who had previously been Valentinian’s deputy, and the
other the Bishop of Rome. (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, Oct. 1852) I have not
been able to find Mr. Jones’s authority for this statement; but the statement
is so circumstantial, that it cannot easily be called in question without
impugning the veracity of him that made it. I have found Mr. Jones in error on
divers points, but in no error of such a nature as this; and the character of
the man forbids such a supposition. Moreover, the language of the Appendix
cannot easily admit of any other interpretation. But, even though there were no
formal appointment of Bishop Damasus to a pontificate extending over the
Pagans, yet it is clear that, by the rescript of Gratian (the authenticity of
which is fully admitted by the accurate Gieseler), he was made the supreme
spiritual authority in the Western Empire in all religious questions. When,
therefore, in the year 400, Pagan priests were, by the Christian Emperor of the
West, from political motives, ”acknowledged as public officers” (Cod. Theod.,
ad POMPEJANUM, Procons), these Pagan priests necessarily came under the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, as there was then no other tribunal but his
for determining all matters affecting religion. In the text, however I have
made no allusion to this. The argument, as I think the reader will admit, is
sufficiently decisive without it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, if the circumstance in which the Pope has risen to all this height of
power and blasphemous assumption, be compared with a prediction in Daniel,
which, for want of the true key has never been understood, I think the reader
will see how literally in the history of the Popes of Rome that prediction has
been fulfilled. The prediction to which I allude is that which refers to what
is commonly called the ”Wilful King” as described in Daniel 11:36, and
succeeding verses. That ”Wilful King” is admitted on all hands to be a king
that arises in Gospel times, and in Christendom, but has generally been
supposed to be an Infidel Antichrist, not only opposing the truth but opposing
Popery as well, and every thing that assumed the very name of Christianity. But
now, let the prediction be read in the light of the facts that have passed in
review before us, and it will be seen how very different is the case (v 36):
”And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself and
magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the
God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that
that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the god of his
fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify
himself above all.” So far these words give an exact description of the Papacy,
with its pride, its blasphemy, and forced celibacy and virginity. But the words
that follow, according to any sense that the commentators have put upon them,
have never hitherto been found capable of being made to agree either with the
theory that the Pope was intended, or any other theory whatever. Let them,
however, only be literally rendered, and compared with the Papal history, and
all is clear, consistent, and harmonious. The inspired seer has declared that,
in the Church of Christ, some one shall arise who shall not only aspire to a
great height, but shall actually reach it, so that ”he shall do according to
his will”; his will shall be supreme in opposition to all law, human and
Divine. Now, if this king is to be a pretended successor of the fisherman of
Galilee, the question would naturally arise, How could it be possible that he
should ever have the means of rising to such a height of power? The words that
follow give a distinct answer to that question: ”He shall not REGARD * any god,
for he shall magnify himself above all. BUT, in establishing himself, shall he
honour the god of fortifications (Ala Mahozim), and a god, whom his fathers
knew not, shall he honour with gold and silver, and with precious stones and
pleasant things. Thus shall he make into strengthening bulwarks ** [for
himself] the people of a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase
with glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and he shall divide the
land for gain.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The reader will observe, it is not said he shall not worship any god; the
reverse is evident; but that he shall not regard any, that his own glory is his
highest end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** The word here is the same as above rendered ”fortifications.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such is the prophecy. Now, this is exactly what the Pope did.
Self-aggrandisement has ever been the grand principle of the Papacy; and, in
”establishing” himself, it was just the ”god of Fortifications” that he
honoured. The worship of that god he introduced into the Roman Church; and, by
so doing, he converted that which otherwise would have been a source of
weakness to him, into the very tower of his strength–he made the very Paganism
of Rome by which he was surrounded the bulwark of his power. When once it was
proved that the Pope was willing to adopt Paganism under Christian names, the
Pagans and Pagan priests would be his most hearty and staunch defenders. And
when the Pope began to wield lordly power over the Christians, who were the men
that he would recommend–that he would promote–that he would advance to honour
and power? Just the very people most devoted to ”the worship of the strange
god” which he had introduced into the Christian Church. Gratitude and
self-interest alike would conspire to this. Jovinian, and all who resisted the
Pagan ideas and Pagan practices, were excommunicated and persecuted. Those only
who were heartily attached to the apostacy (and none could now be more so than
genuine Pagans) were favoured and advanced. Such men were sent from Rome in all
directions, even as far as Britain, to restore the reign of Paganism–they were
magnified with high titles, the lands were divided among them, and all to
promote ”the gain” of the Romish see, to bring in ”Peter’s pence” from the ends
of the earth to the Roman Pontiff. But it is still further said, that the
self-magnifying king was to ”honour a god, whom his fathers knew not, with gold
and silver and precious stones.” The principle on which transubstantiation was
founded is unquestionably a Babylonian principle, but there is no evidence that
that principle was applied in the way in which it has been by the Papacy.
Certain it is, that we have evidence that no such wafer-god as the Papacy
worships was ever worshipped in Pagan Rome. ”Was any man ever so mad,” says
Cicero, who himself was a Roman augur and a priest–”was any man ever so mad as
to take that which he feeds on for a god?” Cicero could not have said this if
anything like wafer-worship had been established in Rome. But what was too
absurd for Pagan Romans is no absurdity at all for the Pope. The host, or
consecrated wafer, is the great god of the Romish Church. That host is
enshrined in a box adorned with gold and silver and precious stones. And thus
it is manifest that ”a god” whom even the Pope’s Pagan ”fathers knew not,” he
at this day honours in the very way that the terms of the prediction imply that
he would. Thus, in every respect, when the Pope was invested with the Pagan
title of Pontifex, and set himself to make that title a reality, he exactly
fulfilled the prediction of Daniel recorded more than 900 years before.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But to return to the Apocalyptic symbols. It was out of the mouth of the ”Fiery
Dragon” that ”the flood of water” was discharged. The Pope, as he is now, was
at the close of the fourth century the only representative of Belshazzar, or
Nimrod, on the earth; for the Pagans manifestly ACCEPTED him as such. He was
equally, of course, the legitimate successor of the Roman ”Dragon of fire.”
When, therefore, on being dignified with the title of Pontifex, he set himself
to propagate the old Babylonian doctrine of baptismal regeneration, that was
just a direct and formal fulfilment of the Divine words, that the great Fiery
Dragon should ”cast out of his mouth a flood of water to carry away the Woman
with the flood.” He, and those who co-operated with him in this cause, paved
the way for the erecting of that tremendous civil and spiritual despotism which
began to stand forth full in the face of Europe in AD 606, when, amid the
convulsions and confusions of the nations tossed like a tempestuous sea, the
Pope of Rome was made Universal Bishop; and when the ten chief kingdoms of
Europe recognised him as Christ’s Vicar upon earth, the only centre of unity,
the only source of stability to their thrones. Then by his own act and deed,
and by the consent of the UNIVERSAL PAGANISM of Rome, he was actually the
representative of Dagon; and as he bears upon his head at this day the mitre of
Dagon, so there is reason to believe he did then. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* It is from this period only that the well-known 1260 days can begin to be
counted; for not before did the Pope appear as Head of the ten-horned beast,
and head of the Universal Church. The reader will observe that though the beast
above referred to has passed through the sea, it still retains its primitive
characteristic. The head of the apostacy at first was Kronos, ”The Horned One.”
The head of the apostacy is Kronos still, for he is the beast ”with seven head
and ten horns.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Could there, then, be a more exact fulfilment of chapter 13:1 ”And I stood
upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven
heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the
names of blasphemy…And I saw one of his heads as it had been wounded to death;
and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast”?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VII<br />
Section III<br />
The Beast from the Earth</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This beast is presented to our notice (Rev 13:11): ”And I beheld another
beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he
spake as a serpent.” Though this beast is mentioned after the beast from the
sea, it does not follow that he came into existence after the sea-beast. The
work he did seems to show the very contrary; for it is by his instrumentality
that mankind are led (v 12) ”to worship the first beast” after that beast had
received the deadly wound, which shows that he must have been in existence
before. The reason that he is mentioned second, is just because, as he
exercises all the powers of the first beast, and leads all men to worship him,
so he could not properly be described till that beast had first appeared on the
stage. Now, in ancient Chaldea there was the type, also, of this. That god was
called in Babylon Nebo, in Egypt Nub or Num, * and among the Romans Numa, for
Numa Pompilius, the great priest-king of the Romans, occupied precisely the
position of the Babylonian Nebo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In Egypt, especially among the Greek-speaking population, the Egyptian b
frequently passed into an m.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Among the Etrurians, from whom the Romans derived the most of their rites,
he was called Tages, and of this Tages it is particularly recorded, that just
as John saw the beast under consideration ”come up out of the earth,” so Tages
was a child suddenly and miraculously born out of a furrow or hole in the
ground. In Egypt, this God was represented with the head and horns of a ram. In
Etruria he seems to have been represented in a somewhat similar way; for there
we find a Divine and miraculous child exhibited wearing the ram’s horns. The
name Nebo, the grand distinctive name of this god, signifies ”The Prophet,” and
as such, he gave oracles, practised augury, pretended to miraculous powers, and
was an adept in magic. He was the great wonder-worker, and answered exactly to
the terms of the prophecy, when it is said (v 13), ”he doeth great wonders, and
causeth fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men.” It was in this very
character that the Etrurian Tages was known; for it was he who was said to have
taught the Romans augury, and all the superstition and wonder-working jugglery
connected therewith. As in recent times, we hear of weeping images and winking
Madonnas, and innumerable prodigies besides, continually occurring in the
Romish Church, in proof of this papal dogma or that, so was it also in the
system of Babylon. There is hardly a form of ”pious fraud” or saintly imposture
practised at this day on the banks of the Tiber, that cannot be proved to have
had its counterpart on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the systems that came
from it. Has the image of the Virgin been seen to shed tears? Many a tear was
shed by the Pagan images. To these tender-hearted idols Lucan alludes, when,
speaking of the prodigies that occurred during the civil wars, he says:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”Tears shed by gods, our
country’s patrons,<br />
And sweat from Lares, told the city’s woes.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Virgil also refers to the same, when he says:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”The weeping statues did the
wars foretell,<br />
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When in the consulship of Appius Claudius, and Marcus Perpenna, Publius
Crassus was slain in a battle with Aristonicus, Apollo’s statue at Cumae shed
tears for four days without intermission. The gods had also their merry moods,
as well as their weeping fits. If Rome counts it a divine accomplishment for
the sacred image of her Madonna to ”wink,” it was surely not less becoming in
the sacred images of Paganism to relax their features into an occasional grin.
That they did so, we have abundant testimony. Psellus tells us that, when the
priests put forth their magic powers, ”then statues laughed, and lamps were
spontaneously enkindled.” When the images made merry, however, they seemed to
have inspired other feelings than those of merriment into the breasts of those
who beheld them. ”The Theurgists,” says Salverte, ”caused the appearance of the
gods in the air, in the midst of gaseous vapour, disengaged from fire. The
Theurgis Maximus undoubtedly made use of a secret analogous to this, when, in
the fumes of the incense which he burned before the statue of Hecate, the image
was seen to laugh so naturally as to fill the spectators with terror.” There
were times, however, when different feelings were inspired. Has the image of
the Madonna been made to look benignantly upon a favoured worshipper, and send
him home assured that his prayer was heard? So did the statues of the Egyptian
Isis. They were so framed, that the goddess could shake the silver serpent on
her forehead, and nod assent to those who had preferred their petitions in such
a way as pleased her. We read of Romish saints that showed their miraculous
powers by crossing rivers or the sea in most unlikely conveyances. Thus, of St.
Raymond it is written that he was transported over the sea on his cloak.
Paganism is not a whit behind in this matter; for it is recorded of a Buddhist
saint, Sura Acharya, that, when ”he used to visit his flocks west of the Indus,
he floated himself across the stream upon his mantle.” Nay, the gods and high priests
of Paganism showed far more buoyancy than even this. There is a holy man, at
this day, in the Church of Rome, somewhere on the Continent, who rejoices in
the name of St. Cubertin, who so overflows with spirituality, that when he
engages in his devotions there is no keeping his body down to the ground, but,
spite of all the laws of gravity, it rises several feet into the air. So was it
also with the renowned St. Francis of Assisi, Petrus a Martina, and Francis of
Macerata, some centuries ago. But both St. Cubertin and St. Francis and his
fellows are far from being original in this superhuman devotion. The priests
and magicians in the Chaldean Mysteries anticipated them not merely by
centuries, but by thousands of years. Coelius Rhodiginus says, ”that, according
to the Chaldeans, luminous rays, emanating from the soul, do sometimes divinely
penetrate the body, which is then of itself raised above the earth, and that
this was the case with Zoroaster.” The disciples of Jamblichus asserted that
they had often witnessed the same miracle in the case of their master, who,
when he prayed was raised to the height of ten cubits from the earth. The
greatest miracle which Rome pretends to work, is when, by the repetition of
five magic words, she professes to bring down the body, blood, soul, and
divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, to make Him really and
corporeally present in the sacrament of the altar. The Chaldean priests
pretended, by their magic spells, in like manner, to bring down their
divinities into their statues, so that their ”real presence” should be visibly
manifested in them. This they called ”the making of gods”; and from this no
doubt comes the blasphemous saying of the Popish priests, that they have power
”to create their Creator.” There is no evidence, so far as I have been able to
find, that, in the Babylonian system, the thin round cake of wafer, the
”unbloody sacrifice of the mass,” was ever regarded in any other light than as
a symbol, that ever it was held to be changed into the god whom it represented.
But yet the doctrine of transubstantiation is clearly of the very essence of
Magic, which pretended, on the pronunciation of a few potent words, to change
one substance into another, or by a dexterous juggle, wholly to remove one
substance, and to substitute another in its place. Further, the Pope, in
the plenitude of his power, assumes the right of wielding the lightnings of
Jehovah, and of blasting by his ”fulminations” whoever offends him. Kings, and
whole nations, believing in this power, have trembled and bowed before him,
through fear of being scathed by his spiritual thunders. The priests of
Paganism assumed the very same power; and, to enforce the belief of their
spiritual power, they even attempted to bring down the literal lightnings from
heaven; yea, there seems some reason to believe that they actually succeeded,
and anticipated the splendid discovery of Dr. Franklin. Numa Pompilius is said
to have done so with complete success. Tullus Hostilius, his successor,
imitating his example, perished in the attempt, himself and his whole family
being struck, like Professor Reichman in recent times, with the lightning he
was endeavouring to draw down. * Such were the wonder-working powers attributed
in the Divine Word to the beast that was to come up from the earth; and by the
old Babylonian type these very powers were all pretended to be exercised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The means appointed for drawing down the lightning were described in the
books of the Etrurian Tages. Numa had copied from these books, and had left
commentaries behind him on the subject, which Tallus had misunderstood, and
hence the catastrophe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, in remembrance of the birth of the god out of a ”hole in the earth,”
the Mysteries were frequently celebrated in caves under ground. This was the
case in Persia, where, just as Tages was said to be born out of the ground,
Mithra was in like manner fabled to have been produced from a cave in the
earth. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* JUSTIN MARTYR. It is remarkable that, as Mithra was born out of a cave,
so the idolatrous nominal Christians of the East represent our Saviour as
having in like manner been born in a a cave. (See KITTO’s Cyclopoedia,
”Bethlehem”) There is not the least hint of such a thing in the Scripture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Numa of Rome himself pretended to get all his revelations from the Nymph
Egeria, in a cave. In these caves men were first initiated in the secret
Mysteries, and by the signs and lying wonders there presented to them, they
were led back, after the death of Nimrod, to the worship of that god in its new
form. This Apocalyptic beast, then, that ”comes up out of the earth,” agrees in
all respects with that ancient god born from a ”hole in the ground”; for no
words could more exactly describe his doing than the words of the prediction (v
13): ”He doeth great wonders, and causeth fire to come down from heaven in the
sight of men,…and he causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship
the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” This wonder-working beast,
called Nebo, or ”The Prophet,” as the prophet of idolatry, was, of course, the
”false prophet.” By comparing the passage before us with Revelation 19:20, it
will be manifest that this beast that ”came up out of the earth” is expressly
called by that very name: ”And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet
that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that received the
mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.” As it was the ”beast
from the earth” that ”wrought miracles” before the first beast, this shows that
”the beast from the earth” is the ”false prophet”; in other words, is ”Nebo.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If we examine the history of the Roman empire, we shall find that here also
there is a precise accordance between type and antitype. When the deadly wound
of Paganism was healed, and the old Pagan title of Pontiff was restored, it
was, through means of the corrupt clergy, symbolised, as is generally believed,
and justly under the image of a beast with horns, like a lamb; according to the
saying of our Lord, ”Beware of false prophets, that shall come to you in
sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” The clergy, as a
corporate body, consisted of two grand divisions–the regular and secular clergy
answering to the two horns or powers of the beast, and combining also, at a
very early period, both temporal and spiritual powers. The bishops, as heads of
these clergy, had large temporal powers, long before the Pope gained his
temporal crown. We have the distinct evidence of both Guizot and Gibbon to this
effect. After showing that before the fifth century, the clergy had not only
become distinct from, but independent of the people, Guizot adds: ”The
Christian clergy had moreover another and very different source of influence.
The bishops and priests became the principal municipal magistrates…If you open
the code, either of Theodosius or Justinian, you will find numerous regulations
which remit municipal affairs to the clergy and the bishops.” Guizot makes
several quotations. The following extract from the Justinian code is sufficient
to show how ample was the civil power bestowed upon the bishops: ”With respect
to the yearly affairs of cities, whether they concern the ordinary revenues of
the city, either from funds arising from the property of the city, or from
private gifts or legacies, or from any other source; whether public works, or
depots of provisions or aqueducts, or the maintenance of baths or ports, or the
construction of walls or towers, or the repairing of bridges or roads, or
trials, in which the city may be engaged in reference to public or private
interests, we ordain as follows:–The very pious bishop, and three notables,
chosen from among the first men of the city, shall meet together; they shall
each year examine the works done; they shall take care that those who conduct
them, or who have conducted them, shall regulate them with precision, render
their accounts, and show that they have duly performed their engagements in the
administration, whether of the public monuments, or of the sums appointed for
provisions or baths, or of expenses in the maintenance of roads, aqueducts, or
any other work.” Here is a large list of functions laid on the spiritual
shoulders of ”the very pious bishop,” not one of which is even hinted at in the
Divine enumeration of the duties of a bishop, as contained in the Word of God.
(See 1 Timothy 3:1-7; and Titus 1:5-9.) How did the bishops, who were
originally appointed for purely spiritual objects, contrive to grasp at such a
large amount of temporal authority? From Gibbon we get light as to the real
origin of what Guizot calls this ”prodigious power.” The author of the Decline
and Fall shows, that soon after Constantine’s time, ”the Church” [and
consequently the bishops, especially when they assumed to be a separate order
from the other clergy] gained great temporal power through the right of asylum,
which had belonged to the Pagan temples, being transferred by the Emperors to
the Christian churches. His words are: ”The fugitive, and even the guilty, were
permitted to implore either the justice or mercy of the Deity and His
ministers.” Thus was the foundation laid of the invasion of the rights of the
civil magistrate by ecclesiastics, and thus were they encouraged to grasp at
all the powers of the State. Thus, also, as is justly observed by the authoress
of Rome in the 19th Century, speaking of the right of asylum, were ”the altars
perverted into protection towards the very crimes they were raised to banish
from the world.” This is a very striking thing, as showing how the temporal
power of the Papacy, in its very first beginnings, was founded on
”lawlessness,” and is an additional proof to the many that might be alleged,
that the Head of the Roman system, to whom all bishops are subject is indeed
”The Lawless One” (2 Thess 2:8), predicted in Scripture as the recognised Head
of the ”Mystery of Iniquity.” All this temporal power came into the hands of
men, who, while professing to be ministers of Christ, and followers of the
Lamb, were seeking simply their own aggrandisement, and, to secure that aggrandisement,
did not hesitate to betray the cause which they professed to serve. The
spiritual power which they wielded over the souls of men, and the secular power
which they gained in the affairs of the world, were both alike used in
opposition to the cause of pure religion and undefiled. At first these false
prophets, in leading men astray, and seeking to unite Paganism and
Christianity, wrought under-ground, mining like the mole in the dark, and
secretly perverting the simple, according to the saying of Paul, ”The Mystery
of Iniquity doth already work.” But by-and-by, towards the end of the fourth
century, when the minds of men had been pretty well prepared, and the aspects
of things seemed to be favourable for it, the wolves in sheep’s clothing
appeared above ground, brought their secret doctrines and practices, by little
and little, into the light of day, and century after century, as their power
increased, by means of all ”deceivableness of unrighteousness,” and ”signs and
lying wonders,” deluded the minds of the worldly Christians, made them believe
that their anathema was equivalent to the curse of God; in other words, that
they could ”bring down fire from heaven,” and thus ”caused the earth, and them
that dwelt therein, to worship the beast whose deadly wound was healed.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Though the Pope be the great Jupiter Tonans of the Papacy, and
”fulminates” from the Vatican, as his predecessor was formerly believed to do
from the Capitol, yet it is not he in reality that brings down the fire from
heaven, but his clergy. But for the influence of the clergy in everywhere
blinding the minds of the people, the Papal thunders would be but ”bruta
fulmina” after all. The symbol, therefore, is most exact, when it attributes
the ”bringing down of the fire from heaven,” to the beast from the earth,
rather than to the beast from the sea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When ”the deadly wound” of the Pagan beast was healed, and the beast from
the sea appeared, it is said that this beast from the earth became the
recognised, accredited executor of the will of the great sea beast (v 12), ”And
he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,” literally ”in his
presence”–under his inspection. Considering who the first beast is, there is
great force in this expression ”in his presence.” The beast that comes up from
the sea, is ”the little horn,” that ”has eyes like the eyes of man” (Dan 7:8);
it is Janus Tuens, ”All-seeing Janus,” in other words, the Universal Bishop or
”Universal Overseer,” who, from his throne on the seven hills, by means of the
organised system of the confessional, sees and knows all that is done, to be
the utmost bounds of his wide dominion. Now, it was just exactly about the
time that the Pope became universal bishop, that the custom began of
systematically investing the chief bishops of the Western empire with the Papal
livery, the pallium, ”for the purpose,” says Gieseler, ”of symbolising and
strengthening their connection with the Church of Rome.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* GIESELER. From Gieseler we learn that so early as 501, the Bishop of Rome
had laid the foundation of the corporation of bishops by the bestowal of the
pallium; but, at the same time, he expressly states that it was only about 602,
at the `63 ascent of Phocas to the imperial throne–that Phocas that made the
Pope Universal Bishop–that the Popes began to bestow the pallium, that is, of
course, systematically, and on a large scale.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That pallium, worn on the shoulders of the bishops, while on the one hand
it was the livery of the Pope, and bound those who received it to act as the
functionaries of Rome, deriving all their authority from him, and exercising it
under his superintendence, as the ”Bishop of bishops,” on the other hand, was
in reality the visible investiture of these wolves with the sheep’s clothing.
For what was the pallium of the Papal bishop? It was a dress made of wool,
blessed by the Pope, taken from the holy lambs kept by the nuns of St. Agnes,
and woven by their sacred hands, that it might be bestowed on those whom the
Popes delighted to honour, for the purpose, as one of themselves expressed it,
of ”joining them to our society in the one pastoral sheepfold.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* GIESELER, ”Papacy”). The reader who peruses the early letters of the
Popes in bestowing the pallium, will not fail to observe the wide difference of
meaning between ”the one pastoral sheepfold” above referred to, and ”the one
sheepfold” of our Lord. The former really means a sheepfold consisting of
pastors or shepherds. The papal letters unequivocally imply the organisation of
the bishops, as a distinct corporation, altogether independent of the Church,
and dependent only on the Papacy, which seems remarkably to agree with the
terms of the prediction in regard to the beast from the earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus commissioned, thus ordained by the universal Bishop, they did their
work effectually, and brought the earth and them that dwelt in it, ”to worship
the beast that received the wound by a sword and did live.” This was a part of
this beast’s predicted work. But there was another, and not less important,
which remains for consideration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VII<br />
Section IV<br />
The Image of the Beast</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Not merely does the beast from the earth lead the world to worship the
first beast, but (v 14) he prevails on them that dwell on the earth to make ”an
IMAGE to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” In
meditating for many years on what might be implied in ”the image of the beast,”
I could never find the least satisfaction in all the theories that had ever
been propounded, till I fell in with an unpretending but valuable work, which I
have noticed already, entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse.
That work, evidently the production of a penetrating mind deeply read in the
history of the Papacy, furnished at once the solution of the difficulty. There
the image of the beast is pronounced to be the Virgin Mother, or the Madonna.
This at first sight may appear a very unlikely solution; but when it is brought
into comparison with the religious history of Chaldea, the unlikelihood
entirely disappears. In the old Babylonian Paganism, there was an image of the
Beast from the sea; and when it is known what that image was, the question
will, I think, be fairly decided. When Dagon was first set up to be worshipped,
while he was represented in many different ways, and exhibited in many
different characters, the favourite form in which he was worshipped, as the
reader well knows, was that of a child in his mother’s arms. In the natural
course of events, the mother came to be worshipped along with the child, yea,
to be the favourite object of worship. To justify this worship, as we have
already seen, that mother, of course, must be raised to divinity, and divine
powers and prerogatives ascribed to her. Whatever dignity, therefore, the son
was believed to possess a like dignity was ascribed to her. Whatever name of
honour he bore, a similar name was bestowed upon her. He was called Belus, ”the
Lord”; she, Beltis, ”My Lady.” He was called Dagon, ”the Merman”; she, Derketo,
”the Mermaid.” He, as the World-king, wore the bull’s horns; she, as we have
already seen, on the authority of Sanchuniathon, put on her own head a bull’s
head, as the ensign of royalty. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* EUSEBIUS, Proeparatio Evangelii. This statement is remarkable, as showing
that the horns which the great goddess wore were really intended to exhibit her
as the express image of Ninus, or ”the Son.” Had she worn merely the cow’s
horns, it might have been supposed that these horns were intended only to
identify her with the moon. But the bull’s horns show that the intention was to
represent her as equal in her sovereignty with Nimrod, or Kronos, the ”Horned
one.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He, as the Sun-god, was called Beel-samen, ”Lord of heaven”; she, as the
Moon-goddess, Melkat-ashemin, ”Queen of heaven.” He was worshipped in Egypt as
the ”Revealer of goodness and truth”; she, in Babylon, under the symbol of the
Dove, as the goddess of gentleness and mercy, the ”Mother of gracious
acceptance,” ”merciful and benignant to men.” He, under the name of
Mithra, was worshipped as Mesites, or ”the Mediator”; she, as Aphrodite, or the
”Wrath-subduer,” was called Mylitta, ”the Mediatrix.” He was represented as
crushing the great serpent under his heel; she, as bruising the serpent’s head
in her hand. He, under the name Janus, bore a key as the opener and shutter of
the gates of the invisible world. She, under the name of Cybele, was invested
with a like key, as an emblem of the same power. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* TOOKE’S Pantheon. That the key of Cybele, in the esoteric story, had a
corresponding meaning to that of Janus, will appear from the character above
assigned to her as the Mediatrix.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He, as the cleanser from sin, was called the ”Unpolluted god”; she, too,
had the power to wash away sin, and, though the mother of the seed, was called
the ”Virgin, pure and undefiled.” He was represented as ”Judge of the dead”;
she was represented as standing by his side, at the judgment-seat, in the
unseen world. He, after being killed by the sword, was fabled to have risen
again, and ascended up to heaven. She, too, though history makes her to have
been killed with the sword by one of her own sons, * was nevertheless in the
myth, said to have been carried by her son bodily to heaven, and to have been
made Pambasileia, ”Queen of the universe.” Finally, to clench the whole, the
name by which she was now known was Semele, which, in the Babylonian language,
signifies ”THE IMAGE.” ** Thus, in every respect, to the very least jot and
tittle, she became the express image of the Babylonian ”beast that had the
wound by a sword, and did live.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In like manner, Horus, in Egypt, is said to have cut off his mother’s
head, as Bel in Babylon also cut asunder the great primeval goddess of the
Babylonians. (BUNSEN)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Apollodorus states that Bacchus, on carrying his mother to heaven,
called her Thuone, which was just the feminine of his own name, Thuoenus–in
Latin Thyoneus. (OVID, Metam.) Thuoneus is evidently from the passive
participle of Thn, ”to lament,” a synonym for ”Bacchus,” ”The lamented god.”
Thuone, in like manner, is ”The lamented goddess.” The Roman Juno was evidently
known in this very character of the ”Image”; for there was a temple erected to
her in Rome, on the Capitoline hill, under the name of ”Juno Moneta.” Moneta is
the emphatic form of one of the Chaldee words for an ”image”; and that this was
the real meaning of the name, will appear from the fact that the Mint was
contained in the precincts of that temple. (See SMITH’S ”Juno”) What is the use
of a mint but just to stamp ”images”? Hence the connection between Juno and the
Mint.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After what the reader has already seen in a previous part of this work, it
is hardly necessary to say that it is this very goddess that is now worshipped
in the Church of Rome under the name of Mary. Though that goddess is called by
the name of the mother of our Lord, all the attributes given to her are derived
simply from the Babylonian Madonna, and not from the Virgin Mother of Christ. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The very way in which the Popish Madonna is represented is plainly copied
from the idolatrous representations of the Pagan goddess. The great god used to
be represented as sitting or standing in the cup of a Lotus-flower. In India,
the very same mode of representation is common; Brahma being often seen seated
on a Lotus-flower, said to have sprung from the navel of Vishnu. The great
goddess, in like manner, must have a similar couch; and, therefore, in India,
we find Lakshmi, the ”Mother of the Universe,” sitting on a Lotus, borne by a
tortoise. Now, in this very thing, also Popery has copied from its Pagan model;
for, in the Pancarpium Marianum the Virgin and child are represented sitting in
the cup of a tulip.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is not one line or one letter in all the Bible to countenance the
idea that Mary should be worshipped, that she is the ”refuge of sinners,” that
she was ”immaculate,” that she made atonement for sin when standing by the
cross, and when, according to Simeon, ”a sword pierced through her own soul
also”; or that, after her death, she was raised from the dead and carried in
glory to heaven. But in the Babylonian system all this was found; and all this
is now incorporated in the system of Rome. The ”sacred heart of Mary” is
exhibited as pierced through with a sword, in token, as the apostate Church
teaches, that her anguish at the crucifixion was as true an atonement as the
death of Christ;–for we read in the Devotional office or Service-book, adopted
by the ”Sodality of the sacred heart,” such blasphemous words as these, ”Go,
then, devout client! go to the heart of Jesus, but let your way be through the
heart of Mary; the sword of grief which pierced her soul opens you a passage;
enter by the wound which love has made”; *–again we hear one expounder of the
new faith, like M. Genoude in France, say that ”Mary was the repairer of the
guilt of Eve, as our Lord was the repairer of the guilt of Adam”; and
another–Professor Oswald of Paderbon–affirm that Mary was not a human creature
like us, that she is ”the Woman, as Christ is the Man,” that ”Mary is
co-present in the Eucharist, and that it is indisputable that, according to the
Eucharistic doctrine of the Church, this presence of Mary in the Eucharist is
true and real, not merely ideal or figurative”; and, further, we read in the
Pope’s decree of the Immaculate Conception, that that same Madonna, for this
purpose ”wounded with the sword,” rose from the dead, and being assumed up on
high, became Queen of Heaven. If all this be so, who can fail to see that in
that apostate community is to be found what precisely answers to the making and
setting up in the heart of Christendom, of an ”Image to the beast that had the
wound by a sword and did live”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Memoir of Rev. Godfrey Massy. In the Paradisus sponsi et sponsoe, by the
author of Pancarpium Marianum, the following words, addressed to the Virgin,
occur in illustration of a plate representing the crucifixion, and Mary, at the
foot of the Cross, with the sword in her breast, ”Thy beloved son did sacrifice
his flesh; thou thy soul–yea, both body and soul.” This does much more than put
the sacrifice of the Virgin on a level with that of the Lord Jesus, it makes it
greater far. This, in 1617, was the creed only of Jesuitism; now there is
reason to believe it to be the general creed of the Papacy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the inspired terms be consulted, it will be seen that this was to be
done by some public general act of apostate Christendom; (v 14), ”Saying to
them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast”; and
they made it. Now, here is the important fact to be observed, that this never
was done, and this never could have been done, till eight years ago; for this
plain reason, that till then the Madonna of Rome was never recognised as
combining all the characters that belonged to the Babylonian ”IMAGE of the
beast.” Till then it was not admitted even in Rome, though this evil leaven had
been long working, and that strongly, that Mary was truly immaculate, and
consequently she could not be the perfect counterpart of the Babylonian Image.
What, however, had never been done before, was done in December, 1854. Then
bishops from all parts of Christendom, and representatives from the ends of the
earth, met in Rome; and with only four dissentient voices, it was decreed that
Mary, the mother of God, who died, rose from the dead, and ascended into
heaven, should henceforth be worshipped as the Immaculate Virgin, ”conceived
and born without sin.” This was the formal setting up of the Image of the
beast, and that by the general consent of ”the men that dwell upon the earth.”
Now, this beast being set up, it is said, that the beast from the earth gives
life and speech to the Image, implying, first, that it has neither life nor
voice in itself; but that, nevertheless, through means of the beast from the
earth, it is to have both life and voice, and to be an effective agent of the
Papal clergy, who will make it speak exactly as they please. Since the Image
has been set up, its voice has been everywhere heard throughout the Papacy.
Formerly decrees ran less or more in the name of Christ. Now all things are
pre-eminently done in the name of the Immaculate Virgin. Her voice is
everywhere heard–her voice is supreme. But, be it observed, when that voice is
heard, it is not the voice of mercy and love, it is the voice of cruelty and
terror. The decrees that come forth under the name of the Image, are to this
effect (v 17), that ”no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or
the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” No sooner is the image set
up than we see this very thing begun to be carried out. What was the Concordat
in Austria, that so speedily followed, but this very thing? That concordat,
through the force of unexpected events that have arisen, has not yet been
carried into effect; but if it were, the results would just be what is
predicted–that no man in the Austrian dominions should ”buy or sell” without
the mark in some shape or other. And the very fact of such an intolerant
concordat coming so speedily on the back of the Decree of the Immaculate
Conception, shows what is the natural fruit of that decree. The events that
soon thereafter took place in Spain showed the powerful working of the same persecuting
spirit there also. During the last few years, the tide of spiritual despotism
might have seemed to be effectually arrested; and many, no doubt, have indulged
the persuasion that, crippled as the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy is, and
tottering as it seems to be, that power, or its subordinates, could never
persecute more. But there is an amazing vitality in the Mystery of Iniquity;
and no one can ever tell beforehand what apparent impossibilities it may
accomplish in the way of arresting the progress of truth and liberty, however
promising the aspect of things may be. Whatever may become of the temporal
sovereignty of the Roman states, it is by no means so evident this day, as to
many it seemed only a short while ago, that the overthrow of the spiritual
power of the Papacy is imminent, and that its power to persecute is finally
gone. I doubt not but that many, constrained by the love and mercy of God, will
yet obey the heavenly voice, and flee out of the doomed communion, before the
vials of Divine wrath descend upon it. But if I have been right in the
interpretation of this passage, then it follows that it must yet become more
persecuting than ever it has been, and that that intolerance, which,
immediately after the setting up of the Image, began to display itself in
Austria and Spain, shall yet spread over all Europe; for it is not said that
the Image of the beast should merely decree, but should ”cause that as many as
would not worship the Image of the beast should be killed” (v 15). When this takes
place, that evidently is the time when the language of verse 8 is fulfilled,
”And all that dwell on the earth shall worship the beast, whose names are not
written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world.” It is impossible to get quit of this by saying, ”This refers to the
Dark Ages; this was fulfilled before Luther.” I ask, had the men who dwelt on
the earth set up the Image of the beast before Luther’s days? Plainly not. The
decree of the Immaculate Conception was the deed of yesterday. The prophecy,
then, refers to our own times–to the period on which the Church is now
entering. In other words, the slaying of the witnesses, the grand trial of the
saints, IS STILL TO COME. (see note below)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">____________________</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Slaying of the Witnesses</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is it past, or is it still to come? This is a vital question. The favourite
doctrine at this moment is, that it is past centuries ago, and that no such
dark night of suffering to the saints of God can ever come again, as happened
just before the era of the Reformation. This is the cardinal principle of a
work that has just appeared, under the title of The Great Exodus, which
implies, that however much the truth may be assailed, however much the saints
of God may be threatened, however their fears may be aroused, they have no real
reason to fear, for that the Red Sea will divide, the tribes of the Lord will
pass through dry shod, and all their enemies, like Pharaoh and his host, shall
sink in overwhelming ruin. If the doctrine maintained by many of the soberest
interpreters of Scripture for a century past, including such names as Brown of
Haddington, Thomas Scott, and others, be well founded-viz., that the putting
down of the testimony of the witnesses is till to come, this theory must not only
be a delusion, but a delusion of most fatal tendency–a delusion that by
throwing professors off their guard, and giving them an excuse for taking their
ease, rather than standing in the high places of the field, and bearing bold
and unflinching testimony for Christ, directly paves the way for that very
extinction of the testimony which is predicted. I enter not into any historical
disquisition as to the question, whether, as a matter of fact, it was true that
the witnesses were slain before Luther appeared. Those who wish to see an
historical argument on the subject may see it in the Red Republic, which I
venture to think has not yet been answered. Neither do I think it worth while
particularly to examine the assumption of Dr. Wylie, and I hold it to be a pure
and gratuitous assumption, that the 1260 days during which the saints of God in
Gospel times were to suffer for righteousness’ sake, has any relation whatever,
as a half period, to a whole, symbolised by the ”Seven times” that passed over
Nebuchadnezzar when he was suffering and chastened for his pride and blasphemy,
as the representative of the ”world power.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The author does not himself make the humiliation of the Babylonian king a
type of the humiliation of the Church. How then can he establish any typical
relation between the ”seven times” in the one case, and the ”seven times” in
the other? He seems to think it quite enough to establish that relation, if he
can find one point of resemblance between Nebuchadnezzar, the humbled despot,
and the ”world-power” that oppresses the Church during the two periods of
”seven times” respectively. That one point is the ”madness” of the one and the
other. It might be asked, Was, then, the ”world-power” in its right mind before
”the seven times” began? But waiving that, here is the vital objection to this
view: The madness in the case of Nebuchadnezzar was simply an affliction; in
the other it was sin. The madness of Nebuchadnezzar did not, so far as we know,
lead him to oppress a single individual; the madness of the ”world-power,”
according to the theory, is essentially characterised by the oppression of the
saints. Where, then, can there be the least analogy between the two cases? The
”seven times” of the Babylonian king were seven times of humiliation, and humiliation
alone. The suffering monarch cannot be a type of the suffering Church; and
still less can his ”seven times” of deepest humiliation, when all power and
glory was taken from him, be a type of the ”seven times” of the ”world-power,”
when that ”world-power” was to concentrate in itself all the glory and grandeur
of the earth. This is one fatal objection to this theory. Then let the reader
only look at the following sentence from the work under consideration, and
compare it with historical fact, and he will see still more how unfounded the
theory is: ”It follows undeniably,” says the author, ”that as the Church is to
be tyrannised over by the idolatrous power throughout the whole of the seven
times, she will be oppressed during the first half of the ‘seven times,’ by
idolatry in the form of Paganism, and during the last half by idolatry in the
form of Popery.” Now, the first half, or 1260 years, during which the Church
was to be oppressed by Pagan idolatry, ran out exactly, it is said, in AD 530
or 532; when suddenly Justinian changed the scene, and brought the new
oppressor on the stage. But I ask where was the ”world-power” to be found up to
530, maintaining ”idolatry in the form of Paganism”? From the time of Gratian
at least, who, about 376, formally abolished the worship of the gods, and
confiscated their revenues, where was there any such Pagan power to persecute?
There is certainly a very considerable interval between 376 and 532. The
necessities of the theory require that Paganism, and that avowed Paganism, be
it observed, shall be persecuting the Church straight away till 532; but for
156 years there was no such thing as a Pagan ”world-power” in existence to
persecute the Church. ”The legs of the lame,” says Solomon, ”are not equal”;
and if the 1260 years of Pagan persecution lack no less that 156 years of the
predicted period, surely it must be manifest that the theory halts very much on
one side at least. But I ask, do the facts agree with the theory, even in
regard to the running out of the second 1260 years in 1792, at the period of
the French Revolution? If the 1260 years of Papal oppression terminated then,
and if then the Ancient of days came to begin the final judgment on the beast,
He came also to do something else. This will appear from the language of Daniel
7:21, 22: ”I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the
saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the
kingdom.” This language implies that the judgment on the little horn, and the
putting of the saints in possession ”of the kingdom” are contemporaneous
events. Long has the rule of the kingdoms of this world been in the hands of
worldly men, that knew not God nor obeyed Him; but now, when He to whom the
kingdom belongs comes to inflict judgment on His enemies, He comes also to
transfer the rule of the kingdoms of this world from the hands of those who
have abused it, into the hand of those that fear God and govern their public
conduct by His revealed will. This is evidently the meaning of the Divine
statement. Now, on the supposition that 1792 was the predicted period of the
coming of the Ancient of days, it follows that, ever since, the principles of
God’s Word must have been leavening the governments of Europe more and more,
and good and holy men, of the spirit of Daniel and Nehemiah, must have been
advanced to the high places of power. But has it been so in point of fact? Is
there one nation in all Europe that acts on Scriptural principles at this day?
Does Britain itself do so? Why, it is notorious that it was just three years
after the reign of righteousness, according to this theory, must have commenced
that that unprincipled policy began that has left hardly a shred of appearance
of respect for the honour of the ”Prince of the Kings of the earth” in the
public rule of this nation. It was in 1795 that Pitt, and the British
Parliament, passed the Act for the erecting of the Roman Catholic College of
Maynooth, which formed the beginning of a course that, year by year, has lifted
the Man of Sin into a position of power in this land, that threatens, if Divine
mercy do not miraculously interfere, to bring us speedily back again under
complete thraldom to Antichrist. Yet, according to the theory of The Great
Exodus, the very opposite of this ought to have been the case.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But to this only I call the reader’s attention, that even on the theory of
Dr. Wylie himself, the witnesses of Christ could not possibly have finished
their testimony before the Decree of the Immaculate Conception came forth. The
theory of Dr. Wylie, and those who take the same general view as he, is, that
the ”finishing of the testimony,” means ”completing the elements” of the
testimony, bearing a full and complete testimony against the errors of Rome.
Dr. Wylie himself admits that ”the dogma of the ‘Immaculate Conception’ [which
was given forth only during the last few years] declares Mary truly ‘divine,’
and places her upon the altars of Rome as practically the sole and supreme
object of worship” (The Great Exodus). This was NEVER done before, and
therefore the errors and blasphemies of Rome were not complete until that
decree had gone forth, if even then. Now, if the corruption and blasphemy of
Rome were ”incomplete” up to our own day, and if they have risen to a height
which was never witnessed before, as all men instinctively felt and declared,
when that decree was issued, how could the testimony of the witnesses be
”complete” before Luther’s day! It is nothing to say that the principle and the
germ of this decree were in operation long before. The same thing may be said
of all the leading errors of Rome long before Luther’s day. They were all in
essence and substance very broadly developed, from near the time when Gregory
the Great commanded the image of the Virgin to be carried forth in the
processions that supplicated the Most High to remove the pestilence from Rome,
when it was committing such havoc among its citizens. But that does in no wise
prove that they were ”complete,” or that the witnesses of Christ could then
”finish their testimony” by bearing a full and ”complete testimony” against the
errors and corruptions of the Papacy. I submit this view of the matter to every
intelligent reader for his prayerful consideration. If we have not
”understanding of the times,” it is vain to expect that we ”shall know what
Israel ought to do.” If we are saying ”Peace and safety,” when trouble is at
hand, or underrating the nature of that trouble, we cannot be prepared for the
grand struggle when that struggle shall come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Chapter VII<br />
Section V<br />
The Name of the Beast, the Number of His Name–<br />
The Invisible Head of the Papacy</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dagon and the Pope being now identified, this brings us naturally and
easily to the long-sought name and number of the beast, and confirms, by
entirely new evidence, the old Protestant view of the subject. The name
”Lateinos” has been generally accepted by Protestant writers, as having many
elements of probability to recommend it. But yet there has been always found a
certain deficiency, and it has been felt that something was wanting to put it
beyond all possibility of doubt. Now, looking at the subject from the
Babylonian point of view, we shall find both the name and number of the beast
brought home to us in such a way as leaves nothing to be desired on the point
of evidence. Osiris, or Nimrod, whom the Pope represents, was called by many
different titles, and therefore, as Wilkinson remarks, he was much in the same
position as his wife, who was called ”Myrionymus,” the goddess with ”ten
thousand names.” Among these innumerable names, how shall we ascertain the name
at which the Spirit of God points in the enigmatical language that speaks of
the name of the beast, and the number of his name? If we know the Apocalyptic
name of the system, that will lead us to the name of the head of the system.
The name of the system is ”Mystery” (Rev 17:5). Here, then, we have the key
that at once unlocks the enigma. We have now only to inquire what was the name
by which Nimrod was known as the god of the Chaldean Masteries. That name, as
we have seen, was Saturn. Saturn and Mystery are both Chaldean words, and they
are correlative terms. As Mystery signifies the Hidden system, so Saturn
signifies the Hidden god. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* In the Litany of the Mass, the worshippers are taught thus to pray: ”God
Hidden, and my Saviour, have mercy upon us.” (M’GAVIN’S Protestant) Whence can
this invocation of the ”God Hidden” have come, but from the ancient worship of
Saturn, the ”Hidden God”? As the Papacy has canonised the Babylonian god by the
name of St. Dionysius, and St. Bacchus, the ”martyr,” so by this very name of
”Satur” is he also enrolled in the calendar; for March 29th is the festival of
”St. Satur,” the martyr. (CHAMBER’S Book of Days)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else he was
hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced Satur; but, as every
Chaldee scholar knows, consists only of four letters, thus–Stur. This name
contains exactly the Apocalyptic number 666:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">S = 060<br />
T = 400<br />
U = 006<br />
R = 200</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If the Pope is, as we have seen, the legitimate representative of Saturn,
the number of the Pope, as head of the Mystery of Iniquity, is just 666. But
still further it turns out, as shown above, that the original name of Rome
itself was Saturnia, ”the city of Saturn.” This is vouched alike by Ovid, by
Pliny, and by Aurelius Victor. Thus, then, the Pope has a double claim to the
name and number of the beast. He is the only legitimate representative of the
original Saturn at this day in existence, and he reigns in the very city of the
seven hills where the Roman Saturn formerly reigned; and, from his residence in
which, the whole of Italy was ”long after called by his name,” being commonly
named ”the Saturnian land.” But what bearing, it may be said, has this upon the
name Lateinos, which is commonly believed to be the ”name of the beast”? Much.
It proves that the common opinion is thoroughly well-founded. Saturn and
Lateinos are just synonymous, having precisely the same meaning, and belonging
equally to the same god. The reader cannot have forgotten the lines of Virgil,
which showed that Lateinos, to whom the Romans or Latin race traced back their
lineage, was represented with a glory around his head, to show that he was a
”child of the Sun.” Thus, then, it is evident that, in popular opinion, the
original Lateinos had occupied the very same position as Saturn did in the
Mysteries, who was equally worshipped as the ”offspring of the Sun.” Moreover,
it is evident that the Romans knew that the name ”Lateinos” signifies the
”Hidden One,” for their antiquarians invariably affirm that Latium received its
name from Saturn ”lying hid” there. On etymological grounds, then, even on the
testimony of the Romans, Lateinos is equivalent to the ”Hidden One”; that is,
to Saturn, the ”god of Mystery.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Latium Latinus (the Roman form of the Greek Lateinos), and Lateo, ”to lie
hid,” all alike come from the Chaldee ”Lat,” which has the same meaning. The
name ”lat,” or the hidden one, had evidently been given, as well as Saturn, to
the great Babylonian god. This is evident from the name of the fish Latus,
which was worshipped along with the Egyptian Minerva, in the city of Latopolis
in Egypt, now Esneh (WILKINSON), that fish Latus evidently just being another
name for the fish-god Dagon. We have seen that Ichthys, or the Fish, was one of
the names of Bacchus; and the Assyrian goddess Atergatis, with her son Ichthys
is said to have been cast into the lake of Ascalon. That the sun-god Apollo had
been known under the name of Lat, may be inferred from the Greek name of his
mother-wife Leto, or in Doric, Lato, which is just the feminine of Lat. The
Roman name Latona confirms this, for it signifies ”The lamenter of Lat,” as
Bellona signifies ”The lamenter of Bel.” The Indian god Siva, who, as we have
seen, is sometimes represented as a child at the breast of its mother, and has
the same bloody character as Moloch, or the Roman Saturn, is called by this
very name, as may be seen from the following verse made in reference to the image
found in his celebrated temple at Somnaut:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">”This image grim, whose name
was LAUT,<br />
Bold Mahmoud found when he took Sumnaut.”<br />
BORROW’S Gypsies in Spain, or Zincali</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Lat was used as a synonym for Saturn, there can be little doubt that
Latinus was used in the same sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The deified kings were called after the gods from whom they professed to
spring, and not after their territories. The same, we may be sure, was the case
with Latinus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While Saturn, therefore, is the name of the beast, and contains the mystic
number, Lateinos, which contains the same number, is just as peculiar and
distinctive an appellation of the same beast. The Pope, then, as the head of
the beast, is equally Lateinos or Saturn, that is, the head of the Babylonian
”Mystery.” When, therefore, the Pope requires all his services to be performed
in the ”Latin tongue,” that is as much as to say that they must be performed in
the language of ”Mystery”; when he calls his Church the Latin Church, that is
equivalent to a declaration that it is the Church of ”Mystery.” Thus, by this
very name of the Pope’s own choosing, he has with his own hands written upon
the very forehead of his apostate communion its divine Apocalyptic designation,
”MYSTERY–Babylon the great.” Thus, also, by a process of the purest induction,
we have been led on from step to step, till we find the mystic number 666
unmistakably and ”indelibly marked” on his own forehead, and that he who has
his seat on the seven hills of Rome has exclusive and indefeasible claims to be
regarded as the Visible head of the beast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reader, however, who has carefully considered the language that speaks
of the name and number of the Apocalyptic beast, must have observed that, in
the terms that describe that name and number, there is still an enigma that
ought not to be overlooked. The words are these: ”Let him that hath
understanding count the number of the beast–for it is the number of a man” (Rev
13:18). What means the saying, that the ”number of the beast is the number of a
man”? Does it merely mean that he has been called by a name that has been borne
by some individual man before? This is the sense in which the words have been
generally understood. But surely this would be nothing very distinctive–nothing
that might not equally apply to innumerable names. But view this language in
connection with the ascertained facts of the case, and what a Divine light at
once beams from the expression. Saturn, the hidden god,–the god of the
Mysteries, whom the Pope represents, whose secrets were revealed only to the
initiated,–was identical with Janus, who was publicly known to all Rome, to the
uninitiated and initiated alike, as the grand Mediator, the opener and the
shutter, who had the key of the invisible world. Now, what means the name
Janus? That name, as Cornificius in Macrobius shows, was properly Eanus; and in
ancient Chaldee, E-anush signifies ”the Man.” By that very name was the
Babylonian beast from the sea called, when it first made its appearance. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The name, as given in Greek by Berosus, is O-annes; but this is just the
very way we might expect ”He-anesth,” ”the man,” to appear in Greek. He-siri,
in Greek, becomes Osiris; and He-sarsiphon, Osarsiphon; and, in like manner,
He-anesh naturally becomes Oannes. In the sense of a ”Man-god,” the name Oannes
is taken by Barker (Lares and Penates). We find the conversion of the H’ into
O’ among our own immediate neighbours, the Irish; what is now O’Brien and
O’Connell was originally H’Brien and H’Connell (Sketches of Irish History).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The name E-anush, or ”the Man,” was applied to the Babylonian Messiah, as
identifying him with the promised seed of the Woman. The name of ”the Man,” as
applied to a god, was intended to designate him as the ”god-man.” We have seen
that in India the Hindoo Shasters bear witness, that in order to enable the
gods to overcome their enemies, it was needful that the Sun, the supreme
divinity, should be incarnate, and born of a Woman. The classical nations had a
legend of precisely the same nature. ”There was a current tradition in heaven,”
says Apollodorus, ”that the giants could never be conquered except by the help
of a man.” That man, who was believed to have conquered the adversaries of the
gods, was Janus, the god-man. In consequence of his assumed character and
exploits, Janus was invested with high powers, made the keeper of the gates of
heaven, and arbiter of men’s eternal destinies. Of this Janus, this Babylonian
”man,” the Pope, as we have seen, is the legitimate representative; his key,
therefore, he bears, with that of Cybele, his mother-wife; and to all his
blasphemous pretensions he at this hour lays claim. The very fact, then, that
the Pope founds his claim to universal homage on the possession of the keys of
heaven, and that in a sense which empowers him, in defiance of every principle
of Christianity, to open and shut the gates of glory, according to his mere
sovereign will and pleasure, is a striking and additional proof that he is that
head of the beast from the sea, whose number, as identified with Janus, is the
number of a man, and amounts exactly to 666.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But there is something further still in the name of Janus or Eanus, not to
be passed over. Janus, while manifestly worshipped as the Messiah or god-man,
was also celebrated as ”Principium Decorum,” the source and fountain of all the
Pagan gods. We have already in this character traced him backward through Cush
to Noah; but to make out his claim to this high character, in its proper
completeness, he must be traced even further still. The Pagans knew, and could
not but know, at the time the Mysteries were concocted, in the days of Shem and
his brethren, who, through the Flood, had passed from the old world to the new,
the whole story of Adam, and therefore it was necessary, if a deification of
mankind there was to be, that his pre-eminent dignity, as the human ”Father of
gods and men,” should not be ignored. Nor was it. The Mysteries were full of
what he did, and what befel him; and the name E-anush, or, as it appeared in
the Egyptian form, Ph’anesh, ”The man,” was only another name for that of our
great progenitor. The name of Adam in the Hebrew of Genesis almost always
occurs with the article before it, implying ”The Adam,” or ”The man.” There is
this difference, however–”The Adam” refers to man unfallen, E-anush, ”The man,”
to ”fallen man.” E-anush, then, as ”Principium decorum,” ”The fountain and
father of the gods,” is ”FALLEN Adam.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Anesh properly signifies only the weakness or frailty of fallen humanity;
but any one who consults OVID, Fashti, as to the character of Janus, will see
that when E-anush was deified, it was not simply as Fallen man with his
weakness, but Fallen man with his corruption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The principle of Pagan idolatry went directly to exalt fallen humanity, to
consecrate its lusts, to give men license to live after the flesh, and yet,
after such a life, to make them sure of eternal felicity. E-anus, the ”fallen
man,” was set up as the human Head of this system of corruption–this ”Mystery
of Iniquity.” Now, from this we come to see the real meaning of the name,
applied to the divinity commonly worshipped in Phrygia along with Cybele in the
very same character as this same Janus, who was at once the Father of the gods,
and the Mediatorial divinity. That name was Atys, or Attis, or Attes, * and the
meaning will evidently appear from the meaning of the well-known Greek word
Ate, which signifies ”error of sin,” and is obviously derived from the Chaldean
Hata, ”to sin.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* SMITH’S Classical Dictionary, ”Atys.” The identification of Attes with
Bacchus or Adonis, who was at once the Father of the gods, and the Mediator, is
proved from divers considerations. 1. While it is certain that the favourite
god of the Phrygian Cybele was Attes, whence he was called ”Cybelius Attes,”
from Strabo, we learn that the divinity worshipped along with Cybele in
Phrygia, was called by the very name of Dionusos or Bacchus. 2. Attes was
represented in the very same way as Bacchus. In Bryant there is an inscription
to him along with the Idaean goddess, that is Cybele, under the name of ”Attis
the Minotaur” (Mythol.). Bacchus was bull-horned; it is well known that the
Minotaur, in like manner, was half-man, half-bull. 3. He was represented in the
exoteric story, as perishing in the same way as Adonis by a wild boar (PAUSAN).
4. In the rites of Magna Mater or Cybele, the priests invoked him as the ”Deus
propitius, Deus sanctus,” ”the merciful God, the holy God” (ARNOBIUS in Maxima
Biblioth. Patrum), the very character which Bacchus or Adonis sustained as the
mediatorial god.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Atys or Attes, formed from the same verb, and in a similar way, signifies
”The Sinner.” The reader will remember that Rhea or Cybele was worshipped in
Phrygia under the name of Idaia Mater, ”The mother of knowledge,” and that she
bore in her hand, as her symbol, the pomegranate, which we have seen reason to
conclude to have been in Pagan estimation the fruit of the ”forbidden tree.”
Who, then, so likely to have been the contemplar divinity of that ”Mother of
knowledge” as Attes, ”The sinner,” even her own husband, whom she induced to
share with her in her sin, and partake of her fatal knowledge, and who thereby
became in true and proper sense, ”The man of sin,”–”the man by whom sin entered
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all, because all have
sinned.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The whole story of Attes can be proved in detail to be the story of the
Fall. Suffice it here only to state that, even on the surface, this sin was
said to be connected with undue love for ”a nymph, whose fate depended on a
tree” (OVID, Fasti). The love of Attes for this nymph was in one aspect an
offence to Cybele, but, in another, it was the love of Cybele herself; for
Cybele has two distinct fundamental characters–that of the Holy Spirit, and
also that of our mother Eve. ”The nymph whose fate depended on a tree” was
evidently Rhea, the mother of mankind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now to Attes, this ”Man of sin,” after passing through those sorrows and
sufferings, which his worshippers yearly commemorated, the distinguishing
characteristics and glories of the Messiah were given. He was identified with
the sun, * the only god; he was identified with Adonis; and to him as thus
identified, the language of the Sixteenth Psalm, predicting the triumph of our
Saviour Christ over death and the grave, was in all its greatness applied: ”Thou
wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">BRYANT. The ground of the Identification of Attis with the sun evidently
was, that as Hata signifies to sin, so Hatah, which signifies to burn, is in
pronunciation nearly the same. (see </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect75.htm#note"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> below)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is sufficiently known that the first part of this statement was applied
to Adonis; for the annual weeping of the women for Tammuz was speedily turned
into rejoicings, on account of his fabled return from Hades, or the infernal
regions. But it is not so well known that Paganism applied to its mediatorial
god the predicted incorruption of the body of the Messiah. But that this was
the fact, we learn from the distinct testimony of Pausanias. ”Agdistis,” that
is Cybele, says he, ”obtained from Jupiter, that no part of the body of Attes
should either become putrid or waste away.” Thus did Paganism apply to Attes
”the sinner,” the incommunicable honour of Christ, who came to ”save His people
from their sins”–as contained in the Divine language uttered by the ”sweet
psalmist of Israel,” a thousand years before the Christian era. If, therefore,
the Pope occupies, as we have seen, the very place of Janus ”the man,” how clear
is it, that he equally occupies the place of Attes, ”the sinner,” and then how
striking in this point of view the name ”Man of sin,” as divinely given by
prophecy (2 Thess 2:3) to him who was to be the head of the Christian apostacy,
and who was to concentrate in that apostacy all the corruption of Babylonian
Paganism?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Pope is thus on every ground demonstrated to be the visible head of the
beast. But the beast has not only a visible, but an invisible head that governs
it. That invisible head is none other than Satan, the head of the first grand
apostacy that began in heaven itself. This is put beyond doubt by the language
of Revelation 13:4 ”And they worshipped the Dragon which gave power unto the
beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
This language shows that the worship of the dragon is commensurate with the
worship of the beast. That the dragon is primarily Satan, the arch-fiend
himself, is plain from the statement of the previous chapter (Rev 12:9) ”And the
Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world.” If, then, the Pope be, as we have seen, the visible
head of the beast, the adherents of Rome, in worshipping the Pope, of necessity
worship also the Devil. With the Divine statement before us, there is no
possibility of escaping from this. And this is exactly what we might expect on
other grounds. Let it be remembered that the Pope, as the head of the Mystery
of Iniquity, is ”the son of perdition,” Iscariot, the false apostle, the
traitor. Now, it is expressly stated, that before Judas committed his treason,
”Satan,” the prince of the Devils, ”entered into him,” took complete and entire
possession of him. From analogy, we may expect the same to have been the case
here. Before the Pope could even conceive such a scheme of complicated
treachery to the cause of his Lord, as has been proved against him, before he
could be qualified for successfully carrying that treacherous scheme into
effect, Satan himself must enter into him. The Mystery of Iniquity was to
practise and prosper according ”to the working”–i.e., literally, ”according to
the energy or mighty power of Satan” (2 Thess 2:9). *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The very term ”energy” here employed, is the term continually used in the
Chaldean books, describing the inspiration coming from the gods and demons to
their worshippers. (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Therefore Satan himself, and not any subordinate spirit of hell, must
preside over the whole vast system of consecrated wickedness; he must
personally take possession of him who is its visible head, that the system may
be guided by his diabolical subtlety, and ”energised” by his super-human power.
Keeping this in view, we see at once how it is that, when the followers of the
Pope worship the beast, they worship also the ”dragon that gave power to the
beast.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, altogether independent of historical evidence on this point, we are
brought to the irresistible conclusion that the worship of Rome is one vast
system of Devil-worship. If it be once admitted that the Pope is the head of
the beast from the sea, we are bound, on the mere testimony of God, without any
other evidence whatever, to receive this as a fact, that, consciously or
unconsciously, those who worship the Pope are actually worshipping the Devil.
But, in truth, we have historical evidence, and that of a very remarkable kind,
that the Pope, as head of the Chaldean Mysteries, is as directly the
representative of Satan, as he is of the false Messiah of Babylon. It was long
ago noticed by Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, that the name
Teitan contained the Mystic number 666; and he gave it as his opinion that
Teitan was ”by far the most probable name” of the beast from the sea. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* IRENAEUS. Though the name Teitan was originally derived from Chaldee, yet
it became thoroughly naturalised in the Greek language. Therefore, to give the
more abundant evidence on this important subject, the Spirit of God seems to
have ordered it, that the number of Teitan should be found according to the
Greek computation, while that of Satur is found by the Chaldee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The grounds of his opinion, as stated by him, do not carry much weight; but
the opinion itself he may have derived from others who had better and more
valid reasons for their belief on this subject. Now, on inquiry, it will
actually be found, that while Saturn was the name of the visible head, Teitan
was the name of the invisible head of the beast. Teitan is just the Chaldean
form of Sheitan, * the very name by which Satan has been called from time
immemorial by the Devil-worshippers of Kurdistan; and from Armenia or
Kurdistan, this Devil-worship embodied in the Chaldean Mysteries came westward
to Asia Minor, and thence to Etruria and Rome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The learned reader has no need of examples in proof of this frequent
Chaldean transformation of the Sh or S into T; but for the common reader, the
following may be adduced: Hebrew, Shekel, to weigh, becomes Tekel in Chaldee;
Hebrew, Shabar, to break–Chaldee, Tabar; Hebrew, Seraphim–Chaldee, Teraphim, the
Babylonian counterfeit of the Divine Cherubim or Seraphim; Hebrew, Asar, to be
rich–Chaldee, Atar; Hebrew, Shani, second–Chaldee, Tanin, &c.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That Teitan was actually known by the classic nations of antiquity to be
Satan, or the spirit of wickedness, and originator of moral evil, we have the
following proofs: The history of Teitan and his brethren, as given in Homer and
Hesiod, the two earliest of all the Greek writers, although later legends are
obviously mixed up with it, is evidently the exact counterpart of the
Scriptural account of Satan and his angels. Homer says, that ”all the gods of
Tartarus,” or Hell, ”were called Teitans.” Hesiod tells us how these Teitans,
or ”gods of hell,” came to have their dwelling there. The chief of them having
committed a certain act of wickedness against his father, the supreme god of
heaven, with the sympathy of many others of the ”sons of heaven,” that father
”called them all by an opprobrious name, Teitans,” pronounced a curse upon
them, and then, in consequence of that curse, they were ”cast down to hell,”
and ”bound in chains of darkness” in the abyss. While this is the earliest
account of Teitan and his followers among the Greeks, we find that, in the
Chaldean system, Teitan was just a synonym for Typhon, the malignant Serpent or
Dragon, who was universally regarded as the Devil, or author of all wickedness.
It was Typhon, according to the Pagan version of the story, that killed Tammuz,
and cut him in pieces; but Lactantius, who was thoroughly acquainted with the subject,
upbraids his Pagan countrymen for ”worshipping a child torn in pieces by the
Teitans.” It is undeniable, then, that Teitan, in Pagan belief, was identical
with the Dragon, or Satan. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* We have seen that Shem was the actual slayer of Tammuz. As the grand
adversary of the Pagan Messiah, those who hated him for his deed called him for
that very deed by the name of the Grand Adversary of all, Typhon, or the Devil.
”If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub,” no wonder that his servant
was called by a similar name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Mysteries, as formerly hinted, an important change took place as
soon as the way was paved for it. First, Tammuz was worshipped as the bruiser
of the serpent’s head, meaning thereby that he was the appointed destroyer of
Satan’s kingdom. Then the dragon himself, or Satan, came to receive a certain
measure of worship, to ”console him,” as the Pagans said, ”for the loss of his
power,” and to prevent him from hurting them; and last of all the dragon, or
Teitan or Satan, became the supreme object of worship, the Titania, or rites of
Teitan, occupying a prominent place in the Egyptian Mysteries, and also in
those of Greece. How vitally important was the place that these rites of Teitan
or Satan occupied, may be judged of from the fact that Pluto, the god of Hell
(who, in his ultimate character, was just the grand Adversary), was looked up
to with awe and dread as the great god on whom the destinies of mankind in the
eternal world did mainly depend; for it was said that to Pluto belonged ”to
purify souls after death.” Purgatory having been in Paganism, as it is in
Popery, the grand hinge of priestcraft and superstition, what a power did this
opinion attribute to the ”god of Hell”! No wonder that the serpent, the Devil’s
grand instrument in seducing mankind, was in all the earth worshipped with such
extraordinary reverence, it being laid down in the Octateuch of Ostanes, that
”serpents were the supreme of all gods and the princes of the Universe.” No
wonder that it came at last to be firmly believed that the Messiah, on whom the
hopes of the world depended, was Himself the ”seed of the serpent”! This was
manifestly the case in Greece; for the current story there came to be, that the
first Bacchus was brought forth in consequence of a connexion on the part of
his mother with the father of the gods, in the form of a ”speckled snake.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* OVID, Metam. So deeply was the idea of ”the seed of the serpent” being
the great World-king imprinted on the Pagan mind, that when a man set up to be
a god upon earth, it was held essential to establish his title to that
character, that he prove himself to be the ”serpent’s seed.” Thus, when
Alexander the Great claimed divine honours, it is well known that his mother
Olympias, declared that he was not sprung from King Philip, her husband, but
from Jupiter, in the form of a serpent. In like manner, says the authoress of
Rome in the 19th Century, the Roman emperor, ”Augustus, pretended that he was
the son of Apollo, and that the god had assumed the form of a serpent for the
purpose of giving him birth.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That ”father of the gods” was manifestly ”the god of hell”; for Proserpine,
the mother of Bacchus, that miraculously conceived and brought forth the
wondrous child–whose rape by Pluto occupied such a place in the Mysteries–was
worshipped as the wife of the god of Hell, as we have already seen, under the
name of the ”Holy Virgin.” The story of the seduction of Eve * by the serpent
is plainly imported into this legend, as Julius Firmicus and the early
Christian apologists did with great force cast in the teeth of the Pagans of
their day; but very different is the colouring given to it in the Pagan legend
from that which it has in the Divine Word.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* We find that Semele, the mother of the Grecian Bacchus, had been
identified with Eve; for the name of Eve had been given to her, as Photius
tells us that ”Pherecydes called Semele, Hue.” Hue is just the Hebrew name for
Eve, without the points.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus the grand Thimblerigger, by dexterously shifting the peas, through
means of men who began with great professions of abhorrence of his character,
got himself almost everywhere recognised as in very deed ”the god of this
world.” So deep and so strong was the hold that Satan had contrived to get of
the ancient world in this character, that even when Christianity had been
proclaimed to man, and the true light had shone from Heaven, the very doctrine
we have been considering raised its head among the professed disciples of
Christ. Those who held this doctrine were called Ophiani or Ophites, that is,
serpent-worshippers. ”These heretics,” says Tertullian, ”magnify the serpent to
such a degree as to prefer him even to Christ Himself; for he, say they, gave
us the first knowledge of good and evil. It was from a perception of his power
and majesty that Moses was induced to erect the brazen serpent, to which
whosoever looked was healed. Christ Himself, they affirm, in the Gospel
imitates the sacred power of the serpent, when He says that, ‘As Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’
They introduce it when they bless the Eucharist.” These wicked heretics
avowedly worshipped the old serpent, or Satan, as the grand benefactor of
mankind, for revealing to them the knowledge of good and evil. But this doctrine
they had just brought along with them from the Pagan world, from which they had
come, or from the Mysteries, as they came to be received and celebrated in
Rome. Though Teitan, in the days of Hesiod and in early Greece, was an
”opprobrious name,” yet in Rome, in the days of the Empire and before, it had
become the very reverse. ”The splendid or glorious Teitan” was the way in which
Teitan was spoken of at Rome. This was the title commonly given to the Sun,
both as the orb of day and viewed as a divinity. Now, the reader has seen
already that another form of the sun-divinity, or Teitan, at Rome, was the
Epidaurian snake, worshipped under the name of ”Aesculapius,” that is, ”the
man-instructing serpent.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* Aish-shkul-ape, from Aish, ”man”; shkul, ”to instruct”; and Aphe, or Ape,
”a serpent.” The Greek form of this name, Asklepios, signifies simply ”the
instructing snake,” and comes from A, ”the,” skl, ”to teach,” and hefi, ”a
snake,” the Chaldean words being thus modified in Egypt. The name Aselepios,
however, is capable of another sense, as derived from Aaz, ”strength,” and
Khlep, ”to renew”; and, therefore, in the exoteric doctrine, Aselepios was
known simply as ”the strength-restorer,” or the Healing God. But, as identified
with the serpent, the true meaning of the name seems to be that which is first
stated. Macrobius, giving an account of the mystic doctrine of the ancients,
says that Aesculapius was that beneficent influence of the sun which pervaded
the souls of men. Now the Serpent was the symbol of the enlightening sun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here, then, in Rome was Teitan, or Satan, identified with the ”serpent that
taught mankind,” that opened their eyes (when, of course, they were blind), and
gave them ”the knowledge of good and evil.” In Pergamos, and in all Asia Minor,
from which directly Rome derived its knowledge of the Mysteries, the case was
the same. In Pergamos, especially, where pre-eminently ”Satan’s seat was,” the
sun-divinity, as is well known, was worshipped under the form of a serpent and
under the name of Aesculapius, ”the man-instructing serpent.” According to the
fundamental doctrine of the Mysteries, as brought from Pergamos to Rome, the
sun was the one only god. Teitan, or Satan, then, was thus recognised as the
one only god; and of that only god, Tammuz or Janus, in his character as the
Son, or the woman’s seed, was just an incarnation. Here, then, the grand secret
of the Roman Empire is at last brought to light–viz., the real name of the
tutelar divinity of Rome. That secret was most jealously guarded; insomuch that
when Valerius Soranus, a man of the highest rank, and, as Cicero declares, ”the
most learned of the Romans,” had incautiously divulged it, he was remorselessly
put to death for his revelation. Now, however, it stands plainly revealed. A
symbolical representation of the worship of the Roman people, from Pompeii,
strikingly confirms this deduction by evidence that appeals to the very senses.
We have seen already that it is admitted by the author of Pompeii, that the
serpents in the under compartment are only another way of exhibiting the dark
divinities represented in the upper compartment. Let the same principle be
admitted here, and it follows that the swallows, or birds pursuing the flies,
represent the same thing as the serpents do below. But the serpent, of which
there is a double representation, is unquestionably the serpent of Aesculapius.
The fly-destroying swallow, therefore, must represent the same divinity. Now,
every one knows what was the name by which ”the Lord of the fly,” or fly-destroying
god of the Oriental world was called. It was Beel-zebub. This name, as
signifying ”Lord of the Fly,” to the profane meant only the power that
destroyed the swarms of flies when these became, as they often did in hot
countries, a source of torment to the people whom they invaded. But this name,
as identified with the serpent, clearly reveals itself as one of the
distinctive names of Satan. And how appropriate is this name, when its mystic
or esoteric meaning is penetrated. What is the real meaning of this familiar
name? Baal-zebub just means ”The restless Lord,” * even that unhappy one who
”goeth to and fro in the earth, and walketh up and down in it,” who ”goeth
through dry places seeking rest, and finding none.” From all this, the
inference is unavoidable that Satan, in his own proper name, must have been the
great god of their secret and mysterious worship, and this accounts for the
extraordinary mystery observed on the subject. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* See CLAVIS STOCKII, ”Zebub,” where it is stated that the word zebub, as
applied to the fly, comes from an Arabic root, which signifies to move from
place to place, as flies do, without settling anywhere. Baal-zebub, therefore,
in its secret meaning, signifies, ”Lord of restless and unsettled motion.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">** I find Lactantius was led to the conclusion that the Aesculapian servant
was the express symbol of Satan, for, giving an account of the bringing of the
Epidaurian snake to Rome, he says: ”Thither [i.e., to Rome] the Demoniarches
[or Prince of the Devils] in his own proper shape, without disguise, was
brought; for those who were sent on that business brought back with them a
dragon of amazing size.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When, therefore, Gratian abolished the legal provision for the support of
the fire-worship and serpent-worship of Rome, we see how exactly the Divine
prediction was fulfilled (Rev 12:9) ”And the great dragon was cast out, that
old serpent called the DEVIL, and SATAN, which deceiveth the whole world; he
was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The facts stated above cast a very singular light on a well known
superstition among ourselves. Everybody has heard of St. Swithin’s day, on
which, if it rain, the current belief is, that it will rain in uninterrupted
succession for six weeks. And who or what was St. Swithin that his day should
be connected with forty days’ uninterrupted rain? for six weeks is just the
round number of weeks equivalent to forty days. It is evident, in the first
place, that he was no Christian saint, though an Archbishop of Canterbury in
the tenth century is said to have been called by his name. The patron saint of
the forty days’ rain was just Tammuz or Odin, who was worshipped among our
ancestors as the incarnation of Noah, in whose time it rained forty days and
forty nights without intermission. Tammuz and St. Swithin, then, must have been
one and the same. But, as in Egypt, and Rome, and Greece, and almost everywhere
else, long before the Christian era, Tammuz had come to be recognised as an
incarnation of the Devil, we need not be surprised to find that St. Swithin is
no other than St. Satan. One of the current forms of the grand adversary’s name
among the Pagans was just Sytan or Sythan. This name, as applied to the Evil
Being, is found as far to the east as the kingdom of Siam. It had evidently
been known to the Druids, and that in connection with the flood; for they say
that it was the son of Seithin that, under the influence of drink, let in the
sea over the country so as to overwhelm a large and populous district. (DAVIES,
Druids) The Anglo-Saxons, when they received that name, in the very same way as
they made Odin into Wodin, would naturally change Sythan into Swythan; and
thus, in St. Swithin’s day and the superstition therewith connected, we have at
once a striking proof of the wide extent of Devil-worship in the heathen world,
and of the thorough acquaintance of our Pagan ancestors with the great
Scriptural fact of the forty days’ incessant rain at the Deluge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">If any one thinks it incredible that Satan should thus be canonised by the
Papacy in the Dark Ages, let me call attention to the pregnant fact that, even
in comparatively recent times, the Dragon–the Devil’s universally recognised
symbol–was worshipped by the Romanists of Poictiers under the name of ”the good
St. Vermine”!! (Notes of the Society of the Antiquaries of France, SALVERTE)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, as the Pagan Pontifex, to whose powers and prerogatives the Pope had
served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so, when the Pope
entered into a league and alliance with that system of Devil-worship, and
consented to occupy the very position of that Pontifex, and to bring all its
abominations into the Church, as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime
Minister of the Devil, and, of course, came as thoroughly under his power as
ever the previous Pontiff had been. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* This gives a new and darker significance to the mystic Tau, or sign of
the cross. At first it was the emblem of Tammuz, at last it became the emblem
of Teitan, or Satan himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How exact the fulfilment of the Divine statement that the coming of the Man
of Sin was to be ”after the working or energy of Satan.” Here, then, is the
grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical and Scriptural
grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, so
the mystery of iniquity is–so far as such a thing is possible–the Devil
incarnate.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Note</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Attes, the Sinner</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We have seen that the name Pan signifies ”to turn aside,” and have
concluded that as it is a synonym for Hata, ”to sin,” the proper generic
meaning of which is ”to turn aside from the straight line,” that name was the
name of our first parent, Adam. One of the names of Eve, as the primeval goddess,
worshipped in ancient Babylon, while it gives confirmation to this conclusion,
elucidates also another classical myth in a somewhat unexpected way. The name
of that primeval goddess, as given by Berosus, is Thalatth, which, as we have
seen, signifies ”the rib.” Adam’s name, as her husband, would be
”Baal-Thalatth,” ”Husband of the rib”; for Baal signifies Lord in the sense
frequently of ”Husband.” But ”Baal-Thalatth,” according to a peculiar Hebrew
idiom already noticed, signifies also ”He that halted or went sideways.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Chaldee Thalatth, ”a rib” or a ”side,” comes from the verb Thalaa,
the Chaldee form of Tzalaa, which signifies ”to turn aside,” ”to halt,” ”to
sidle,” or ”to walk sideways.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is the remote origin of Vulcan’s lameness; for Vulcan, as the ”Father
of the gods,” needed to be identified with Adam, as well as the other ”fathers
of the gods,” to whom we have already traced him. Now Adam, in consequence of
his sin and departure from the straight line of duty, was, all his life after, in
a double sense ”Baal-Thalatth,” not only the ”Husband of the rib,” but ”The man
that halted or walked sideways.” In memory of this turning aside, no doubt it
was that the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:26) ”limped at the altar,” when
supplicating their god to hear them (for that is the exact meaning in the
original of the word rendered ”leaped”–see KITTO’s Bib. Cyclop), and that the
Druidic priests went sideways in performing some of their sacred rites, as
appears from the following passage of Davies: ”The dance is performed with
solemn festivity about the lakes, round which and the sanctuary the priests
move sideways, whilst the sanctuary is earnestly invoking the gliding king,
before whom the fair one retreats upon the veil that covers the huge stones” (Druids).
This Davies regards as connected with the story of Jupiter, the father of the
gods, violating his own daughter in the form of a serpent. Now, let the reader
look at what is on the breast of the Ephesian Diana, as the Mother of the gods,
and he will see a reference to her share in the same act of going aside; for
there is the crab, and how does a crab go but sideways? This, then, shows the
meaning of another of the signs of the Zodiac. Cancer commemorates the fatal
turning aside of our first parent from the paths of righteousness, when the
covenant of Eden was broken.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Pagans knew that this turning aside or going sideways, implied
death–the death of the soul–(”In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die”); and, therefore, while at the spring festival of Cybele and Attes, there
were great lamentations for the death of Attes, so on the Hilaria or rejoicing
festival of the 25th of March–that is, Lady-day, the last day of the
festival–the mourning was turned into joy, ”on occasion of the dead god being
restored to life again” (DUPUIS, Origine de tous les Cultes). If Attes was he
that by ”his turning aside” brought sin and death into the world, what could
the life be to which he was so speedily restored, but just that new and divine
life which enters every soul when it is ”born again,” and so ”passes from death
unto life.” When the promise was given that the seed of the woman should bruise
the serpent’s head, and Adam grasped it by faith, that, there can be no doubt,
was evidence that the divine life was restored, and that he was born again. And
thus do the very Mysteries of Attes, which were guarded with special jealousy,
and the secret meaning of which Pausanias declares that he found it impossible,
notwithstanding all his efforts to discover (Achaica), bear their distinct
testimony, when once the meaning of the name of Attes is deciphered, to the
knowledge which paganism itself had of the real nature of the Fall, and of the
essential character of that death, which was threatened in the primeval covenant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This new birth of Attes laid the foundation for his being represented as a
little child, and so being identified with Adonis, who, though he died a
full-grown man, was represented in that very way. In the Eleusinian Mysteries,
that commemorated the rape of Proserpine, that is, the seduction of Eve, the
lamented god, or Bacchus, was represented as a babe, at the breast of the great
Mother, who by Sophocles is called Deo (Antigone). As Deo or Demete, applied to
the Great Mother, is evidently just another form of Idaia Mater, ”The Mother of
Knowledge” (the verb ”to know” being either Daa or Idaa), this little child, in
one of his aspects, was no doubt the same as Attes, and thus also Deoius, as
his name is given. The Hilaria, or rejoicing festival of the 25th of March, or
Lady-day, owed its gladness to the Annunciation of a birth yet to come, even
the birth of the woman’s seed; but, at the same time, the joy of that festival
was enhanced by the immediate new birth that very day of Attes, ”The sinner,” or
Adam, who, in consequence of his breach of the covenant, had become dead in
”trespasses and sins.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18.0pt;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Conclusion</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have now finished the task I proposed to myself. Even yet the evidence is
not nearly exhausted; but, upon the evidence which has been adduced, I appeal
to the reader if I have not proved every point which I engaged to demonstrate.
Is there one, who has candidly considered the proof that has been led, that now
doubts that Rome is the Apocalyptic Babylon? Is there one who will venture to
deny that, from the foundation to the topmost stone, it is essentially a system
of Paganism? What, then, is to be the practical conclusion from all this?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">1. <b>Let every Christian henceforth and for ever treat it as an
outcast from the pale of Christianity. Instead of speaking of it as a Christian
Church, let it be recognised and regarded as the Mystery of Iniquity, yea, as
the very Synagogue of Satan.</b> With such overwhelming evidence of its
real character, it would be folly–it would be worse–it would be treachery to
the cause of Christ–to stand merely on the defensive, to parley with its
priests about the lawfulness of Protestant orders, the validity of Protestant
sacraments, or the possibility of salvation apart from its communion. If Rome
is now to be admitted to form a portion of the Church of Christ, where is the
system of Paganism that has ever existed, or that now exists, that could not
put in an equal claim? On what grounds could the worshippers of the original
Madonna and child in the days of old be excluded ”from the commonwealth of
Israel,” or shown to be ”strangers to the covenants of promise”? On what
grounds could the worshippers of Vishnu at this day be put beyond the bounds of
such wide catholicity? The ancient Babylonians held, the modern Hindoos still
hold, clear and distinct traditions of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the
Atonement. Yet, who will venture to say that such nominal recognition of the
cardinal articles of Divine revelation could relieve the character of either
the one system or the other from the brand of the most deadly and God-dishonouring
heathenism? And so also in regard to Rome. True, it nominally admits Christian
terms and Christian names; but all that is apparently Christian in its system
is more than neutralised by the malignant Paganism that it embodies. Grant that
the bread the Papacy presents to its votaries can be proved to have been
originally made of the finest of the wheat; but what then, if every particle of
that bread is combined with prussic acid or strychnine? Can the excellence of
the bread overcome the virus of the poison? Can there by anything but death,
spiritual and eternal death, to those who continue to feed upon the poisoned
food that it offers? Yes, here is the question, and let it be fairly faced. Can
there be salvation in a communion in which it is declared to be a fundamental
principle, that the Madonna is ”our greatest hope; yea, the SOLE GROUND OF OUR
HOPE”? *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The language of the late Pope Gregory, substantially endorsed by the
present Pontiff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The time is come when charity to the perishing souls of men, hoodwinked by
a Pagan priesthood, abusing the name of Christ, requires that the truth in this
matter should be clearly, loudly, unflinchingly proclaimed. The beast and the
image of the beast alike stand revealed in the face of all Christendom; and now
the tremendous threatening of the Divine Word in regard to their worship fully
applies (Rev 14:9,10): ”And the third angel followed them, saying, ‘If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in
his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, poured without
mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the
Lamb.’” These words are words of awful import; and woe to the man who is found
finally under the guilt which they imply. These words, as has already been
admitted by Elliott, contain a ”chronological prophecy,” a prophecy not
referring to the Dark Ages, but to a period not far distant from the consummation,
when the Gospel should be widely diffused, and when bright light should be cast
on the character and doom of the apostate Church of Rome (vv 6-8). They come,
in the Divine chronology of events, immediately after an angel has proclaimed,
”BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN.” We have, as it were, with our own ears heard
this predicted ”Fall of Babylon” announced from the high places of Rome itself,
when the seven hills of the ”Eternal City” reverberated with the guns that
proclaimed, not merely to the citizens of the Roman republic, but to the wide
world, that ”PAPACY HAD FALLEN, de facto and de jure, from the temporal throne
of the Roman State.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* The Apocalypse announces two falls of Babylon. The fall referred to above
is evidently only the first. The prophecy clearly implies, that after the first
fall it rises to a greater height than before; and therefore the necessity of
the warning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now, it is in the order of the prophecy, after this fall of Babylon, that
this fearful threatening comes. Can there, then, be a doubt that this
threatening specially and peculiarly applies to this very time? Never till now
was the real nature of the Papacy fully revealed; never till now was the Image
of the beast set up. Till the Image of the beast was erected, till the blasphemous
decree of the Immaculate Conception was promulged, no such apostacy had taken
place, even in Rome, no such guilt had been contracted, as now lies at the door
of the great Babylon. This, then, is a subject of infinite importance to every
one within the pale of the Church of Rome–to every one also who is looking, as
so many at present are doing, towards the City of the Seven Hills. If any one
can prove that the Pope does not assume all the prerogatives and bear
substantially all the blasphemous titles of that Babylonian beast that ”had the
wound by a sword, and did live,” and if it can be shown that the Madonna, that
has so recently with one consent been set up, is not in every essential respect
the same as the Chaldean ”Image” of the beast, they may indeed afford to
despise the threatening contained in these words. But if neither the one nor
the other can be proved (and I challenge the strictest scrutiny in regard to
both), then every one within the pale of the Papacy may well tremble at such a
threatening. Now, then, as never before, may the voice Divine, and that a voice
of the tenderest love, be heard sounding from the Eternal throne to every
adherent of the Mystic Babylon, ”Come out of her, My people, that ye be not
partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">2. But if the guilt and danger of those who adhere to the Roman Church,
believing it to be the only Church where salvation can be found, be so great,
what must be the guilt of those who, with a Protestant profession, nevertheless
uphold the doomed Babylon? The constitution of this land requires our Queen to
swear, before the crown can be put upon her head, before she can take her seat
on the throne, that ”she believes” that the essential doctrines of Rome are
”idolatrous.” All the Churches of Britain, endowed and unendowed, alike with
one voice declare the very same. They all proclaim that the system of Rome is a
system of blasphemous idolatry…And yet the members of these Churches can endow
and uphold, with Protestant money, the schools, the colleges, the chaplains of
that idolatrous system. If the guilt of Romanists, then, be great, the guilt of
Protestants who uphold such a system must be tenfold greater. That guilt has
been greatly accumulating during the last three or four yeas. While the King of
Italy, in the very States of the church–what but lately were the Pope’s own
dominions–has been suppressing the monasteries (and in the space of two years
no less than fifty-four were suppressed, and their property confiscated), the
British Government has been acting on a policy the very reverse, has not only
been conniving at the erection of monasteries, which are prohibited by the law
of the land, but has actually been bestowing endowment on these illegal
institutions under the name of Reformatories. It was only a short while ago,
that it was stated, on authority of the Catholic Directory, that in the space
of three years, fifty-two new converts were added to the monastic system of
Great Britain, almost the very number that the Italians had confiscated, yet
Christian men and Christian Churches look on with indifference. Now, if ever
there was an excuse for thinking lightly of the guilt contracted by our
national support of idolatry, that excuse will no longer avail. The God of Providence,
in India, has been demonstrating that He is the God of Revelation. He has been
proving, to an awe-struck world, by events that made every ear to tingle, that
every word of wrath, written three thousand years ago against idolatry, is in
as full force at this day as when He desolated the covenanted people of Israel
for their idols, and sold them into the hands of their enemies. If men begin to
see that it is a dangerous thing for professing Christians to uphold the Pagan
idolatry of India, they must be blind indeed if they do not equally see that it
must be as dangerous to uphold the Pagan idolatry of Rome. Wherein does the
Paganism of Rome differ from that of Hindooism? Only in this, that the Roman
Paganism is the more complete, more finished, more dangerous, more insidious
Paganism of the two.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am afraid, that after all that has been said, not a few will revolt from
the above comparative estimate of Popery and undisguised Paganism. Let me,
therefore, fortify my opinion by the testimonies of two distinguished writers,
well qualified to pronounce on this subject. They will, at least, show that I
am not singular in the estimate which I have formed. The writers to whom I
refer, are Sir George Sinclair of Ulbster, and Dr. Bonar of Kelso. Few men have
studied the system of Rome more thoroughly than Sir George, and in his Letters
to the Protestants of Scotland he has brought all the fertility of his genius,
the curiosa felicitas of his style, and the stores of his highly cultivated
mind, to bear upon the elucidation of his theme. Now, the testimony of Sir
George is this: ”Romanism is a refined system of Christianised heathenism, and
chiefly differs from its prototype in being more treacherous, more cruel, more
dangerous, more intolerant.” The mature opinion of Dr. Bonar is the very same,
and that, too, expressed with the Cawnpore massacre particularly in view: ”We
are doing for Popery at home,” says he, ”what we have done for idolaters
abroad, and in the end the results will be the same; nay, worse; for Popish cruelty,
and thirst for the blood of the innocent, have been the most savage and
merciless that the earth has seen. Cawnpore, Delhi, and Bareilly, are but dust
in comparison with the demoniacal brutalities perpetrated by the Inquisition,
and by the armies of Popish fanaticism.” These are the words of truth and
soberness, that no man acquainted with the history of modern Europe can
dispute. There is great danger of their being overlooked at this moment. It
will be a fatal error if they be. Let not the pregnant fact be overlooked,
that, while the Apocalyptic history runs down to the consummation of all
things, in that Divine foreshadowing all the other Paganisms of the world are
in a manner cast into the shade by the Paganism of Papal Rome. It is against
Babylon that sits on the seven hills that the saints are forewarned; it is for
worshipping the beast and his image pre-eminently, that ”the vials of the wrath
of God, that liveth and abideth for ever,” are destined to be outpoured upon
the nations. Now, if the voice of God has been heard in the late Indian
calamities, the Protestantism of Britain will rouse itself to sweep away at
once and for ever all national support, alike from the idolatry of Hindoostan
and the still more malignant idolatry of Rome. Then, indeed, there would be a
lengthening of our tranquility, then there would be hope that Britain would be
exalted, and that its power would rest on a firm and stable foundation. But if
we will not ”hear the voice, if we receive not correction, if we refuse to return,”
if we persist in maintaining, at the national charge, ”that image of jealousy
provoking to jealousy,” then, after the repeated and ever INCREASING strokes
that the justice of God has laid on us, we have every reason to fear that the
calamities that have fallen so heavily upon our countrymen in India, may fall
still more heavily upon ourselves, within our own borders at home; for it was
when ”the image of jealousy” was set up in Jerusalem by the elders of Judah,
that the Lord said, ”Therefore will I also deal in fury; mine eye shall not
spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud
voice, yet will I not hear them.” He who let loose the Sepoys, to whose
idolatrous feelings and antisocial propensities we have pandered so much, to
punish us for the guilty homage we had paid to their idolatry, can just as
easily let loose the Papal Powers of Europe, to take vengeance upon us for our
criminal fawning upon the Papacy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">3. But, further, if the views established in this work be correct, it is
time that the Church of God were aroused. Are the witnesses still to be slain,
and has the Image of the Beast only within the last year or two been set up, at
whose instigation the bloody work is to be done? Is this, then, the time for
indifference, for sloth, for lukewarmness in religion? Yet, alas! how few are
they who are lifting up their voice like a trumpet, who are sounding the alarm
in God’s holy mountain–who are bestirring themselves according to the greatness
of the emergency–to gather the embattled hosts of the Lord to the coming
conflict? The emissaries of Rome for years have been labouring unceasingly
night and day, in season and out of season, in every conceivable way, to
advance their Master’s cause, and largely have they succeeded. But ”the
children of light” have allowed themselves to be lulled into a fatal security;
they have folded their hands; they have got to sleep as soundly as if Rome had
actually disappeared from the face of the earth–as if Satan himself had been
bound and cast into the bottomless pit, and the pit had shut its mouth upon
him, to keep him fast for a thousand years. How long shall this state of things
continue? Oh, Church of God, awake, awake! Open your eyes, and see if there be
not dark and lowering clouds on the horizon that indicate an approaching
tempest. Search the Scriptures for yourselves; compare them with the facts of
history, and say, if there be not reason after all to suspect that there are
sterner prospects before the saints than most seem to wot of. If it may turn
out that the views opened up in these pages are Scriptural and well-founded,
they are at least worthy of being made the subjects of earnest and prayerful
inquiry. It never can tend to good to indulge an uninquiring and delusive
feeling of safety, when, if they be true, the only safety is to be found in a
timely knowledge of the danger and due preparation, by all activity, all zeal,
all spirituality of mind, to meet it. On the supposition that peculiar dangers
are at hand, and that God in His prophetic Word has revealed them, His goodness
is manifest. He has made known the danger, that, being forewarned, we may be
forearmed; that, knowing our own weakness, we may cast ourselves on His
Almighty grace; that we may feel the necessity of a fresh baptism of the Holy
Ghost; that the joy of the Lord being our strength, we may be thorough and
decided for the Lord, and for the Lord alone, that we may work, every one in
his own sphere, with increased energy and diligence, in the Lord’s vineyard,
and save all the souls we can, while yet opportunity lasts, and the dark
predicted night has not come, wherein no man can work. Though there be dark
prospects before us, there is no room for despondency; no ground for any one to
say that, with such prospects, effort is vain. The Lord can bless and prosper
to His own glory, the efforts of those who truly gird themselves to fight His
battles in the most hopeless circumstances; and, at the very time when the
enemy cometh in like a flood, He can, by His Spirit, lift up a standard against
him. Nay, not only is this a possible thing, there is reason, from the
prophetic word, to believe that so it shall actually be; that the last triumph
of the Man of Sin shall not be achieved without a glorious struggle first, on
the part of those who are leal-hearted to Zion’s King. But if we would really
wish to do anything effectual in this warfare, it is indispensable that we
know, and continually keep before our eyes, the stupendous character of that
Mystery of Iniquity embodied in the Papacy that we have to grapple with. Popery
boasts of being the ”old religion”; and truly, from what we have seen, it
appears that it is ancient indeed. It can trace its lineage far beyond the era
of Christianity, back over 4000 years, to near the period of the Flood and the
building of the Tower of Babel. During all that period its essential elements
have been nearly the same, and these elements have a peculiar adaptation to the
corruption of human nature. Most seem to think that Popery is a system merely
to be scouted and laughed at; but the Spirit of God everywhere characterises it
in quite a different way. Every statement in the Scripture shows that it was
truly described when it was characterised as ”Satan’s Masterpiece”–the
perfection of his policy for deluding and ensnaring the world. It is not the
state-craft of politicians, the wisdom of philosophers, or the resources of
human science, that can cope with the wiles and subtleties of the Papacy.
Satan, who inspires it, has triumphed over all these again and again. Why, the
very nations where the worship of the Queen of Heaven, with all its attendant
abominations, has flourished most in all ages, have been precisely the most
civilised, the most polished, the most distinguished for arts and sciences.
Babylon, where it took its rise, was the cradle of astronomy. Egypt, that
nursed it in its bosom, was the mother of all the arts; the Greek cities of
Asia Minor, where it found a refuge when expelled from Chaldea, were famed for
their poets and philosophers, among the former Homer himself being numbered;
and the nations of the European Continent, where literature has long been
cultivated, are now prostrate before it. Physical force, no doubt, is at
present employed in its behalf; but the question arises, How comes it that this
system, of all others, can so prevail as to get that physical force to obey its
behests? No answer can be given but this, that Satan, the god of this world,
exerts his highest power in its behalf. Physical force has not always been on
the side of the Chaldean worship of the Queen of Heaven. Again and again has
power been arrayed against it; but hitherto every obstacle it has surmounted,
every difficulty it has overcome. Cyrus, Xerxes, and many of the Medo-Persian
kings, banished its priests from Babylon, and laboured to root it out of their
empire; but then it found a secure retreat in Pergamos, and ”Satan’s seat” was
erected there. The glory of Pergamos and the cities of Asia Minor departed; but
the worship of the Queen of Heaven did not wane. It took a higher flight, and
seated itself on the throne of Imperial Rome. That throne was subverted. The
Arian Goths came burning with fury against the worshippers of the Virgin Queen;
but still that worship rose buoyant above all attempts to put it down, and the
Arian Goths themselves were soon prostrate at the feet of the Babylonian
goddess, seated in glory on the seven hills of Rome. In more modern times, the
temporal powers of all the kingdoms of Europe have expelled the Jesuits, the
chief promoters of this idolatrous worship, from their dominions. France,
Spain, Portugal, Naples, Rome itself have all adopted the same measures, and
yet what do we see at this hour? The same Jesuitism and the worship of the
Virgin exalted above almost every throne on the Continent. When we look over
the history of the last 4000 yeas, what a meaning in the words of inspiration,
that ”the coming of the Man of Sin” is with the energy, ”the mighty power of
Satan.” Now, is this the system that, year by year, has been rising into power
in our own empire? And is it for a moment to be imagined that lukewarm,
temporising, half-hearted Protestants can make any head against such a system?
No; the time is come when Gideon’s proclamation must be made throughout the
camp of the Lord: ”Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart
early from Mount Gilead.” Of the old martyrs it is said, ”They overcame by the
blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their
lives unto the death.” The same self-denying, the same determined spirit, is
needed now as much as ever it was. Are there none who are prepared to stand up,
and in that very spirit to gird themselves for the great conflict that must
come, before Satan shall be bound and cast into his prison-house? Can any one
believe that such an event can take place without a tremendous struggle–that
”the god of this world” shall quietly consent to resign the power that for
thousands of years he has wielded, without stirring up all his wrath, and
putting forth all his energy and skill to prevent such a catastrophe. Who,
then, is on the Lord’s side? If there be those who, within the last few years,
have been revived and quickened–stirred up, not by mere human excitement, but
by the Almighty grace of God’s Spirit, what is the gracious design of this? Is
it merely that they themselves may be delivered from the wrath to come? No; it
is that, zealous for the glory of their Lord, they may act the parts of true
witnesses, contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and
maintain the honour of Christ in opposition to him who blasphemously usurps his
prerogatives. If the servants of Antichrist are faithful to their master, and
unwearied in promoting his cause, shall it be said that the servants of Christ
are less faithful to theirs? If none else will bestir themselves, surely to the
generous hearts of the young and rising ministry of Christ, in the kindness of
their youth, and the love of their espousals, the appeal shall not be made in
vain, when the appeal is made in the name of Him whom their souls love, that in
this grand crisis of the Church and of the world, they should ”come to the help
of the Lord–the help of the Lord against the mighty,” that they should do what
in them lies to strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of those who are
seeking to stem the tide of apostacy, and to resist the efforts of the men who
are labouring with such zeal, and with so much of infatuated patronage on the
part of ”the powers that be,” to bring this land back again under the power of
the Man of Sin. To take such a part, and steadily and perseveringly to pursue
it, amid so much growing lukewarmness, it is indispensable that the servants of
Christ set their faces as a flint. But if they have grace so to do, they shall
not do so without a rich reward at last; and in time they have the firm and
faithful promise that ”as their day is, so shall their strength be.” For all
who wish truly to perform their part as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, there is
the strongest and richest encouragement. With the blood of Christ on the
conscience, with the Spirit of Christ warm and working in the heart, with our
Father’s name on our forehead, and our life, as well as our lips, consistently
bearing ”testimony” for God, we shall be prepared for every event. But it is
not common grace that will do for uncommon times. If there be indeed such
prospects before us, as I have endeavoured to prove there are, then we must
live, and feel, and act as if we heard every day resounding in our ears the
words of the great Captain of our Salvation, ”To him that overcometh will I
grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down
with My Father on His throne. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee
a crown of life.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lastly, I appeal to every reader of this work, if it does not contain an
argument for the divinity of the Scriptures, as well as an exposure of the
impostures of Rome. Surely, if one thing more than another be proved in the
previous pages, it is this, that the Bible is no cunningly devised fable, but
that holy men of God of old spake and wrote as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. What can account for the marvellous unity in all the idolatrous systems
of the world, but that the facts recorded in the early chapters of Genesis were
real transactions, in which, as all mankind were involved, so all mankind have
preserved in their various systems, distinct and undeniable memorials of them,
though those who have preserved them have long lost the true key to their meaning?
What, too, but Omniscience could have foreseen that a system, such as that of
the Papacy, could ever effect an entrance into the Christian Church, and
practise and prosper as it has done? How could it ever have entered into the
heart of John, the solitary exile of Patmos, to imagine, that any of the
professed disciples of that Saviour whom he loved, and who said, ”My kingdom is
not of this world,” should gather up and systematise all the idolatry and
superstition and immorality of the Babylon of Belshazzar, introduce it into the
bosom of the Church, and, by help of it, seat themselves on the throne of the
Caesars, and there, as the high-priests of the queen of Heaven, and gods upon
earth, for 1200 years, rule the nations with a rod of iron? Human foresight
could never have done this; but all this the exile of Patmos has done. His pen,
then, must have been guided by Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who
calleth the things that be not as though they were. And if the wisdom of God
now shines forth so brightly from the Divine expression ”Babylon the Great,”
into which such an immensity of meaning has been condensed, ought not that to
lead us the more to reverence and adore the same wisdom that is in reality
stamped on every page of the inspired Word? Ought it not to lead us to say with
the Psalmist, ”Therefore, I esteem all Thy commandments concerning all things
to be right”? The commandments of God, to our corrupt and perverse minds, may
sometimes seem to be hard. They may require us to do what is painful, they may
require us to forego what is pleasing to flesh and blood. But, whether we know
the reason of these commandments or no, if we only know that they come from
”the only wise God, our Saviour,” we may be sure that in the keeping of them there
is great reward; we may go blindfold wherever the Word of God may lead us, and
rest in the firm conviction that, in so doing, we are pursuing the very path of
safety and peace. Human wisdom at the best is but a blind guide; human policy
is a meter that dazzles and leads astray; and they who follow it walk in
darkness, and know not whither they are going; but he ”that walketh uprightly,”
that walks by the rule of God’s infallible Word, will ever find that ”he
walketh surely,” and that whatever duty he has to perform, whatever danger he
has to face, ”great peace have all they that love God’s law, and nothing shall
offend them.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
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GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-15474491968538421022016-02-24T09:15:00.004-08:002016-02-25T06:13:08.179-08:00Visst får Ulf Ekman äta upp sina egna ord liksom Stanley Sjöberg!<div style="text-align: center;">
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<![endif]--> kristna i avfallet!</b></span></div>
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<b> </b><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Mixad, sammanblandad, utbytt, ersatt)</span></b></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tillbedjan av de döda!</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Joh 10:12 Men den som är lejd och icke är herden själv, när han, den som fåren icke tillhöra, ser ulven komma, då övergiver han fåren och flyr, och ulven rövar bort dem och förskingrar dem. <br />
Joh 10:12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. <br />
Joh 10:13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.<br />
<br />
Joh 10:12 [2theG3588 3hirelingG3411 1But]G1161 (andG2532 notG3756 beingG1510.6 the shepherd,)G4166 of whichG3739 [2are notG3756 G1510.2.6 G3588 1sheep]G4263 his own,G2398 viewsG2334 theG3588 wolfG3074 coming,G2064 andG2532 leavesG863 theG3588 sheep,G4263 andG2532 flees;G5343 andG2532 theG3588 wolfG3074 seizes them by force,<b>G726 G1473 </b>andG2532 dispersesG4650 theG3588 sheep.G4263<br />
<br />
G726<br />
harpazō<br />
<br />
From a derivative of G138; to seize (in various applications): - catch (away, up), pluck, pull, take (by force).<br />
Total KJV occurrences: 13<br />
<br />
G138<br />
aihreomai<br />
<br />
Probably akin to G142; to take for oneself, that is, to prefer. Some of the forms are borrowed from a cognate (ἕλλομαι hellomai), which is otherwise obsolete: - choose. Some of the forms are borrowed from a cognate hellomai, hel-lom-ahee; which is otherwise obsolete.<br />
Total KJV occurrences: 3<br />
<br />
G138<br />
<br />
aihreomai<br />
Thayer Definition:<br />
1) to take for oneself, to prefer, choose<br />
2) to choose by vote, elect to office<br />
<br />
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</xml><![endif]-->Psa 50:18 Om du ser en tjuv, så håller du med honom, och med äktenskapsbrytare giver du dig i lag. <br />
Pro 29:24 Den som skiftar rov med en tjuv hatar sitt eget liv; när han hör edsförpliktelsen, yppar han intet. <br />
Pro 30:9 Jag kunde eljest, om jag bleve alltför matt, förneka dig, att jag sporde: "Vem är HERREN?" eller om jag bleve alltför fattig, kunde jag bliva en tjuv, ja, förgripa mig på min Guds namn.<br />
<br />
Act 20:29 For IG1473 G1063 knowG1492 this,G3778 thatG3754 [3shall enterG1525 4afterG3326 G3588 5my departureG867 G1473 2wolvesG3074 1grievous]G926 untoG1519 you,G1473 notG3361 sparingG5339 theG3588 flock.G4168 <br />
<br />
<br />
the wolf coming: Mat_7:15, Mat_10:16; Act_20:29<br />
<br />
Mat 10:16 Behold,G2400 IG1473 sendG649 youG1473 asG5613 sheepG4263 inG1722 the midstG3319 of wolves.G3074 BeG1096 thenG3767 skilledG5429 asG5613 theG3588 serpents,G3789 andG2532<b> unmixed</b>G185 asG5613 theG3588 doves!G4058<br />
<br />
Rom 16:19 For theG3588 G1063 obedience of yoursG1473 G5218 [2untoG1519 3allG3956 1reached].G864 I rejoiceG5463 thenG3767 G3588 overG1909 you.G1473 But I wantG2309 G1161 youG1473 [2wiseG4680 3indeedG3303 1to be]G1510.1 untoG1519 theG3588 good,G18 but <b>unmixed</b>G185 G1161 untoG1519 G3588 evil.G2556<br />
<br />
Php 2:15 thatG2443 you should becomeG1096 blamelessG273 andG2532 <b>unmixed,</b>G185 childrenG5043 of God,G2316 without blemish,G298 inG1722 the midstG3319 of a generationG1074 crookedG4646 andG2532 perverted,G1294 amongG1722 whomG3739 you appearG5316 asG5613 luminariesG5458 inG1722 the world,G2889<br />
<br />
G2767<br />
<br />
kerannumi<br />
Thayer Definition:<br />
1) to mix, mingle<br />
2) to mix wine, water<br />
3) to pour out for drinking.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
G2767<br />
kerannumi<br />
<br />
Total KJV Occurrences: 3<br />
fill, 1<br />
<b>Rev 18:6<br />filled, 1<br />Rev 18:6 (2)<br />poured, 1<br />Rev 14:10</b><br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Maria kulten i svenska kyrkor!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Visst får Ulf Ekman äta upp sina
egna ord liksom Stanley Sjöberg!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ulf och Birgitta Ekman liksom Copland
har ju som bekant konverterat till Katolicismen och anser Påven vara deras
skyddshelgon!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vilket mörker!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Den Carismatiska rörelsen innehåller
så många falska läror – demoners läror- och leder rakt in i påveväldet under
antikristendomen!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.inblick.se/nyheter/2016/02/11/maria-dogm-central-i-pavens-ekumenik-med-lutheraner">http://www.inblick.se/nyheter/2016/02/11/maria-dogm-central-i-pavens-ekumenik-med-lutheraner</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maria-dogm central i påvens ekumenik med lutheraner...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruben Agnarsson | 11 feb , 2016</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Jag är mycket glad över att påven kommer till Lund och att
Romersk katolska kyrkan tillsammans med Lutherska världsförbundet inbjuder till
detta exceptionella möte, säger ärkebiskop Antje Jackelén inför påvens besök i
Lund i höst, som går av stapeln samma dag som Luther spikade upp sina teser på
porten till slottskyrkan i Wittenberg.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2016_v6---NYHET-2---liten</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Det var på reformationsdagen den 31 oktober år 1517 som
Martin Luther enligt traditionen spikade upp sina 95 teser på porten till
Slottskyrkan i Wittenberg.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
500-årsfirandet av reformationen, som pågår i ett år, inleds
därmed den 31 oktober 2016, och påvens besök i Lund blir startskottet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till mötet kommer förutom påven Franciskus bland andra
kardinal Kurt Koch, Vatikanens ansvarige för ekumeniska relationer, Martin
Junge, generalsekreterare för Lutherska världssamfundet, och biskop Munib
Younan, ordförande i Lutherska världssamfundet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Svenska kyrkan och Stockholms katolska stift är värdar för
mötet i Lund, där huvudpunkten är påvens medverkan under en gudstjänst i Lunds
domkyrka. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Det är ett framsteg i kyrkornas arbete. I en tid av stora
globala utmaningar har vi ett gemensamt uppdrag att förkunna evangelium i ord
och handling, säger Svenska kyrkans ärkebiskop Antje Jackelén i en kommentar
och betonar det gemensamma ansvaret att berätta om kristen tro, ”genom arbete
för rättvisa och fred”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Splittrande lära i fokus</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
När den katolska kyrkan nu intensifierar sin närvaro i de
nordiska länderna, är det Maria-dogmen – den lära som mer än något annat
splittrar den katolska och den lutherska kyrkan – som lyfts fram.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
En av dem som tycker att det är märkligt att Maria får en så
central roll när katolska kyrkan vill närma sig den Svenska kyrkan, är
kyrkohistorikern Torbjörn Aronsson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– De katolska Maria-dogmerna är ju något som skiljer den
katolska kyrkan från de evangelisk-lutherska kyrkorna. Genom att genomföra
denna typ av manifestationer strax före eller i samband med att ekumeniska
samtal förs, visar katolska kyrkan att den ekumenik den är intresserad av inte
kommer att innehålla några förändringar på den punkten, förklarar han.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Det visar också att katolska kyrkans nordiska biskopar
företräder och uppmuntrar en profilerad Maria-fromhet. Samtidigt accepteras
detta utan diskussion av Svenska kyrkan, trots att den inte alls delar dessa
dogmer och ibland företräder en etik och teologi som är extremt liberal,
fortsätter Torbjörn Aronsson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– De ekumeniska samtal och offentliga manifestationer som
genomförs är således inte grundade i att kyrkornas närmat sig varandra teologiskt.
Det betyder att detta är en ekumenik som inte har särskilt mycket teologiskt
innehåll utan verkar ha framsprungit ur andra motiv.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Medveten strävan från
katolsk sida</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I mars 2014, knappt
två veckor efter att Ulf Ekman släppte nyheten om sin konvertering till
katolska kyrkan, samlades den katolska kyrkans nordiska biskopar till en
”högtidlig vigning av våra nordiska länder till Jungfru Marias obefläckade
Hjärta”.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Under en mässa i
Thomas av Aquinos församling i Lund, vigdes Norden till Jungfru Marias obefläckade
hjärta, följt av en ekumenisk vesper i Lunds domkyrka, med kardinal Kurt Koch
och blivande ärkebiskopen Antje Jackelén – samt katolska och lutherska biskopar
från Norden.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Arrangemanget skedde
i samverkan mellan Lunds domkyrkoförsamling och Sankt Thomas katolska
församling i Lund.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Torbjörn Aronsson kan
inte uttala sig om ifall det fanns ett samband eller om det var en
tillfällighet att Ulf Ekmans konvertering och vigningen skedde så nära varandra
i tid. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Men under de sista två åren sammantagna får jag ett
intryck av att det finns en medveten strävan från katolsk sida att ägna Sverige
ökad uppmärksamhet och att skapa ökad acceptans här för Maria-fromheten,
förklarar han.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Den planerade helgonförklaringen av Elisabeth Hesselblad,
som ju grundade den nya grenen av birgittinerorden, och det faktum att påven
själv besöker Sverige i år kan ses som ett uttryck för en sådan strävan att
ägna Sverige ökad uppmärksamhet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Torbjörn Aronsson konstaterar att denna Maria-fromhet,
inklusive förkunnelse av katolska Maria-dogmer och praktiserande av
Maria-böner, har rekommenderats och försvarats i bokform av både Ulf Ekman och
Henrik Engholm, och att detta nu även prioriteras av de nordiska katolska
biskoparna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Vill påverka i hbtq-frågor</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Han påpekar att den katolska kyrkan ser Maria som en moder
för alla lärjungar och för alla människor. Hon beskrivs som både kyrkans moder
och världens moder, och presenteras därmed som en förebedjare för enhet i
kyrkan och i världen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
För Svenska kyrkans och ärkebiskop Antje Jackeléns del finns
det – efter flera år av ekumenisk isolering – en allmän strävan att uppfattas
som en viktig ekumenisk aktör och en önskan om att påverka den katolska kyrkans
uppfattningar i miljö- och hbtq-frågor, tror Torbjörn Aronsson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Genom att delta i denna typ av arrangemang hoppas man
kanske bereda vägen för förbättrade relationer mellan kyrkorna, vilket i ett
längre perspektiv också skulle kunna medföra möjligheter för Svenska kyrkan att
försöka påverka den katolska kyrkan på dessa områden.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Påve blev Ulf Ekmans skyddshelgon</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Torbjörn Aronsson beskriver hur Johannes Paulus II vigde
Norden till Jungfru Marias obefläckade hjärta vid ett besök på Island 1989.
Samma år besökte han också Sverige, vilket fick Ulf Ekman att beskriva de
katolska dogmerna för ”inget annat än gärningslära, falsk religiositet och
vidskepelse”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
”Frågan är hur många människor som genom madonna-tillbedjan
har gått evigt förlorade, istället för att genom tron på Jesus allena, komma
till himlen”, skrev Ulf Ekman i tidningen Magazinet inför besöket.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I dag är Johannes Paulus II Ulf
Ekmans skyddshelgon.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Torbjörn Aronsson menar att det går att beskriva händelsen
2014 som en "förnyelse", i så måtto att den upprepade en bön till
Jungfru Marias om hennes beskydd och förböner, och genom att den följdes av en
offentlig manifestation av närmande mellan de båda kyrkorna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vilken roll spelar Ulf Ekman idag i denna offensiv från den
katolska kyrkan? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Jag uppfattar det som ett personligt steg, som inte direkt
är föranlett av några överväganden från katolsk sida. Däremot blir den
naturligtvis till ett stöd för den katolska kyrkans strävanden i Norden, inte
minst genom Ulf Ekmans artiklar, offentliga framträdanden och nya bok, avslutar
Torbjörn Aronsson.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruben Agnarsson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ruben@inblick.se</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Fakta: Maria-bön</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Här är ett utdrag ur den bön till Maria som lästes vid
vigningen den 22 mars 2014 i S:t Thomas katolska kyrka:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Heliga Maria, Jungfru och Moder,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
du Drottning över Nordens land</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(…)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Du, vår mor i nådens ordning,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
vi anförtror Nordens länder och folk</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
i ditt moderliga beskydd</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(…)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vi viger oss till ditt obefläckade hjärta</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(…)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Heliga Jungfru och Moder,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
håll din hand över Nordens länder</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fakta: Katolska kyrkan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grundad: Första århundradet e. Kr.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Typ: Kristet trossamfund</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Juridisk status: Internationellt rättssubjekt</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Säte: Heliga stolen</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plats: Vatikanstaten belägen i Rom, Italien</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Medlemmar: 1,2 miljarder</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Officiellt språk:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Latin</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fakta: Svenska kyrkan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grundad: År 1536 bröts relationen med påven i Rom genom
Gustav Vasas avskaffande av kanoniska rätten. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1593 lagstadgades Svenska kyrkan som evangelisk-luthersk
statskyrka genom Uppsala möte. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1860 blev den officiellt kallad Svenska kyrkan genom
dissenterlagarna.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Typ: Evangelisk-luthersk folkkyrka</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Juridisk status: Registrerat trossamfund</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Säte: Uppsala, Uppland</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Medlemmar: 6 292 264 (2014) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(ICKE PÅNYTTFÖDDA)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Officiellt språk: Svenska</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Källa: Wikipedia</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
”Maria-böner anstötliga för evangelisk kristendom”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruben Agnarsson | 18 feb , 2016</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Strax efter nyheten om Ulf Ekmans konvertering till katolska
kyrkan samlades kyrkans nordiska biskopar till en ”högtidlig vigning av våra
nordiska länder till Jungfru Marias obefläckade Hjärta”. – Dessa invigningar är
exempel på hur stark Maria-kulten är i romersk-katolska kyrkan. Formuleringarna
är ju anstötliga för evangelisk kristendom, säger teologen Anders Gerdmar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2016_v7---NYHET-1---STOR</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inblick frågade Anders Gerdmar, grundare av och rektor för
Skandinavisk teologisk högskola, vad det innebär rent teologiskt att katolska
kyrkans nordiska biskopar inviger "våra nordiska länder till Jungfru
Marias obefläckade Hjärta”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Det är en viktig
del av romersk-katolsk teologi att Maria nu finns i himlen<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>med kropp och själ och manar gott för de
troende, och man ser henne som alla troendes moder. Hennes förbön är kraftigare
än någon annans och denna vill man ska komma Nordens länder och folk till del,
förklarar Anders Gerdmar.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Han beskriver hur överlåtandet av hela världen till Marias
obefläckade hjärta har gjorts av ett antal påvar sedan 1942, men började med en
Mariauppenbarelse i portugisiska Fatima 1917 där Maria säger att Ryssland
skulle konsekreras till det obefläckade hjärtat, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">och senast av påven Franciskus 2013. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Överlåtandet av Norden till Marias obefläckade hjärtat är
en del av samma rörelse, fortsätter Gerdmar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Stark Maria-kult</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Dessa invigningar av olika länder och världen till ”Marias
obefläckade hjärta” är exempel på hur stark Maria-kulten är i romersk-katolska
kyrkan. Formuleringarna i de böner som används är ju anstötliga för evangelisk
kristendom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Han hänvisar till katolska kyrkans egen beskrivning av
invigningen:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
”Invigningen till Guds moder är ett totalt givande av en
själv, för hela livet och för hela evigheten, enligt Pius XII, och en gåva som
inte är någon ren formalitet eller något sentimentalt, men något effektivt, som
omfattar hela det kristna, marianska, livets intensitet och syftar till
förening med Jesus, under Marias vägledning”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Att man refererar till Jesus blir närmast en dimridå,
eftersom betoningen är så enormt stark på Maria, konstaterar Anders Gerdmar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Svängt 180 grader</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ulf Ekman kritiserade påven Johannes Paulus Sverigebesök
1989, då påven hade samma ärende. Nu har Ulf Ekman tydligt tagit ställning för
katolska kyrkans Maria-dogm och har dessutom Johannes Paulus som skyddshelgon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hur kommenterar du det och vad innebär detta för den
katolska kyrkans närmande till de lutherska kyrkorna i Norden?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Ekman har ju bett om förlåtelse för de handlingar som
riktades emot påvens inflytande i Sverige som han ledde för 25 år sedan. Att
han svängt 180 grader i frågan är mycket märkligt, liksom att han idag både
erkänner kanoniseringen av Johannes Paulus II och har honom som skyddshelgon,
säger Anders Gerdmar. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Jag tror att romersk-katolska kyrkan vill införliva den
nordiska kristenheten i kyrkan, då den romersk-katolsk kyrkosynen verkligen
menar att romersk-katolska kyrkan är Jesu Kristi kyrka. Jag har svårt att tro
att påvens besök i samband med reformationsjubileet betyder en verklig
omvändelse. I så fall måste man ändra en stor läroöverbyggnad och ta itu både
med sin kyrkosyn som utesluter andra kristna från fullheten och synen på Maria.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– För romersk-katolska kyrkan är detta en lång resa och den
kommer inte av vara klar på mycket lång tid, om man ens vill göra resan.
Romersk-katolska kyrkans agerande i Sverige på senare tid med både Ekmans
konversion och agerandet på Berget talar ett helt annat språk än enhetens,
menar Gerdmar.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruben Agnarsson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="mailto:ruben@inblick.se">ruben@inblick.se</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ulf Ekman förklarar sin omsvängning</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ulf Ekman har varit mycket kategorisk i sitt försvar för
Livets ord, nu är han lika tvärsäker i sitt försvar för den katolska kyrkans
lära. Hur förklarar han själv detta motsägelsefulla beteende?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ulf Ekman</span></b> börjar med att
beskriva hur det har varit en stor glädje att med Guds nåd och hjälp starta
Livets Ord med dess evangeliserande och missionerande fokus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">– Vi ska alla växa andligen. När vi
därför med tiden fick nåd att upptäcka mer i Guds rike och upplevde hur Herren
ledde oss </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in i Katolska kyrkan så är det med
lika stor glädje som vi delar med oss</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">av det vi upptäckt där. Vi är mycket
glada över att få vara katoliker, fortsätter han.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Att Maria-dogmen blivit så viktig när Ulf Ekman i olika
katolska medier redogör för varför han närmat dig den katolska kyrkan,
förklarar han med att all undervisning om Maria står i omedelbar relation till
Jesus Kristus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Det är han som är viktigast. Det som den katolska tron lär
om Maria har sin grund i det hon tror om Kristus. Utan Jesus Kristus betyder
jungfru Maria inte något. Det är i förhållande till honom som hon är viktig.
Hon är hans älskade moder och eftersom hon som jungfru har fött vår Frälsare så
är hon både unik och speciell och därför äras hon, förklarar Ulf Ekman och
hänvisar till bibelstället i Lukas evangelium där Maria säger att ”härefter
skall alla släkten prisa mig salig.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Heliga Birgitta och Ulf</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ulfs Ekmans fru
Birgitta var den som först av de två tog till sig den katolska synen på Maria.</b>
Inte minst heliga Birgitta – som också var gift med en man som hette Ulf – har
spelat en stor roll för hennes vägval, har hon berättat i katolska medier.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Heliga Birgitta har betytt mycket för Sverige, men ofta
har vi svenskar inte ägnat henne någon större uppmärksamhet. När man firade
700-årsminnet av hennes födelse 2003 blev det därför intressant att läsa mer om
henne, förklarar Ulf Ekman.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Som vi beskriver i vår bok ”Den stora Upptäckten” blev det
en teologisk upptäcktsfärd att också följa hennes livsväg. Att hennes man råkar
heta Ulf är ju lite festligt och intressant, men har ingen betydelse för vår
egen vandring. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Kritiserad påve blev skyddshelgon</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tidningen Magazinet inför påvens besök i Uppsala 1989
skrev Ulf Ekman: ”Frågan är hur många människor som genom madonna-tillbedjan
har gått evigt förlorade, istället för att genom tron på Jesus allena, komma
till himlen”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nu är samme påve hans skyddshelgon. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Hur förklarar du denna omsvängning? (Bortförklaringar)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– Som jag mer i detalj beskriver i vår bok så har det varit
en lång resa som spänner över många år. Vi har nog alla under åren fått
revidera vissa uppfattningar och ändra oss. Det vore konstigt annars. För mig
var det ödmjukande att se min egen okunskap på många områden och att upptäcka
vad lite jag egentligen visste om Johannes Paulus II. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– När man läser om hans heroiska kamp emot nazism och
kommunism, hur han kämpat emot anti-semitism och fick medverka till att rasera
Järnridån, då kan man inte annat än att bli djupt imponerad över hans tro och
hans mod. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– För mig är han ett
stort föredöme, en kristen hjälte i vår moderna tid vars tro är värd att
efterfölja. </b>För mig är det viktigt att framhålla att det är Jesus och
endast han som är vår Frälsare. Det är igenom honom och det fullbordade verk
han utförde på korset som vi blir frälsta. Det är genom att höra evangeliet och
tro på honom som vi kan, av nåd, få en personlig relation till Gud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruben Agnarsson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ruben@inblick.se</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gästkrönika, Sven
Nilsson</b>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Påven och reformationen</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Påvens besök i Lund är en förberedelse för en gemensam
manifestation längre fram i höst till minne av den lutherska reformationen för
500 år sedan. Den Romersk-katolska kyrkan har under lång tid förberett sig för
detta genom att föra en dialog med lutherska teologer om vad det egentligen var
som Luther protesterade emot. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Idag verkar det som om den avgörande frågan gällde Luthers
övertygelse om rättfärdiggörelse genom ”tron allena” och att ”skriften allena”
är grunden för kyrkans tro i motsats till Katolska kyrkans hävdande av
traditionen som en fortsatt auktoritativ uppenbarelse. På dessa två punkter
menar man från katolskt håll att man nått ett samförstånd med den Lutherska
Kyrkan och att protestantismen därför är ett övervunnit stadium. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
En minst lika viktig del av reformationen gällde frågan om
vad den kristna församlingen – ekklesia – egentligen är. Den unge Luther gick
väldigt långt i sin radikalitet, och man kan tolka vissa delar av hans
förkunnelse som att han ifrågasatte både barndopet och kyrkan som institution. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hans nitälskan för en
sann evangelisk kyrka fick honom att vända sig mot påvekyrkans institutionella
väsen, ett korrupt prästerskap, religiös kontroll av människors samveten och
politisk manipulation. Han var misstänksam mot själva begreppet kyrka. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
På grund av politiska omständigheter såg han sig till sist
tvingad att anpassa sig till en organisatorisk ordning som i stort sett
motsvarade den Katolska kyrkans. Den Lutherska kyrkan har sedan dess stått för
en tydligare evangelisk teologi, men till sin struktur är den av samma väsen
som Katolska kyrkan. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reformationen väckte den centrala frågan; vad är de troendes
gemenskap som ekklesia, Jesu Kristi församling? Är ekklesia en mänsklig
organisation eller den Helige Andes gemenskap mellan Jesu lärjungar?
Kristenhetens historia visar att varje försök till att institutionalisera den
Helige Andes gemenskap, korrumperar det kristna lärjungaskapets djupaste
innebörd. Den apostoliska församlingen har aldrig varit och kan aldrig
definieras som en religiös institution i likhet med den Romersk-katolska
kyrkan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alla institutionskyrkor tenderar över tid att formalisera
tron i religiösa beteendemönster och sakrala handlingar. Därför ser vi hur de
historiska kyrkorna över tid utvecklat mer eller mindre mystiska ritualer för
att konkretisera trons innehåll. Det man kallar det ”sakrala livet” riskerar
att föra människor in i ett religiöst liv där Jesus som person blir overklig
och Guds närvaro reduceras till en andaktsskapande atmosfär. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Genom att också dopet och nattvarden införlivats i det
religiösa konceptet, har dessa av Jesus anbefallda handlingar förlorat mycket
av sitt ursprungliga syfte. Nattvarden används som ett medel för att uppnå
enhet istället för att proklamera den förverkligade enheten genom Jesu blod. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dopet som från början var ett tecken på ett begynnande
lärjungaskap används i de institutionella historiska kyrkorna som ett medel att
definiera medlemskapet i en kyrklig organisation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Att denna organisation försäkrar att de döpta blir Guds barn
på grund av den utförda handlingen är naturligtvis ett allvarligt missförstånd.
Att alla dessa döpta sedan skulle kunna sägas utgöra ”den levande Gudens
församling” i Nya Testamentets mening visar på ett ännu djupare missförstånd. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inför det kommande reformationsjubileet borde vi aktualisera
friförsamlingsrörelsens reformatoriska arv med större frimodighet. Det betyder
inte att vi tar avstånd från Jesustroende bröder och systrar inom
kyrkoorganisationer av olika slag, men vi hävdar att det inte är medlemskapet i
en viss kyrka som identifierar oss som kristna – det är tron på Kristus allena.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vi gläder oss över att den pågående andeutgjutelsen berört
stora delar av den Katolska kyrkan. Det har skapat nya öppningar för genuina
möten över traditionsgränserna. Men den Romersk-katolska kyrkan är ingen
entydig företeelse. Man måste kunna skilja på vad som är kyrkan i betydelsen av
en gemenskap mellan levande kristna – och den Katolska kyrkan som ett politiskt
projekt. Ingen förnekar kyrkans betydelse som ett kärl för andligt liv genom
historien. Inte heller ringaktar vi den betydelse den har idag för att försvara
väsentliga delar av kristen tro.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Som politiskt projekt har den dock visat sig vara sårbar och
riskerar att hamna i ett korrupt förhållande till den världsliga makten – det
som i Uppenbarelseboken kallas ”skökoväsen”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Att formalisera enheten i en kyrkorättslig struktur som till
exempel Katolska kyrkan är inte vägen till att förverkliga Andens enhet. Jag
tror att vi står inför ett mycket mer djupgående verk genom den Helige Ande.
Därför är den pågående Andeutgjutelsen av signifikant betydelse inför framtiden
som ett tecken för den enhet som Gud själv föder fram. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jag är övertygad om att inte heller de historiska kyrkorna
förblir oberörda av denna förändringsprocess. Kärleken till varandra över
traditionsgränser är en realitet i sig själv och får sitt konkreta uttryck i
personliga möten. Detta växande folkmedvetande får inte exploateras i
kyrkopolitiska syften. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kärleken till varandra bygger en andligt organisk struktur i
trons lydnad till Guds ord. Enhet kan man inte ansluta sig till på ett formellt
sätt. Det är en pågående process med livet som insats för ”syskonen” i den
lokala församlingen. Den har alltid funnits genom historien sedan apostlarnas
dagar och den har bärkraft också idag. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sven Nilsson</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fakta: Sven Nilsson</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sven Nilsson var verksam som pastor i Örebromissionen (i dag
en del av EFK) från 1947 och framåt. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Under
1960-talet arbetade<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>han med ekumeniska
frågor i Frikyrkliga studieförbundet och upplevde därefter en personlig andlig
förnyelse genom den karismatiska väckelsen</b>. Vid konferensen i Katarina
kyrka 1981 framförde han ett uppmärksammat budskap om kristen enhet, om låta
troheten mot Jesus Kristus vara överordnad lojaliteterna mot kyrkosamfunden.
Sven Nilsson avslutade sin pastorstjänst i Filadelfiaförsamlingen i Örebro 1985
och deltog därefter i det pionjärprojekt som ledde fram till en ny
församlingsbildning, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kristet Center i
Örebro,</b> i augusti 1995.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stanley Sjöberg</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">På villfarelsens väg!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stanley Sjöberg - Katolska sakrament och andra former</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEpeOiUXSk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEpeOiUXSk</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Stefan Svärd</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Har en del att be om ursäkt för liksom Stanley Sjöberg!</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.stefansward.se/2008/12/06/vad-tycker-jag-om-katolska-kyrkan/">http://www.stefansward.se/2008/12/06/vad-tycker-jag-om-katolska-kyrkan/</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">”Besökte idag en av
de katolska kyrkorna i Poznan, Polen.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Min spontana känsla är att det odlas för mycket
konspirationsteorier och myter kring denna fråga. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Att hävda att Sten Gunnar Hedin och Ulf Ekman mer eller mindre håller
på att bli katoliker eller katoliceras</b>, på grund av att man har vissa
kontakter med Katolska kyrkan, det är väl ändå att dra det hela till sin spets.
Jag uppfattar det som ett normalt uttryck för kristen enhet. Det är väl
självklart att kyrkor och organisationer som tror på Jesus som världens
frälsare och tror på hans frälsningsverk – att man har ett visst samarbete och
gemenskap. Och det innefattar att olika kyrkor och kristna traditioner har
något att lära av varandra. Ett visst mått av ödmjukhet behöver vi ha när vi
möter andra kristna, och inte bara se oss själva som dem som har mer rätt än
alla andra. Tycker att både Sten Gunnar Hedin och Ulf Ekman har gjort det
mycket bra när man har öppnat upp sina respektive rörelser för bredare
samarbete och kontaktytor med andra kristna traditioner.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
----</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Visst får han äta upp sina egna ord
liksom Stanley Sjöberg!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ulf och Birgitta liksom Copland har
ju som bekant konverterat till Katolicismen och anser Påven vara deras
skyddshelgon! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vilket mörker!</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Inlagt av Leif Berg </span></b></div>
GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-47682444575340579842014-03-10T05:03:00.001-07:002014-08-07T03:36:47.061-07:00Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord och blir katolik, Ulf Ekman Converts to Roman Catholicism.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 27pt; letter-spacing: -0.75pt;">Ulf Ekman blir katolik</span></h1>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 27pt; letter-spacing: -0.75pt;"> </span></h1>
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<span style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; font-size: large; text-decoration: none;"><a data-href="http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/church-ministry/19936-ulf-ekman-converts-to-roman-catholicism" href="https://www.google.se/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charismamag.com%2Fspirit%2Fchurch-ministry%2F19936-ulf-ekman-converts-to-roman-catholicism&ei=WnEfU5nbIaPV4ATHoYGIBw&usg=AFQjCNGtYqnLtWfEzPB4viVFLyyhaYeZ7w" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ulf Ekman Converts</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span>to Roman<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Catholicism</span></a></span></h3>
<h3 class="r" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; font-size: large; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.527999877929688px;">Megachurch
leader Ulf Ekman of the Word of Life ministry in Sweden has announced
that he and his wife Birgitta have converted to Roman Catholicism. The
announcement, according to reports, has left some in his congregation
"partially stunned."</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"We have seen
a great love for Jesus and a sound theology, founded on the Bible and classic
dogma. We have experienced the richness of sacramental life. We have seen the
logic in having a solid structure for priesthood that keeps the faith of the
church and passes it on from one generation to the next. We have met an ethical
and moral strength and consistency that dare to face up to the general opinion,
and a kindness towards the poor and the weak. And, last but not least, we have
come in contact with representatives for millions of charismatic Catholics and
we have seen their living faith.”</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 38px;"><b>Rev
18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the
great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and
the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful
bird. </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 38px;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">G2732<br />katoikētērion<br />From a derivative of G2730; a dwelling place: - habitation.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">G2730<br />katoikeō<br />From G2596 and G3611; to house permanently, that is, reside (literally or figuratively): - dwell (-er), inhabitant (-ter).</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">G3611<br />oikeō<br />From
G3624; to occupy a house that is, reside (figuratively inhabit, remain,
inhere); by implication to cohabit: - dwell. See also G3625.<br /> G3624<br />oikos<br />Of
uncertain affinity; a dwelling (more or less extensive, literally or
figuratively); by implication a family (more or less related, literally
or figuratively): - home, house (-hold), temple.<br />G3625<br /><span style="font-size: large;">oikoumenē</span><br />Feminine
participle present passive of G3611 (as noun, by implication of G1093);
land, that is, the (terrene part of the) globe; specifically the Roman
empire: - earth, world.</span></b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 28.5pt; text-align: center;">
(ASV) And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, <b>and is become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. </b><br />
<br />
(BBE)
And he gave a loud cry, saying, Babylon the great has come down from
her high place, she has come to destruction and has become a place of
evil spirits, and of every unclean spirit, and a hole for every unclean
and hated bird. <br />
<br />
(Bibeln) Och han ropade med stark röst och
sade: "Fallet, fallet är det stora Babylon; det har blivit en boning för
onda andar, ett tillhåll för alla slags orena andar och ett tillhåll
för alla slags orena och vederstyggliga fåglar. <br />
<br />
(Bishops) And he cryed myghtyly with a strong voyce, saying: Great Babylon i<b>s
fallen is fallen, and is become the habitation of deuyls, and the holde
of all foule spirites, and a cage of all vncleane and hatefull byrdes: </b><br />
<br />
(CEV)
The angel shouted, "Fallen! Powerful Babylon has fallen and is now the
home of demons. It is the den of every filthy spirit and of all unclean
birds, and every dirty and hated animal. <br />
<br />
(DRB) And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: Babylon the great <b>is
fallen, is fallen: and is become the habitation of devils and the hold
of every unclean spirit and the hold of every unclean and hateful bird: </b><br />
<br />
(ESV) And he called out with a mighty voice, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! <b>She
has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean
spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and
detestable beast. </b><br />
<br />
(Geneva) And he cryed out mightily with a
loud voyce, saying, It is fallen, it is fallen, Babylon that great
citie, and is become <b>the habitation of deuils</b>, and the holde of all foule spirits, and a cage of euery vncleane and hatefull birde. <br />
<br />
(GW) He cried out in a powerful voice, "Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! <b>She has become a home for demons.</b> She is a prison for every evil spirit, every unclean bird, and every unclean and hated beast. <br />
<br />
(ISV) He cried out in a powerful voice, "Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! S<b>he has become a home for demons.</b> She is a prison for every unclean spirit, a prison for every unclean bird, and a prison for every unclean and hated beast. <br />
<br />
(KJV) And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, a<b>nd is become the habitation of devils,</b> and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. <br />
<br />
(KJV-1611)
And he cryed mightily with a strog voyce, saying, Babylon the great is
fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of deuils, and the hold
of euery foule spirit, and a cage of euery vncleane and hatefull bird: <br />
<br />
(LEB)
And he cried out with a powerful voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is
Babylon the great, and it has become a dwelling place of demons and a
haunt of every unclean spirit and a haunt of every unclean bird and a
haunt of every unclean and detested animal. <br />
<br />
(LITV) And he cried
in a strong, great voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen! It has
fallen, and it has become a dwelling-place of demons, and a prison of
every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean bird, even having
been hated, <br />
<br />
(Murdock) And he cried with a strong voice, saying:
Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great: and hath become a cavern of
demons, and the home of every unclean spirit, and the home of every
unclean and hateful bird and the home of every unclean and hateful beast
of prey. <br />
<br />
(SFB) Och han ropade med stark röst och sade: "Fallet, fallet är det stora Babylon! <b>Det har blivit en boning för onda andar, ett tillhåll för alla orena andar och ett näste för alla orena och avskyvärda fåglar. </b><br />
<br />
(Webster)
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is
fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold
of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. <br />
<br />
(WNT) and with a mighty voice he cried out, saying, "Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and has become <b>a home for demons and a stronghold for every kind of foul spirit and for every kind of foul and hateful bird. </b><br />
<br />
(YLT) and he did cry in might--a great voice, saying, `Fall, fall did Babylon the great, and she became <b>a habitation of demons</b>, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird, </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Gill</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<br />
And
he cried mightily with a strong voice,.... Which shows not only the
vehemence and affection of the ministers of the word, who will publish
what follows, but the greatness and importance of it; and this loud
voice may be, as for the sake of the whole church in general, that all
may bear, so for the sake of those of the Lord's people in particular,
that will be in Babylon at this time; and it may have regard to that
deep sleep and spirit of slumber that Babylon itself will be in, which,
notwithstanding this loud cry, will remain insensible of its ruin till
it comes upon her, as was the case of old Babylon, Jer_51:39,<br />
<br />
saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen: the whole world is not
designed by Babylon, for it is distinguished from all nations in the
following verse; nor Babylon in Chaldea, which was fallen long before
John saw this vision, <b>but Rome Papal; See Gill on Rev_14:8 so the
woman is called in Rev_17:5 who sits on seven mountains, and is that
great city, the city of Rome, that reigns over the kings of the earth,
Rev_18:9 </b>this is said to be fallen, because, in a very little time
after this declaration, it will fall; for as yet it was not destroyed,
since after this the Lord's people are called upon to come out of her,
and are bid to reward her double; and it is declared, that her plagues,
should come in one day, and she should be burnt with fire; and an angel
after this throws a millstone into the sea, saying, that so should
Babylon be thrown down, Rev_18:4 and it is repeated to denote the
certainty and utter destruction of her: and which is more fully
expressed by what follows,<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>and is become the habitation of devils; as old Babylon
was of satyrs, Isa_13:21 demons, which appeared in a hairy form, like
goats, and the word is rendered devils in Lev_17:7 and the inhabitants
of Rome now are no other; the pope and his cardinals, the priests,
Jesuits, monks, and friars, are the spirits of devils, and their
doctrines the doctrines of devils; see Rev_16:14</b></span><br />
<br />
and the hold of every foul spirit: devils are frequently called unclean
spirits, and these appear in desert and desolate places, <b>Mat_12:43</b>
where they are either of choice, or rather are obliged to it; and so
the word translated "hold" signifies a prison, or place of confinement;
and such as are comparable to unclean spirits now haunt and abound in
Rome, and its territories; <b>see Rev_16:13</b><br />
<br />
<br />
and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird; such, as vultures,
kites, owls, &c. which generally reside in desolate and uninhabited
places; the Alexandrian copy, the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, add, <b>"and the hold", or "seat of every unclean and hateful beast"; </b>and so the desolation of old Babylon is described by wild beasts and doleful creatures dwelling in it, <b>Isa_13:21</b>.
Some consider all this as a reason of the destruction of Babylon or
Rome, because it now is the residence of persons comparable to devils,
foul spirits, hateful birds, and beasts of prey; but this account rather
describes its state and case in which it will be after its ruin, being
never more to be inhabited by men, in allusion to old Babylon, <b>Isa_13:19.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>JFB</b></div>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
mightily ... strong — not supported by manuscripts. But A, B, Vulgate,
Syriac, and Coptic read, “with (literally, ‘in’) a mighty voice.”<br />
<br />
is
fallen, is fallen — so A, Vulgate, Syriac, and Andreas. But B and
Coptic omit the second “is fallen” (Isa_21:9; Jer_51:8). This phrase is
here prophetical of her fall, still future, as Rev_18:4 proves.<br />
<br />
<b>devils — Greek, “demons.”</b><br />
<br />
<b>the hold — a keep or prison.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Barnes</b></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
And he cried mightily - Literally, “he cried with a strong great voice.” See Rev_10:3.<br />
Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen - See the notes on Rev_14:8. The
proclamation here is substantially the same as in that place, and no
doubt the same thing is referred to.<br />
And is become the habitation
of devils - Of demons - in allusion to the common opinion that the
demons inhabited abandoned cities, old ruins, and deserts. See the notes
on Mat_12:43-45. The language here is taken from the description of
Babylon in Isa_13:20-22; and for a full illustration of the meaning, see
the notes on that passage.<br />
<br />
And the hold of every foul
spirit - φυλακὴ phulakē. A watch-post, station, haunt of such spirits
- That is, they, as it were, kept guard there; were stationed there;
haunted the place.<br />
<br />
And a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird - That is, they would resort there, and abide there as in a
cage. The word translated “cage” is the same which is rendered “hold” -
φυλακὴ phulakē. In Isa_13:21, it is said, “and owls shall dwell
there”; and in Isa_14:23, it is said that it would be a “possession for
the bittern.” The idea is that of utter desolation; and the meaning here
is, that spiritual Babylon - <b>papal Rome Rev_14:8 </b>- will be
reduced to a state of utter desolation resembling that of the real
Babylon. It is not necessary to suppose this of the city of Rome itself -
for that is not the object of the representation. <b>It is the papacy, represented under the image of the city, and having its seat there. </b>That is to be destroyed as utterly as was Babylon of old; that will become as odious, and loathsome, <b>and detestable as the literal Babylon, the abode of monsters is.</b><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
_________________________________________________________________________________</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Livets
ords grundare – Ulf och Birgitta Ekman – har beslutat sig för att bli katoliker
och upptas i katolska kyrkan. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">http://www.varldenidag.se/nyhet/2014/03/09/Paret-Ekman-blir-katoliker-lamnar-Livets-ord/</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ingress" style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Livets
ords grundare – Ulf och Birgitta Ekman – har beslutat sig för att bli katoliker
och upptas i katolska kyrkan. Att de skulle lämna Livets ord beskriver de
själva som "den otänkbara tanken". Men så blir det alltså. I en
exklusiv intervju med Världen idag berättar de om den både långa och svåra
processen, om hur synen på katoliker och katolska läror har förändrats och om
deras starka attraktion till katolska kyrkan.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Storvreta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Under lång tid har det pratats om Ulf Ekmans
närmande till katolska kyrkan. I femton år har han påtalat behovet av enhet,
inte minst med de historiska kyrkorna, vilket har föranlett både samtal och
spekulationer. När sonen – Benjamin Ekman – valde att konvertera under hösten
tog diskussionen ny fart. Skulle Ulf och Birgitta Ekman gå samma väg? Och
svaret på den frågan är ja. Exakt när det kommer ske behåller de för sig
själva, men det blir "någon gång under våren".</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
Ulf och Birgitta förklarar att deras eget och sonen Benjamins beslut är
oberoende av varandra. Och att de blev överraskade när sonen meddelade sitt
beslut.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Vi trodde länge att han kanske skulle
förena sig med den ortodoxa kyrkan, för han har varit intresserad av och tyckt
om den kyrkan.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men så ringde han oss
en dag i höstas och berättade att han hade bestämt sig för att gå med i
katolska kyrkan. Då blev vi faktiskt överraskade, berättar Birgitta, men
tillägger att de är glada för att sonen har funnit ett andligt hem i Lund.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Någon gång under</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">hösten beslutade Ulf och Birgitta sig för att
upptas i katolska kyrkan. Även om beslutet ligger i närtid, så har processen
varit lång, berättar de.<br />
– Vi har bett, funderat, forskat, undersökt och frågat Herren under lång tid,
säger Ulf.<br />
– Ja, det är en process som pågått ända sedan millennieskiftet, berättar
Birgitta.<br />
Längtan efter enhet går ännu längre tillbaka i tiden. Ulf knyter an till en
händelse i slutet av sjuttiotalet, när han sitter på en lunchrestaurang
tillsammans med en studiekompis och plötsligt börjar gråta.<br />
– Jag fick en ögonblicklig upplevelse av hur Jesus upplever att hans kyrka är
splittrad. Det var som en flash, att detta inte behagar Gud och att Jesus
sörjer över detta.<br />
Upplevelsen på lunchrestaurangen försvann sedan ur minnet, men har kommit
tillbaka igen de senaste tio åren, berättar han. I den process som nu har
varit, har upptäckten av enhet varit väldigt central.<br />
Ulf Ekman tar fram sin bibel och läser upp ett bibelord från Johannes 11:52,
där aposteln Johannes skriver: "Ja, han [Jesus] skulle inte bara dö för
folket utan också för att samla och förena Guds kringspridda barn."<br />
– I själva centrum av evangeliet ligger samlandet och förenandet. Vi använder
ibland evangeliet för att splittra människor och det är jag också delaktig i.
Vi gör det kanske inte av illvilja, utan för att vi lever i en väldigt
splittrad värld. Men jag menar att det ligger väldigt starkt på Guds hjärta att
vi ska förenas. Jesus dog för just detta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I början av</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Livets ords historia uttalade Ulf Ekman
ibland kritik mot katolska kyrkan och församlingen bad bland annat emot att
påven skulle komma på besök till Uppsala.<br />
– Jag skrev några kritiska artiklar, vi bad att Sverige skulle bevara sin
evangeliska tro när påven skulle komma till Uppsala och jag har undervisat en
del på bibelskolan om detta. Men bortsett från det, som var i ett ganska tidigt
skede, så har vi inte ägnat en massa tid åt dessa frågor. Däremot har vi
definitivt varit en del av den allmänna negativismen.<br />
Ulf Ekman värjer sig mot den bild som ibland målas upp av att just han skulle
ha varit särskilt kritisk.<br />
– Det var inte en huvudfråga för oss. Kritisk var jag, på samma sätt som många
andra väckelsekristna, säger han.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Det finns ju rabiata katolikhatare och
sådana har vi aldrig varit.</b> Men vi har varit misstänksamma och även
okunniga, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Bygger den negativa
inställning många har till katolska kyrkan ofta på okunnighet, tror ni?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Ja, det tror jag absolut, säger Birgitta. Vi utsätts ju inte så mycket för
katolska kyrkans influenser i Sverige. Katolska kyrkan här uppfattade vi då som
en mindre invandrarkyrka, som man inte stötte på så mycket.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">De berättar om</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">sin egen process, där fördomar har kommit på
skam och där de har fått revidera sin syn på olika katolska läror. Birgitta
berättar att hon närmast kände sig lurad när hon började upptäcka det som fanns
i den katolska kyrkan.<br />
– När jag upptäckte alla dessa positiva sidor så tänkte jag: Varför har ingen
berättat det här? Någon måste ha undanhållit detta från mig och alla andra
frikyrkliga, tänkte jag. Det har varit den ena aha-upplevelsen efter den andra
när man läser. Försoningen, helande, tron på under, allt detta finns där starkt
och välartikulerat och vi vet inte ens om det. Så vi har stått där och rodnat
av skam när vi har upptäckt vår okunskap.<br />
Ulf berättar att mycket av det han har kommit i kontakt med har provocerat
honom och förändrat hans syn på katolska kyrkan.<br />
– När jag läste den katolska socialläran så insåg jag att allt det jag tror på
står där. När jag läste grundläggande dogmatik så insåg jag att det var saker
jag alltid har trott på, men som ingen har kunnat formulera så bra.<br />
Birgitta jämför fördomarna mot katolska kyrkan, med de fördomar de själva har
utsatts för under åren på Livets ord.<br />
– Människor på Livets ord har lidit för att andra människor har fått sina
uppgifter från Aftonbladet och Expressen. Det jag började inse är att vi gör på
precis samma sätt när det gäller den katolska kyrkan. Vi vet, tycker vi, vi har
läst anti-katolska böcker, vi har det svart på vitt. Men i själva verket är det
hörsägen.<br />
Hon tar synen på Maria som exempel.<br />
– Någon kanske säger till katolikerna: "Ni tillber Maria" och de
tänker "Nej, det gör vi inte. Maria är en människa och vi skulle aldrig be
till Maria som vi ber till Gud". Så det är inte schysst att döma en kyrka
eller en rörelse på sekundära källor. Det är därför jag har sett det som
angeläget att ta reda på från deras officiella skrifter vad de verkligen säger.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Att det finns</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vissa katolska läror som protestantiska
kristna har frågor omkring är Ulf och Birgitta väl medvetna om. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I höstas skrev Ulf Ekman en uppmärksammad
artikel i den teologiska tidskriften Keryx, där han bland annat lyfte fram
behovet av ett läroämbete, som kan fälla avgörandet vid olika tolkningar av
Bibeln. Ulf menar att behovet av ett sådant ämbete är stort.<br />
</b>– För mig är det fullständigt obegripligt hur man kan säga att vi inte
behöver något läroämbete. Om vi har fem bibelord och arton åsikter om dessa
bibelord, vem avgör då? Antingen är det att mitt intellekt är bättre än ditt,
att jag har läst mer än du, att jag kan övertyga bättre än du kan, att jag är
mer passionerad än du är som avgör att min åsikt vinner över din åsikt. Eller
också finns det ett läroämbete som säger: regelboken säger att det är så här
man dömer i den här frågan.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kan ett sådant läroämbete
gestaltas även i frikyrkligheten, eller pekar det automatiskt mot påven?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det finns frön av detta nedlagda överallt. Guds nåd över frikyrkorna och
protestantisk kristendom är fantastisk. Gud verkar ju i alla lemmar i Kristi
kropp.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Men du ser påven som det
yttersta uttrycket för ett sådant läroämbete?</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>– Ja, absolut är han det. </u></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b>Ja, jag
tror på nödvändigheten av en yttersta instans.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b> </b><br />
I nämnda Keryx-artikel problematiserade Ulf även reformationen och beskrev den
som ett "ecklesiologiskt trendbrott", där kyrkosynen förändrades i
grunden. Men han menar ändå att reformationen var nödvändig.<br />
– Det fanns ett stort behov av en reformatorisk förändring. Det som skedde var
att det gick över i en protestantisk revolution, där det polariserades från
båda håll. Och där sker det stora brottet. Resultatet blev att man så småningom
avskaffade läroämbetet och kontinuiteten bröts väldigt tydligt. Man försökte
börja om.<br />
Ulf Ekman ser ett behov av ständig reformation, men frågar sig om det är
nödvändigt att "starta om" vid varje tillfälle.<br />
– Resultatet av omstarten vid reformationen var inte bara det vi har lärt oss –
att kyrkan blev friare och bättre – utan kyrkan blev i stället mer
sekulariserad och splittrad. Så småningom tunnas kyrkosynen ut och den kristna
tron individualiseras.<br />
Om reformationen resulterade i den splittring Ulf Ekman ser, så har den sedan
fortsatt genom olika väckelserörelser, menar han.<br />
– Det finns en tanke genom väckelsehistorien att man ska "dra ut"
från något, för att de andra inte är tillräckligt rena. Detta har lett till den
ena splittringen efter den andra. Man tänker nog att om man gör det, så
renodlar man och då blir man stark. Det vi har upptäckt på vår resa är att
detta inte är sant, utan att man bara blir mer begränsad.<br />
Syftet med väckelse, eller reformation, är enligt Ulf Ekman att vitalisera hela
Kristi kropp.<br />
– Gud låter olika väckelser komma därför att han vill lyfta fram och
levandegöra något och det är ju underbart. Men sedan vill han inkorporera det i
Kristi kropp. När pingstväckelsen blev karismatisk väckelse och gick in i
Kristi kropp på allvar, i stället för att bara vara isolerad, så blev det till
välsignelse för alla samfund. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Och nu
har vi 120 miljoner katolska karismatiker som ett resultat av det.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur ser du på ett begrepp
som Sola Scriptura?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vad många menar med Sola Scriptura i dag är att vi tror på Bibeln och där
håller jag självfallet med. Man kan likaväl säga Skriftens primat, som ju betyder
att vi sätter Skriften främst.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta berättar</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">att upptäckten av enhetens betydelse har
inneburit en förändrad attityd gentemot andra kristna, och inte minst mot just
katoliker.<br />
– Upptäckten av dem och gemenskapen med dem skakade om oss och provocerade och
utmanade vår egen okunnighet och våra egna fördomar, berättar Ulf.<br />
– I kontakten med katoliker så upptäckte vi dels hur levande de är, hur duktiga
de är, hur kunniga de är, hur överlåtna de är och hur starka i sin tro de är.
Detta är ju någonting som väckelsekristna tycker sig ha monopol på, så för mig
var det en tillnyktrande upplevelse att inse att vi inte alls har monopol på
det, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">framhåller särskilt två personer som har
betytt mycket för dem i den process som har varit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Den förste är biskop Anders Arborelius.<br />
</b>– Hans liv och hans exempel har talat högt till mig personligen, nästan
sedan den dag han blev biskop i december 1999, säger Ulf. Om det är någon
svensk som har betytt något för oss i den här frågan, så är det han.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men även Wilfrid Stinissen, som nyligen
flyttade hem till Herren, har spelat en viktig roll i Ulf och Birgittas beslut.</b><br />
– Han har varit en härlig, härlig vän och fader att sitta och prata med,
berättar Birgitta. Vi saknar honom mycket, för han hjälpte oss verkligen.<br />
Ulf och Birgitta sammanfattar skälen till sitt beslut.<br />
– För oss har detta varit en upptäckt på flera plan. Av levande katolska
människor, stark bibliskt förankrad teologi, ett rikt gudstjänstliv, en stark
mission, ett socialt patos och en etisk styrka. Detta samlat har utövat en
stark attraktionskraft på oss, förklarar Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">När man talar</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">om enhet så tänker nog många på en
relationell sak och inte kanske som en organisatorisk enhet. Hur ser ni på det?<br />
– Alla kristna tycker ju om enhet, men man menar så olika saker. Det är ju
väldigt bra att ha en bra relation till andra människor i olika samfund. Att
komma över skiljaktigheter <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>och sluta
tjafsa.</u></b> Och även om man inte kommer överens kan vi ha en försonlig och
saklig inställning till varandra. Det är ju ett gott och nödvändigt arbete, men
det är inte tillräckligt, menar Ulf.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Räcker det inte att vi
älskar varandra?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Så säger ju folk i dag som lever i samboförhållanden. Men Jesus har inte 20
000 fruar, han har inte heller ett samboförhållande med en, utan det finns ett
konkret inre och yttre förhållande med en brud, säger Ulf.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Så det krävs en
organisatorisk enhet?</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det här går tillbaka till vilken kyrkosyn man har. Kyrkan är Kristi kropp, en
strukturerad enhet. Den är konkret, den är avgränsad, den går att ta på. Den är
inte ett gasmoln utan har både en yttersida och en innersida, kropp och Ande.
Och kroppen syns. Jesus vandrade omkring i trettio år och syntes. På samma sätt
måste kyrkan ha ett konkret uttryck. Och hur var det i början? Vi karismatiker
älskar ju att säga att vi ska tillbaka till Apostlagärningarnas kristendom. Och
då fanns det bara en kyrka, säger Ulf och skrattar.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">En konsekvens av</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">beslutet att upptas i katolska kyrkan är att
Ulf och Birgitta lämnar Livets ord. De lämnar alla styrelseuppdrag (med
undantag för att Birgitta fortsätter att arbeta med Indian Children, som
hjälper fattiga barn i Indien) och går ur församlingen. Tanken på att lämna den
församling de älskar har inte gjort makarna Ekmans beslut lättare.<br />
– Det är en stor brottningskamp som har pågått i det fördolda, för vi älskar ju
våra vänner i Livets ord. Och vi har ju dessutom startat det här. Att gå
härifrån och gå någon annanstans, det är ju egentligen den otänkbara tanken,
säger Birgitta. Vi vill inte såra någon, inte förskräcka någon och heller inte
nedvärdera någon. Så det är klart att detta har varit en stor puckel på vägen.<br />
Men övertygelsen har ändå fått dem att fatta sitt beslut.<br />
– Vi har pratat, funderat och bett Jesus om hjälp hur vi ska göra med detta.
För vi inser att vi tror på den katolska kyrkan och vi tror att den stammar
från Jesus och apostlarna och då känns det ju smärtsamt att inte få vara en del
av den. Vad gör man? Det har varit en period av vånda, men någon gång måste man
fatta beslutet, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">För att kunna</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">upptas i katolska kyrkan krävs studier i
katekesen. En bok som Ulf menar är "den bästa bok han läst".
Studierna har Ulf och Birgitta gjort privat och det var förutsättningslöst. Det
sista var viktigt, berättar de.</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– När vi bestämde oss för att gå igenom undervisningen var det inte automatiskt
förenat med något beslut. Vi kunde välja att göra klart alla studier och sedan
säga att vi inte var intresserade, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ulf berättar att han vid varje viktigt
vägskäl i livet har fått en bekräftelse, ofta genom en profetisk hälsning. Och
den här gången är inget undantag.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Nyligen skickade påven en
hälsning till en konferens som Kenneth Copeland höll i USA.</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Samma dag fick Ulf ett
telefonsamtal från en predikant som just hade varit med på mötet, men som inte
kände till den situation som makarna Ekman stod i.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Mannen som ringer berättar att
han varit på nämnda möte och ropar sedan i telefonen: "Gud säger till mig:
Det ni beslutar er för är rätt. Dit ni är på väg stämmer. Det ni känner att ni
ska göra ska ni göra. Ni ska gå till katolikerna. Ni ska göra det ni har
bestämt er för att göra". För Ulf och Birgitta blev detta ännu en
bekräftelse på det beslut de redan hade fattat.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vad har ni mött för
reaktioner från Livets ords styrelse när ni har berättat detta?</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– En reaktion. "Ja, men det har vi
ju anat länge", säger Ulf och skrattar hjärtligt.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b>– Ulf har ju skrivit mycket som pekar åt det här hållet, i Keryxartiklar
och annat, så det kanske inte är så förvånande, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Att en pingst-karismatisk</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">pastor av Ulf Ekmans dignitet bestämmer sig
för att upptas i katolska kyrkan hör ändå inte till vanligheterna. Tvärtom lär
det vara historiskt.<br />
Både Ulf och Birgitta är noga med att påpeka att det inte finns någon konflikt
i beslutet, utan att allt sker i harmoni med församlingen Livets ord. Och att
det inte primärt handlar om att ta avstånd från något, utan snarare att bejaka
en kallelse.<br />
– Det finns ingen yttre orsak för mig att lämna Livets ord, att jag skulle ha
tröttnat eller att det finns en konflikt eller så. Tvärtom, jag stortrivs. Så
egentligen är det jättemärkligt att ta ett sådant beslut.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Den enda logiska orsaken till detta beslut är att Gud har talat till oss om
detta och övertygat oss på djupet om att det är detta vi ska göra, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vi har känt att vårt uppdrag efter trettio år nu är avslutat. Herren sade
till oss: "Uppdraget är avslutat, men vänskapen består". Så
relationen till Livets ord kommer förstås bestå så länge vi lever, men den
kommer vara annorlunda naturligtvis, fortsätter han.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
Att Livets ord har fått Joakim Lundqvist som pastor gör att både Ulf och
Birgitta känner en frihet att gå vidare.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vi är så tacksamma att Gud gav församlingen pastor Joakim, som är en
helhjärtad och entusiastisk pastor. Det är jätteroligt. För man vill ju ta hand
om sina barn, man kan inte lämna dem, säger Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Men det är också viktigt att säga att
Joakim inte är någon lösning för att vi ska kunna bli katoliker. Däremot kunde
jag tänka klarare när Joakim väl kom. När vi hade insatt Joakim som
förstepastor blev denna möjlighet tydligare, säger Ulf.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tror ni att fler kommer
att gå in i katolska kyrkan till följd av ert beslut?</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det här är något djupt personligt för var och en, så det kan man inte
spekulera i, menar Birgitta. Det här är vårt djupt genomarbetade steg och sedan
får var och en leva sitt liv med Herren och ta ansvar för det.<br />
Men de tror inte att deras beslut kommer att vara startskottet för "en
lång exodus". Och de vill också poängtera att deras väg nu skiljs från
Livets ords väg.<br />
– Vi har naturligtvis inga problem med att andra i vår församling upptäcker
samma sak som vi, för vi tror att det är baserat på sanningen. Men beslutet vi
tar, det är vårt eget beslut och vägen vi går är vår egen väg, säger Ulf.<br />
Samtidigt understryker de Livets ords fortsatt viktiga roll i arbetet för
enhet.<br />
– Jag tror att Livets ord har en funktion i att bryta ner fördomar och öka
förståelsen för bredden i Kristi kropp. Och Livets ord har dessutom en kallelse
att predika tro och missionera, säger Ulf.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Rent formellt kommer</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ulf och Birgitta att tillhöra Sankt Lars
katolska församling i Uppsala, men de tror själva att de kommer att röra sig i
katolska miljöer både i Sverige och utomlands.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Vi har ägnat ett antal år åt att förklara för vårt sammanhang
vad katolska kyrkan är och inte är. Det ska bli underbart att förenas med
detta, men samtidigt tror jag vi har en roll i att förklara hur protestanter
och pingst-karismatiker tänker. Och hur Gud använder dem. Enhet bygger ju på en
ömsesidig förståelse, från båda sidor, och kan man bidra till det, då är det
inte så dumt, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Finns det även saker som
den katolska kyrkan kan lära av protestanter?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Ja, jag tror också att man från katolskt håll ser att det finns sådant inom
protestantisk kristendom som man kan bejaka och lära av. Inte minst frimodig
personlig evangelisation, säger Ulf.<br />
Ser ni en uppgift för er del i just detta?<br />
– Vi kommer inte med hög svansföring, utan vi kommer därför att vi behöver vad
Jesus har lagt i den katolska kyrkan. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Jag behöver sakramenten, jag behöver läroämbetet, jag behöver
påven, jag behöver den tradition som de förvaltar. Jag har behov av kyrkan för
min egen frälsning. Så det är djupt personligt, förklarar Ulf.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta Ekmans</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">trosvandring fortsätter. För de ger inte sken
av att veta exakt hur framtiden ska gestalta sig.<br />
– Vi känner oss lite som Abraham och Sara. Gamlingarna som går till ett land
som de inte riktigt känner till, säger hon och skrattar.<br />
– Vi har fått leva hela vårt liv i tro och Gud låter oss inte leva på något
annat sätt. Vi har aldrig haft någon annan trygghet än i Gud, och det är
likadant nu, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<a href="mailto:lukas.berggren@varldenidag.se"><b><span style="color: #3288ac; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lukas Berggren</span></b></a><br />
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 25.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord och blir katolik</span></b></div>
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http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565</div>
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<span style="color: #575757; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Ulf
Ekman vid en gudstjänst hos Livets Ord i Uppsala (arkivbild). Foto: Fredrik
Persson/TT_spe3d9de</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Ulf Ekman, grundare och
mångårig pastor i Livets ord i Uppsala, lämnar nu församlingen och konverterar
tillsammans med sin fru till katolicismen. Det skriver Ulf Ekman själv på</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"> </span></b></span><a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">DN Debatt</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"> </span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">på nätet.</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #575757; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Publicerat
söndag 9 mars kl 11:33</span></div>
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<a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-transform: uppercase;">DELA</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565#comments"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-transform: uppercase;">26 KOMMENTARER</span></b></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kontakter med katolska kyrkan
har "lett fram till en omprövning av vår övertygelse och vår kyrkliga
praxis. Vi lämnar nu Livets ord för att denna vår bli upptagna i den katolska
kyrkan", skriver Ulf Ekman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf Ekman, som
grundade församlingen i Uppsala 1983, meddelade samtidigt sitt beslut vid
dagens gudstjänst hos Livets ord i Uppsala.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Församlingen Livets ord ger
sitt stöd till grundaren Ulf Ekmans och hans frus beslut att övergå till den
katolska kyrkan. Det skriver församlingens företrädare i ett pressmeddelande, där
man samtidigt poängterar att Livets ord inte går samma väg.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">SV:Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vilket ansvar skulle Ulf
Ekman ha för folks oförmåga att tänka och agera själva? Läs mormons bok så
kommer även du till insikt.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok" target="_blank" title="http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok</span></a></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Joseph Smith ,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">00:41</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">SV:Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ursäkta, men jag tycker inte
man kan berömma Ulf Ekman för att han beklagar lidande hos f.d. medlemmar (och
andra församlingar) SAMTIDIGT SOM HAN GÅR UR FÖRSAMLINGEN. Lidande som han
istället borde ha stått till svars för, och tillrättalagt MÅNGA ÅR TIDIGARE.
Det är otroligt FEGT att göra det så här - när han är fri från ansvar, och kan
lämna hela sammanhanget bakom sig. Det är inte imponerande. Det är patetiskt
och pinsamt.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">amanda,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">00:25</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf Ekman och hans fru</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hjälp vad mycket utagerande!<br />
Herr och fru Ekman har valt att göra något som de inbördes<br />
är överens om, SRs hemsida får bara på några timmar en<br />
rad laddade meijl om att det av ena eller andra anledningen<br />
är felaktigt eller dömer ut parets kommande handling.<br />
Dom tycks ju ha fått en inre frid och stabilitet.<br />
Jag tycker det verkar sunt och harmoniskt.<br />
Man läser ju om så mycket trasigt och svårt.<br />
Det här var ju en lågmäld glad nyhet.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tallskogen,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 23:40</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Det är djupt tragiskt!</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det är djupt tragiskt att Ulf
Ekman konverterade till katolicismen!<br />
Han som i början på 90-talet lärde kristna folket att strida med Guds Ord och
sade själv:<br />
"Utrusta Guds folk med Hans trosord. Visa dem vilka andliga vapen de
har"<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nu underkastar sig själv inför påvens
makt och den mest auktoritativa kyrkan i världen<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> som anser att de har auktoritet att
tolka Bibeln hur de vill!!<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
</b>Äre det inte djupt tragiskt?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Gregor,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 23:09</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">religion är skit</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men Jesus är sanningen!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">ex livetsorder,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 22:59</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Bibel</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jag är katolik läser Bibeln
flera timmar varje dag det gör de flesta Katoliker</span>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Katolik,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 22:42</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Hur kan du</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur kan du överge din tro på
Bibeln ?<br />
Det spelar ingen roll vad du säger för katolska kyrkan<br />
Är inte en bibelförankrad kyrka!<br />
Avgudadyrkan, ber för de döda ja det värsta är att Påven anser sig vara den
enda ställföreträdaren för Gud på jorden!<br />
Hur går det ihop med alla dina före detta predikningar och din förkunnelse
genom åren?!<br />
Du sviker många och framförallt Jesus, läs Bibeln och sluta gå på dina egna
invigelser!<br />
Tänk på alla som lyssnat på dig och litar på din förkunnelse!<br />
Förlåt mig men du borde tänka till en gång till!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Åsa artsberg,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 21:41</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Kristus är vår
rättfärdighet genom tron allena</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Skillnaden
på att vara troende på Jesus Kristus och att vara katolik är att enligt
klassisk kristen syn samt bibel tolkning och tro- så behöver en troende inte gå
via kyrkliga mellanhänder och påvar eller andra så kallade auktoriteter för att
bikta sig och få förlåtelse utan att man kan gå direkt till GUD via bön då man
som troende kristen har Bibeln som auktoritet och finner lösningar samt svaren
endast där..<br />
<br />
<br />
1 Timoteusbrevet 2:5 Ty Gud är en, och en är förmedlaren mellan Gud och
människor, människan, Kristus Jesus, som gav sig själv till lösen för alla.
"</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">MVH-SMISK,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 20:53</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf Ekman och hans fru</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kan man inte vara glad för
att de båda gör något som de vill och trivs med.<br />
Jag tycker att det är en oförarglig nyhet.<br />
Hoppas att de får manga år tillsammans.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tallskogen,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 20:53</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Min egen kommentar: var och
en måste följa sin egna inre personliga röst, så det Ekman gjorde var rätt. Det
gav också en del extra bonuspoäng att be f.d. livets-ordare som blivit illa
behandlade om ursäkt. Det gör mig litet imponerad.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
laffe: Han startade i "tokvänstern"<br />
Om du med "tokvänstern" menar kristendomen, så har du rätt. Apg
4:34-35: "De som ägde jord eller hus sålde sin egendom och kom med
köpesumman och lade ner den vid apostlarnas fötter, och man delade ut åt var
och en efter hans behov." För allt högerfolk är det bäst att undvika
kyrkan och konvertera till t.ex. asatro eller mammonism eller något.<br />
<br />
Fredrik: (Ang. katolicismen) Dessutom är antisemitismen djupt rotad och
samarbetet med nazismen dokumenterad.<br />
<br />
Osant. Och tänk, det är exakt vad man anklagat protestantism för, p.g.a.
diverse mindre smickrande uttalanden från Luther. Osant, det också, eftersom
nazismen planerade utrota kristendomen och ersätta det med den
"nationalsocialistiska SS-religionen."<br />
<br />
Ateist: "Var glada att vi inte har militanta sekter i Sverige."<br />
Är du alldeles säker på att vi inte har det? Vad sägs om Svenska
Motståndsrörelsen SMR och attackerna i Kärrtorp?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">villolära</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vad kan man förvänta sig av
en villolära som ulf ekman .han har väl bränt sina skepp och gått över till
katolska kyrkan som för mig är ochså fel lära</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">lbebbe,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 19:18</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ojdå.....</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men ärligt, vem bryr sig?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ronny Bergman,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 18:27</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Det våras för
guldplåtarna</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Om fem år så kommer Ulf Ekman
till ny insikt och då är han varmt välkommen. mormon.org</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Joseph Smith,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:25</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Vilken spannande
varldsnyhet...</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ekman bli katolik...Varlden
stannar upp och jordklotet bromsar in....Feta rubriker i varldspressen....Oj,
oj, oj...Vilken spannande nyhet.....<br />
<br />
Halsar Gunnar Bergstrom i Vietnam...</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Gunnar Bergstrom,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:24</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Var glada</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Var glada att vi inte har
militanta sekter i Sverige. Sekter som har mål att döda, skada eller lemlästa.
Islamister, domedagssekter och liknande....<br />
<br />
Var också glada att vi har religionsfrihet. Det är inte alla länder som har
det. Förr i tiden hade Sverige ingen religionsfrihet och man var tvungen att
vara kristen.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ateist,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:16</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf och Birgitta</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">har äntligen hittat hem.<br />
Som Ulf säger att det är bland annat den katolska kyrkans moraliska fasthet och
rika sakramentala liv som lockat honom och hustrun att konvertera.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Välkommen hit,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:12</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Oj!</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jag tycker faktiskt att det
är trist att en så stor ledare för svensk karismatisk kristenhet så helt tar
avstånd från sitt förflutna och tar ett kliv rakt ut i "tomhet". Låt
oss hoppas att Ulf tillnyktrar och får ny stadga under sina fötter.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
Visserligen tror jag att även katoliker kan få del i himlen givet att de,
liksom jag, tror att Jesus Kristus är Guds son och att han har dött för våra
synder och att han uppstod från det döda på tredje dagen. Dock får vi absolut
inte tillbe Maria eller andra gelikar eftersom det är ENDAST Jesus Kristus som
är Herrarnas Herre och Kungars Konung som har gjort och fullbordat frälsningen,
för dig och mig, och räddat dig och mig från evig förbannelse och främmandeskap
från Abrahams Gud och därmed givit oss evigt liv!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kenneth,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 15:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Låt om oss bedja...</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">...outgrundliga äro Herren
Sebaots vägar.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Carl Cromagnon,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:56</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Debatt?</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det märkligaste här är att DN
accepterar en "debattartikel" av det här slaget från en sektledare.
Lite oroväckande.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Olof,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:40</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Bra Ulf,</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vi måste följa vår inre
röst/kompass, även om det smärtar omgivningen.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Också Troende,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ekman blir katolik</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Från en extrem till en annan,
från karismatiskt kaos till påvlig dogmatism.<br />
Uffe, det finns så mycket mellan dessa ytterligheter!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">MickeB,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 13:58</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Otroligt konstigt</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vad händer med alla dessa
människor som upphöjt Ulf Ekman till profetstatus. De måste känna sig
förvirrade och lurade. Verklig kris!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kris,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 13:15</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Aha, det är alltså så
sektledare går i pension</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kanske dags för ett
granskande reportage?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jaså ,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:47</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Tragiskt</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Katolicismen har bara namnet
gemensamt med äkta kristendom dessvärre. Det finns ingen organisation genom
historien som har dödat fler troende än den katolska kyrkan. Dessutom är
antisemitismen djupt rotad och samarbetet med nazismen dokumenterad.<br />
Man får bara hoppas att inte fler följer efter paret Ekman i deras förvillelse.<br />
1 Petrusbrevet 5:8 :<br />
Var nyktra och vaksamma. Er motståndare djävulen går omkring som ett rytande
lejon och söker efter vem han skall sluka.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Fredrik,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:36</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Han startade i
"tokvänstern"</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Han omprövar alltid sin tro</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">laffe,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Märklig situation</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur går det för alla dessa
som fortfarande tillhör livets ord? Sönderfall?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anonym,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:27</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 27.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord</span></h1>
<div class="preamble" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 9.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Pastor Ulf Ekman, grundare av Livets ord, lämnar
församlingen, konverterar och blir katolik. Samtidigt ber han om ursäkt för det
lidande Livets ord orsakat.</span></b></div>
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http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/ulf-ekman-lamnar-livets-ord_3343744.svd</div>
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<span style="color: #797a7c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">9 mars 2014 kl 17:57 , uppdaterad: 9
mars 2014 kl 19:08</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman skriver
själv på Dagens Nyheters debattsida att han och hans hustru Birgitta har
omprövat sin övertygelse och kyrkliga praxis och nu lämnar Livets ord ”för att
denna vår bli upptagna i den katolska kyrkan”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han ber också
om ursäkt för ”lidande och sår” som människor tillfogats genom kontakter med
Livets ord: ”I detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets ord ett
ansvar, och jag är uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat
att människor fått lida.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman skriver
också att det är bland annat den katolska kyrkans moraliska fasthet och rika
sakramentala liv som lockat honom och hustrun att konvertera.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Joakim
Lundqvist, som efterträdde Ulf Ekman som förstepastor i Livets ord förra året,
anser inte att grundarens avhopp påverkar församlingen eftersom Ekman inte
varit så intensivt involverad de senaste åren som förut.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">TT: Ulf Ekman
är för de flesta synonym med Livets ord, har inte det någon betydelse alls att
han nu lämnar rörelsen?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">- Det är säkert
många som kan känna en förvåning över det steg han nu tar. Samtidigt har han
betonat väldigt tydligt att det här inte är ett avståndstagande, säger han.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 27.0pt; letter-spacing: -.75pt;">Ulf Ekman blir katolik</span></h1>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -.75pt; line-height: 115%;">Grundare av Livets ord höll avskedspredikan i förmiddags</span></h2>
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</span>http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article18508752.ab</div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Pastor
Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord – och blir katolik.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 16.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Det berättade han under gudstjänsten i dag.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">I morgon hålls det ett krismöte för de chockade
församlingsmedlemmarna.</span></b></div>
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På sin
hemsida publicerar Livets ord en intervju med församlingens grundare, pastor
Ulf Ekman och han fru Birgitta, där de båda berättar varför de hoppar av - för
att upptas i katolska kyrkan.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– För Birgitta och mig har det varit en långsam utveckling där vi
gått från att upptäcka nya saker, till att uppskatta det vi upptäckt, till att
närma oss och även lära oss av våra trossyskon. Nu upplever vi att vi skall ta
konsekvenserna av vad vi upptäckt, säger Ekman i intervjun på församlingens
hemsida.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Medieprofilen Siewert Öholm ser sig själv som en god vän till Ulf
Ekman och han tycker att Ekmans beslut om att bli katolik är fel.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Ja, jag är besviken. Jag tycker att han smiter från sitt
ansvar.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Han skulle ha tagit den kampen tillsammans med sin
församling, det han har grundat. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På frågan vad som händer nu menar Öholm, som själv är aktiv
kristen, att det kommer bli en stor förvirring ett tag i församlingen. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men det positiva, som han ser det, är att kyrkan nu får pröva sin
egen teologi och komma fram till vad den står för.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Förklarar avhoppet i brev</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det var vid gudstjänsten i dag som Ulf Ekman, 63, berättade för
församlingen om avhoppet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ett brev från honom till församlingens medlemmar publicerades
också på hemsidan i dag.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I brevet skriver han, bland annat:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"När du nu läser detta har du säkert redan hört om den
stora nyhet jag berättade om under söndagsgudstjänsten idag den 9 mars. Det
jag berättade var att Birgitta och jag nu under våren kommer att avsluta
vårt engagemang i denna underbara församling för att så småningom upptas i
den Katolska kyrkan. För dig som hörde detta i söndags eller får nyheten nu
på detta sätt, kanske det upplevs som en stor och omskakande
överraskning."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Därefter förklarar han varför han tar detta steg och skriver,
bland annat:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"Denna utveckling har gått steg för steg och är inte
något som kommit plötsligt. På denna resa har vi många gånger känt igen
oss och sagt; ”Ja, men så tror ju vi.” Det jag under dessa år har blivit
övertygad om, det har jag också talat och skrivit om. Övertygelsen har med
tiden breddats och fördjupats och till sist resulterat i det beslut vi nu
tagit, nämligen att vi upplever Herrens ledning att förenas med den Katolska
kyrkan."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Samt:</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"För några månader sedan fick jag vad jag tror var ett ord
från Herren om detta. Det är: ”Uppdraget är slutfört men vänskapen består.”
Så hoppas och tror vi att det skall förbli."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ber om ursäkt för lidande</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I en debattartikel i DN ber han om ursäkt för "lidande och
sår" som människor tillfogats genom kontakter med Livets Ord: "I
detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets Ord ett ansvar, och jag är
uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat att människor fått
lida.", skriver han i debattartikeln.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Magnus Dahlberg, pressanvarig för Livets ord säger att Ulf Ekman
slutade som förstepastor i församlingen den 3 mars i fjol. I februari i år gick
han i pension. Joakim Lundqvist, som efterträdde Ulf Ekman som förstepastor i
Livets ord förra året, skriver i ett pressmeddelande att församlingen inte går
samma väg som grundaren och hans hustru.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På frågan om hur församlingsmedlemmarna reagerade på det som hände
idag säger Magnus Dahlberg:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Det var chockartat för en del, men jag tror inte att det
var chockartat för alla. En del har nog sett det komma och en del har inte
förväntat sig det.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Församlingen kommer att hålla ett extrainkallat möte för
medlemmarna i morgon.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ulf
Ekman konverterar till katolska kyrkan</span></h1>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> http://www.dagen.se/nyheter/ulf-ekman-konverterar-till-katolska-kyrkan/</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman
och han fru Birgitta blir katoliker. Det meddelade Ekman i en predikan hos
Livets ord i Uppsala på söndagen.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman berättade om sin långa vandring mot
katolska kyrkan. Den har pågått i närmare 10 år, sade han. Han förklarade sitt
och sin frus steg som en längtan efter enhet. Han betonade att kristna är
splittrade och att detta strider mot Guds ordning.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman underströk att detta är ett
personligt beslut. Han har inte för avsikt att få med församlingen Livets ord
in i katolska kyrkan.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Så kan man inte göra, underströk han.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Katolska kyrkan är bibliskt förankrad i
sina dogmer, menade Ekman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han talade väl om Livets ord och sade att
arbetet där fortsätter som tidigare. Han berättade hur glad han är över den
positiva utvecklingen i församlingen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Den vilar i goda händer, sade Ekman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han återkom flera gånger till behovet av
enhet i Kristi kropp. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Han talade om
katolska kyrkan som ”den äldsta kyrkan”.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman beskrev hur han och hans fru under
de senaste 10 åren upptäckt katolska kyrkan, lärt sig uppskatta den, velat
närma sig den och nu förena sig med den.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Vi upplever att Herren manat oss att förenas med den
katolska kyrkan.</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman sade till gudstjänstbesökarna
att han inte begär att det ska hålla med honom i allt, men att han hoppas att
de ska respektera honom och Birgitta för deras beslut.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Den nuvarande föreståndaren, Joakim
Lundqvist, tog till orda efter Ekmans predikan och underströk att han har fullt
förtroende för Ulf och Birgitta Ekman. Den djupa vänskapen oss emellan består,
sade han.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Gudstjänsten avslutades med att Lundqvist
och församlingen bad för paret Ekman om Guds välsignelse över deras fortsatta
gärning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jonathan Ekman, styrelseordförande och ytterst
ansvarig för hela Livets Ord,</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">
skriver på sin</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><a href="http://jonathan.ekman.nu/2014/03/09/vad-hander-nu-med-livets-ord/#more-547"><span style="color: #006699; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">blogg</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">om föräldrarnas beslut
att bli katoliker. Han beskriver det som en stor och dramatisk nyhet och att
han förstår att många nu ställer sig frågan om vad som sker med Livets ord.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">”Jag känner mig trygg i förtröstan på att
Gud har sin hand över Livets Ord. Vi har mycket kvar att utföra och jag är
fullt övertygad om att våra glansdagar inte på något vis ligger bakom oss. Vi
har vår storhetstid framför oss, skriver Jonathan Ekman.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #006699; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf
Ekman skriver själv om sina motiv till beslutet på DN Debatt.</span></b></a></div>
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http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">”Därför lämnar jag Livets Ord och blir katolik”</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Publicerad
2014-03-09 11:00</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">”Sedan millennieskiftet har jag och min hustru
Birgitta på olika sätt kommit i kontakt med den vitala katolska kyrkan. Steg
för steg har det lett fram till en omprövning av vår övertygelse och vår
kyrkliga praxis. Vi lämnar nu Livets Ord för att denna vår bli upptagna i den
katolska kyrkan”, skriver Ulf Ekman, grundare av Livets Ord.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I Sverige har religion, i
stället för att leva en tynande tillvaro, på olika sätt återigen tagit plats i
svensk debatt. Som pastor för Livets Ord har jag aktivt deltagit i den svenska
religiösa debatten samt själv varit föremål för rätt mycket uppmärksamhet. Som
företrädare för en av de senare väckelserörelserna i Sverige, med en i många
stycken ganska typisk väckelseteologi i botten, har jag fått uppleva medial
kritik men också fått se ett arbete växa fram med en mängd olika
verksamhetsområden, inte minst långt utanför Sverige.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Sedan
millennieskiftet</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">har min hustru Birgitta och jag på olika
sätt kommit i kontakt med den katolska kyrkan</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">. Det har varit en spännande upptäckt att i många internationella
sammanhang, inte minst under de tre år vi var bosatta i Israel 2002–2005, möta
en vital och levande katolsk tro. För oss innebar det både en utmaning och ett
glädjefyllt igenkännande. Detta har steg för steg lett fram till en omprövning
av vår teologiska övertygelse och vår kyrkliga praxis.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Kristna
har alltid värnat</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">om
sanningar som för oss är omistliga. Både reformation och väckelse har uppstått
ur behovet av att bevara det vi kristna menar vara centralt, och av behovet av
förnyelse av det andliga livet. Baksidan av detta är de strider som ofta
uppstått, som tyvärr många gånger har medfört djupa splittringar. Det är denna
splittring vi kristna idag lever i och är delaktiga i, som mer än något annat
allt mer har stört och berört mig. Jag har fått inse att den rörelse jag själv
under de sista 30 åren har representerat, trots framgångar och mycket gott som
skett på olika missionsfält, ändå är en del av den ständigt pågående
protestantiska fragmentiseringen av kristenheten. Dessutom måste jag med sorg
konstatera att slitningar, meningsskiljaktigheter och tvister har skapat ovänskap
och att enskilda människor har tillfogats sår och lidanden genom sina kontakter
med rörelsen. I detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets Ord ett
ansvar, och jag är uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat
att människor fått lida.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Det
finns åtskilliga teologiska</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">förklaringsmodeller
till varför man egentligen inte skulle behöva bry sig om kristenhetens
splittring, utan istället se den som en naturlig utveckling eller till och med
en tillgång. Det har för Livets Ord funnits mycket konstruktivt att arbeta med,
utifrån ett protestantiskt evangeliskt perspektiv, genom att aktivt verka för
Jesu missionsbefallning, bygga församlingar och ägna sig åt hjälparbete av
olika slag. Med andra ord, man skulle kunna slå sig till ro med ett pragmatiskt
förhållningssätt, en kreativ entreprenöranda och en fruktbärande verksamhet där
mycket gott har skett, som borde vara nog för att känna sig någorlunda
tillfreds. Ändå har insikten om att detta inte är tillräckligt, vuxit i mig.
Det var något väsentligt som saknades.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Som
protestant har jag</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">varit
influerad av och anammat en gängse anti-katolsk retorik och i vårt tidigare
skede både skrev och uttalade jag mig negativt och sårande om den katolska
kyrkan. Detta är något som jag idag verkligen beklagar och ångrar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Trots stor verksamhet och
glädjande resultat var det den pragmatiska inställningen och kortsiktigheten i
perspektivet på verksamheten, samt bristen på förståelse av vad Kyrka
egentligen är, som störde mig alltmer.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">För
mig började detta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">så småningom bli både ett teologiskt och ett
existentiellt problem. Är det så att kyrkor kommer och går, att kristna
rörelser försvinner och ersätts av andra? Ska det vara så? Historiskt kan man
ju ge belägg för att det tidvis sett ut så, men håller det teologiskt? Finns
stabiliteten och den historiska kontinuiteten som utgör ett bärande element i
den kristna tron bara på idéplanet, men inte som konkret synlig verklighet? Hur
hänger det ihop med Jesu egna ord i Joh. 17:21: ”Jag ber att de alla skall vara
ett, och att såsom du, Fader, är i mig och jag i dig, också de skall vara i
oss, för att världen skall tro att du har sänt mig.” Utifrån dessa ord ser man
att de kristnas enhet ligger högt upp på Jesu agenda och bildar en
förutsättning för legitimitet och autenticitet för det kristna budskapet,
evangeliet.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">I
våra möten med katoliker</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">, inte
minst internationellt under och efter Israelåren, började min hustru och jag
skönja svar på dessa frågor. Vi började se att Kyrkan inte bara har en
kontinuitet i den teologiska tanken eller genom andliga erfarenheter och
verksamhet genom tiderna, utan också högst påtagligt och konkret i en synlig
och bestående Kyrka. Som förkunnare har jag ofta betonat att det evangelium som
Jesus förkunnade och den Andens kraft med vilken Jesus och apostlarna verkade,
är både sann, verklig och bestående. Det är med andra ord relevant idag i vår
moderna värld.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Vad
jag inte såg</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">var,
att om detta är sant, då är det också sant att Jesus efterlämnade en Kyrka med
apostoliskt ursprung, det som Nya Testamentet kallar för Kristi kropp. Denna
synliga, konkreta Kyrka har en historisk kontinuitet från Jesu och apostlarnas
tid, genom hela historien tills han kommer tillbaka.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Var
finns då Kyrkan</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">i
all denna moderna flora av olika kristna grupperingar? Varför inte nöja sig med
att bara låta alla blommor blomma? Naturligtvis finns Kyrkan på olika sätt
närvarande hos alla Jesustroende. Men jag började inse att autenticiteten och
fullheten av denna Kyrka och dess konkreta uttryck igenom historien finns i den
katolska kyrkan. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Denna insikt kom
genom en djupare förståelse av Kyrkans sakramentala dimension och dess
fasthållande av en autentisk auktoritet som kan avgöra och vägleda i både
lärofrågor och moraliska frågor.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Tillsammans insåg min
hustru<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>och jag att den enhet
mellan kristna som vi längtade efter fordrade att vi själva förenades med den
Katolska kyrkan, som har funnits allt ifrån apostolisk tid. Vi hade kommit till
den punkt då vi måste ta konsekvenserna av detta. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Den Katolska kyrkans bevarande av den kristna tron, det rika
sakramentala livet och hennes moraliska fasthet</b> och djupt kärleksfulla
barmhärtighet mot de allra fattigaste, de sjuka och de ofödda inger oss stor
respekt och en stor längtan efter att få förenas med henne. Detta blev till
sist en samvetsfråga för oss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Detta är orsaken</span> <span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">till en stor förändring i våra liv och i vår
trosutövning, och innebär att min hustru och jag nu lämnar Livets Ord <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">för att denna vår bli upptagna i den
katolska kyrkans gemenskap.</b> Det är en stor glädje för oss och har lett oss
till att uppskatta vår Herre Jesus Kristus och hans Kyrka ännu mycket mer.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf Ekman, pastor <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">emeritus</b>
och grundare av Livets Ord</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=emeritus&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">emeritus
(adj.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">c.1600, from Latin <i>emeritus</i> "veteran
soldier who has served his time," literally "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that has <u>finished</u> work, past service,"</b> past participle
of <i>emerere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">serve
out, complete one's service</b>," from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>ex-</i> "out" (see </b></span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ex-&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ex-</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">) + <i>merere</i> "to
serve, earn</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">," from PIE <i>*(s)mer-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to get a share of something"
(see </b></span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (n.)). </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">First used of retired professors 1794 in American English.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ex-&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ex-</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">word-forming element, in English meaning mainly
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">out of, from," but also
"upwards, <u><span style="font-size: small;">completely, deprive of, without," and "former;"</span></u></b>
from Latin <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>ex</i> "out
of, from within</b>," from PIE<i>*eghs</i> "out" (cf.
Gaulish <i>ex-</i>, Old Irish <i>ess-</i>, Old Church Slavonic <i>izu</i>,
Russian <i>iz</i>). In some cases also from Greek cognate <i>ex</i>, <i>ek</i>.
PIE <i>*eghs</i> had comparative form <i>*eks-tero</i> and
superlative <i>*eks-t(e)r-emo-</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit (n.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">c.1200, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">spiritual credit</b>" (for good works, etc.); c.1300, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">spiritual reward</b>," from Old
French <i>merite</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">wages,
pay, reward; thanks; merit, moral worth, that which assures divine pity,"</b>
and directly from Latin <i>meritum</i> "a merit, service,
kindness, benefit, favor; worth, value, importance," neuter of <i>meritus</i>,
past participle of <i>merere</i>, <i>meriri</i> "to earn,
deserve, acquire, gain," from PIE root <i>*(s)mer-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to allot, assign</b>" (cf. Greek <i>meros</i> "part,
lot," <i>moira</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">share,
fate</b>," <i>moros</i> "</span><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">fate, destiny, doom</span></b></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">,"
Hittite <i>mark</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
divide" a sacrifice).<br />
</b><br />
Sense of "worthiness, excellence" is from early 14c.; from late 14c.
as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"condition or conduct that
deserves either reward <u>or punishment</u>;"</b> also "a reward,
benefit." Related: <i>Merits</i>.<i>Merit system</i> attested
from 1880. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Merit-monger</i></b> was
in common use 16c.-17c. in a sense roughly of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">do-gooder</b>."</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit (v.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">late 15c., "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to be entitled to</b>," from Middle French <i>meriter</i> (Modern
French <i>mériter</i>), from <i>merite</i> (n.), or directly
from Latin <i>meritare</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
earn, yield</b>," frequentative of <i>mereri</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to earn (money);" also "to serve
as a soldier</b>" (see </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (n.)). Related: </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Merited&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Merited</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">; <i>meriting</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merited&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merited
(adj.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"well-earned," c.1600, past participle
adjective from </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (v.).</span></div>
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Inlagt av Leif Berg</div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.527999877929688px;">Megachurch leader Ulf Ekman of the Word of Life ministry in Sweden has announced that he and his wife Birgitta have converted to Roman Catholicism. The announcement, according to reports, has left some in his congregation "partially stunned."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 38px;"><b>Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 38px;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">G2732<br />katoikētērion<br />From a derivative of G2730; a dwelling place: - habitation.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">G2730<br />katoikeō<br />From G2596 and G3611; to house permanently, that is, reside (literally or figuratively): - dwell (-er), inhabitant (-ter).</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">G3611<br />oikeō<br />From G3624; to occupy a house that is, reside (figuratively inhabit, remain, inhere); by implication to cohabit: - dwell. See also G3625.<br /> G3624<br />oikos<br />Of uncertain affinity; a dwelling (more or less extensive, literally or figuratively); by implication a family (more or less related, literally or figuratively): - home, house (-hold), temple.<br />G3625<br /><span style="font-size: large;">oikoumenē</span><br />Feminine participle present passive of G3611 (as noun, by implication of G1093); land, that is, the (terrene part of the) globe; specifically the Roman empire: - earth, world.</span></b></span></div>
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(ASV) And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, <b>and is become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. </b><br />
<br />
(BBE) And he gave a loud cry, saying, Babylon the great has come down from her high place, she has come to destruction and has become a place of evil spirits, and of every unclean spirit, and a hole for every unclean and hated bird. <br />
<br />
(Bibeln) Och han ropade med stark röst och sade: "Fallet, fallet är det stora Babylon; det har blivit en boning för onda andar, ett tillhåll för alla slags orena andar och ett tillhåll för alla slags orena och vederstyggliga fåglar. <br />
<br />
(Bishops) And he cryed myghtyly with a strong voyce, saying: Great Babylon i<b>s fallen is fallen, and is become the habitation of deuyls, and the holde of all foule spirites, and a cage of all vncleane and hatefull byrdes: </b><br />
<br />
(CEV) The angel shouted, "Fallen! Powerful Babylon has fallen and is now the home of demons. It is the den of every filthy spirit and of all unclean birds, and every dirty and hated animal. <br />
<br />
(DRB) And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: Babylon the great <b>is fallen, is fallen: and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every unclean spirit and the hold of every unclean and hateful bird: </b><br />
<br />
(ESV) And he called out with a mighty voice, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! <b>She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. </b><br />
<br />
(Geneva) And he cryed out mightily with a loud voyce, saying, It is fallen, it is fallen, Babylon that great citie, and is become <b>the habitation of deuils</b>, and the holde of all foule spirits, and a cage of euery vncleane and hatefull birde. <br />
<br />
(GW) He cried out in a powerful voice, "Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! <b>She has become a home for demons.</b> She is a prison for every evil spirit, every unclean bird, and every unclean and hated beast. <br />
<br />
(ISV) He cried out in a powerful voice, "Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! S<b>he has become a home for demons.</b> She is a prison for every unclean spirit, a prison for every unclean bird, and a prison for every unclean and hated beast. <br />
<br />
(KJV) And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, a<b>nd is become the habitation of devils,</b> and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. <br />
<br />
(KJV-1611) And he cryed mightily with a strog voyce, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of deuils, and the hold of euery foule spirit, and a cage of euery vncleane and hatefull bird: <br />
<br />
(LEB) And he cried out with a powerful voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and it has become a dwelling place of demons and a haunt of every unclean spirit and a haunt of every unclean bird and a haunt of every unclean and detested animal. <br />
<br />
(LITV) And he cried in a strong, great voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen! It has fallen, and it has become a dwelling-place of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean bird, even having been hated, <br />
<br />
(Murdock) And he cried with a strong voice, saying: Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great: and hath become a cavern of demons, and the home of every unclean spirit, and the home of every unclean and hateful bird and the home of every unclean and hateful beast of prey. <br />
<br />
(SFB) Och han ropade med stark röst och sade: "Fallet, fallet är det stora Babylon! <b>Det har blivit en boning för onda andar, ett tillhåll för alla orena andar och ett näste för alla orena och avskyvärda fåglar. </b><br />
<br />
(Webster) And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. <br />
<br />
(WNT) and with a mighty voice he cried out, saying, "Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen, and has become <b>a home for demons and a stronghold for every kind of foul spirit and for every kind of foul and hateful bird. </b><br />
<br />
(YLT) and he did cry in might--a great voice, saying, `Fall, fall did Babylon the great, and she became <b>a habitation of demons</b>, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird, </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Gill</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<br />
And he cried mightily with a strong voice,.... Which shows not only the vehemence and affection of the ministers of the word, who will publish what follows, but the greatness and importance of it; and this loud voice may be, as for the sake of the whole church in general, that all may bear, so for the sake of those of the Lord's people in particular, that will be in Babylon at this time; and it may have regard to that deep sleep and spirit of slumber that Babylon itself will be in, which, notwithstanding this loud cry, will remain insensible of its ruin till it comes upon her, as was the case of old Babylon, Jer_51:39,<br />
<br />
saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen: the whole world is not designed by Babylon, for it is distinguished from all nations in the following verse; nor Babylon in Chaldea, which was fallen long before John saw this vision, <b>but Rome Papal; See Gill on Rev_14:8 so the woman is called in Rev_17:5 who sits on seven mountains, and is that great city, the city of Rome, that reigns over the kings of the earth, Rev_18:9 </b>this is said to be fallen, because, in a very little time after this declaration, it will fall; for as yet it was not destroyed, since after this the Lord's people are called upon to come out of her, and are bid to reward her double; and it is declared, that her plagues, should come in one day, and she should be burnt with fire; and an angel after this throws a millstone into the sea, saying, that so should Babylon be thrown down, Rev_18:4 and it is repeated to denote the certainty and utter destruction of her: and which is more fully expressed by what follows,<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>and is become the habitation of devils; as old Babylon was of satyrs, Isa_13:21 demons, which appeared in a hairy form, like goats, and the word is rendered devils in Lev_17:7 and the inhabitants of Rome now are no other; the pope and his cardinals, the priests, Jesuits, monks, and friars, are the spirits of devils, and their doctrines the doctrines of devils; see Rev_16:14</b></span><br />
<br />
and the hold of every foul spirit: devils are frequently called unclean spirits, and these appear in desert and desolate places, <b>Mat_12:43</b> where they are either of choice, or rather are obliged to it; and so the word translated "hold" signifies a prison, or place of confinement; and such as are comparable to unclean spirits now haunt and abound in Rome, and its territories; <b>see Rev_16:13</b><br />
<br />
<br />
and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird; such, as vultures, kites, owls, &c. which generally reside in desolate and uninhabited places; the Alexandrian copy, the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, add, <b>"and the hold", or "seat of every unclean and hateful beast"; </b>and so the desolation of old Babylon is described by wild beasts and doleful creatures dwelling in it, <b>Isa_13:21</b>. Some consider all this as a reason of the destruction of Babylon or Rome, because it now is the residence of persons comparable to devils, foul spirits, hateful birds, and beasts of prey; but this account rather describes its state and case in which it will be after its ruin, being never more to be inhabited by men, in allusion to old Babylon, <b>Isa_13:19.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>JFB</b></div>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
mightily ... strong — not supported by manuscripts. But A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic read, “with (literally, ‘in’) a mighty voice.”<br />
<br />
is fallen, is fallen — so A, Vulgate, Syriac, and Andreas. But B and Coptic omit the second “is fallen” (Isa_21:9; Jer_51:8). This phrase is here prophetical of her fall, still future, as Rev_18:4 proves.<br />
<br />
<b>devils — Greek, “demons.”</b><br />
<b></b><br />
<b>the hold — a keep or prison.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Barnes</b></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Revelation 18:2</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
And he cried mightily - Literally, “he cried with a strong great voice.” See Rev_10:3.<br />
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen - See the notes on Rev_14:8. The proclamation here is substantially the same as in that place, and no doubt the same thing is referred to.<br />
And is become the habitation of devils - Of demons - in allusion to the common opinion that the demons inhabited abandoned cities, old ruins, and deserts. See the notes on Mat_12:43-45. The language here is taken from the description of Babylon in Isa_13:20-22; and for a full illustration of the meaning, see the notes on that passage.<br />
<br />
And the hold of every foul spirit - φυλακὴ phulakē. A watch-post, station, haunt of such spirits - That is, they, as it were, kept guard there; were stationed there; haunted the place.<br />
<br />
And a cage of every unclean and hateful bird - That is, they would resort there, and abide there as in a cage. The word translated “cage” is the same which is rendered “hold” - φυλακὴ phulakē. In Isa_13:21, it is said, “and owls shall dwell there”; and in Isa_14:23, it is said that it would be a “possession for the bittern.” The idea is that of utter desolation; and the meaning here is, that spiritual Babylon - <b>papal Rome Rev_14:8 </b>- will be reduced to a state of utter desolation resembling that of the real Babylon. It is not necessary to suppose this of the city of Rome itself - for that is not the object of the representation. <b>It is the papacy, represented under the image of the city, and having its seat there. </b>That is to be destroyed as utterly as was Babylon of old; that will become as odious, and loathsome, <b>and detestable as the literal Babylon, the abode of monsters is.</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Livets
ords grundare – Ulf och Birgitta Ekman – har beslutat sig för att bli katoliker
och upptas i katolska kyrkan. </span></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">http://www.varldenidag.se/nyhet/2014/03/09/Paret-Ekman-blir-katoliker-lamnar-Livets-ord/</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ingress" style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Livets
ords grundare – Ulf och Birgitta Ekman – har beslutat sig för att bli katoliker
och upptas i katolska kyrkan. Att de skulle lämna Livets ord beskriver de
själva som "den otänkbara tanken". Men så blir det alltså. I en
exklusiv intervju med Världen idag berättar de om den både långa och svåra
processen, om hur synen på katoliker och katolska läror har förändrats och om
deras starka attraktion till katolska kyrkan.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Storvreta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Under lång tid har det pratats om Ulf Ekmans
närmande till katolska kyrkan. I femton år har han påtalat behovet av enhet,
inte minst med de historiska kyrkorna, vilket har föranlett både samtal och
spekulationer. När sonen – Benjamin Ekman – valde att konvertera under hösten
tog diskussionen ny fart. Skulle Ulf och Birgitta Ekman gå samma väg? Och
svaret på den frågan är ja. Exakt när det kommer ske behåller de för sig
själva, men det blir "någon gång under våren".</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
Ulf och Birgitta förklarar att deras eget och sonen Benjamins beslut är
oberoende av varandra. Och att de blev överraskade när sonen meddelade sitt
beslut.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Vi trodde länge att han kanske skulle
förena sig med den ortodoxa kyrkan, för han har varit intresserad av och tyckt
om den kyrkan.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men så ringde han oss
en dag i höstas och berättade att han hade bestämt sig för att gå med i
katolska kyrkan. Då blev vi faktiskt överraskade, berättar Birgitta, men
tillägger att de är glada för att sonen har funnit ett andligt hem i Lund.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Någon gång under</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">hösten beslutade Ulf och Birgitta sig för att
upptas i katolska kyrkan. Även om beslutet ligger i närtid, så har processen
varit lång, berättar de.<br />
– Vi har bett, funderat, forskat, undersökt och frågat Herren under lång tid,
säger Ulf.<br />
– Ja, det är en process som pågått ända sedan millennieskiftet, berättar
Birgitta.<br />
Längtan efter enhet går ännu längre tillbaka i tiden. Ulf knyter an till en
händelse i slutet av sjuttiotalet, när han sitter på en lunchrestaurang
tillsammans med en studiekompis och plötsligt börjar gråta.<br />
– Jag fick en ögonblicklig upplevelse av hur Jesus upplever att hans kyrka är
splittrad. Det var som en flash, att detta inte behagar Gud och att Jesus
sörjer över detta.<br />
Upplevelsen på lunchrestaurangen försvann sedan ur minnet, men har kommit
tillbaka igen de senaste tio åren, berättar han. I den process som nu har
varit, har upptäckten av enhet varit väldigt central.<br />
Ulf Ekman tar fram sin bibel och läser upp ett bibelord från Johannes 11:52,
där aposteln Johannes skriver: "Ja, han [Jesus] skulle inte bara dö för
folket utan också för att samla och förena Guds kringspridda barn."<br />
– I själva centrum av evangeliet ligger samlandet och förenandet. Vi använder
ibland evangeliet för att splittra människor och det är jag också delaktig i.
Vi gör det kanske inte av illvilja, utan för att vi lever i en väldigt
splittrad värld. Men jag menar att det ligger väldigt starkt på Guds hjärta att
vi ska förenas. Jesus dog för just detta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I början av</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Livets ords historia uttalade Ulf Ekman
ibland kritik mot katolska kyrkan och församlingen bad bland annat emot att
påven skulle komma på besök till Uppsala.<br />
– Jag skrev några kritiska artiklar, vi bad att Sverige skulle bevara sin
evangeliska tro när påven skulle komma till Uppsala och jag har undervisat en
del på bibelskolan om detta. Men bortsett från det, som var i ett ganska tidigt
skede, så har vi inte ägnat en massa tid åt dessa frågor. Däremot har vi
definitivt varit en del av den allmänna negativismen.<br />
Ulf Ekman värjer sig mot den bild som ibland målas upp av att just han skulle
ha varit särskilt kritisk.<br />
– Det var inte en huvudfråga för oss. Kritisk var jag, på samma sätt som många
andra väckelsekristna, säger han.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Det finns ju rabiata katolikhatare och
sådana har vi aldrig varit.</b> Men vi har varit misstänksamma och även
okunniga, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Bygger den negativa
inställning många har till katolska kyrkan ofta på okunnighet, tror ni?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Ja, det tror jag absolut, säger Birgitta. Vi utsätts ju inte så mycket för
katolska kyrkans influenser i Sverige. Katolska kyrkan här uppfattade vi då som
en mindre invandrarkyrka, som man inte stötte på så mycket.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">De berättar om</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">sin egen process, där fördomar har kommit på
skam och där de har fått revidera sin syn på olika katolska läror. Birgitta
berättar att hon närmast kände sig lurad när hon började upptäcka det som fanns
i den katolska kyrkan.<br />
– När jag upptäckte alla dessa positiva sidor så tänkte jag: Varför har ingen
berättat det här? Någon måste ha undanhållit detta från mig och alla andra
frikyrkliga, tänkte jag. Det har varit den ena aha-upplevelsen efter den andra
när man läser. Försoningen, helande, tron på under, allt detta finns där starkt
och välartikulerat och vi vet inte ens om det. Så vi har stått där och rodnat
av skam när vi har upptäckt vår okunskap.<br />
Ulf berättar att mycket av det han har kommit i kontakt med har provocerat
honom och förändrat hans syn på katolska kyrkan.<br />
– När jag läste den katolska socialläran så insåg jag att allt det jag tror på
står där. När jag läste grundläggande dogmatik så insåg jag att det var saker
jag alltid har trott på, men som ingen har kunnat formulera så bra.<br />
Birgitta jämför fördomarna mot katolska kyrkan, med de fördomar de själva har
utsatts för under åren på Livets ord.<br />
– Människor på Livets ord har lidit för att andra människor har fått sina
uppgifter från Aftonbladet och Expressen. Det jag började inse är att vi gör på
precis samma sätt när det gäller den katolska kyrkan. Vi vet, tycker vi, vi har
läst anti-katolska böcker, vi har det svart på vitt. Men i själva verket är det
hörsägen.<br />
Hon tar synen på Maria som exempel.<br />
– Någon kanske säger till katolikerna: "Ni tillber Maria" och de
tänker "Nej, det gör vi inte. Maria är en människa och vi skulle aldrig be
till Maria som vi ber till Gud". Så det är inte schysst att döma en kyrka
eller en rörelse på sekundära källor. Det är därför jag har sett det som
angeläget att ta reda på från deras officiella skrifter vad de verkligen säger.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Att det finns</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vissa katolska läror som protestantiska
kristna har frågor omkring är Ulf och Birgitta väl medvetna om. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I höstas skrev Ulf Ekman en uppmärksammad
artikel i den teologiska tidskriften Keryx, där han bland annat lyfte fram
behovet av ett läroämbete, som kan fälla avgörandet vid olika tolkningar av
Bibeln. Ulf menar att behovet av ett sådant ämbete är stort.<br />
</b>– För mig är det fullständigt obegripligt hur man kan säga att vi inte
behöver något läroämbete. Om vi har fem bibelord och arton åsikter om dessa
bibelord, vem avgör då? Antingen är det att mitt intellekt är bättre än ditt,
att jag har läst mer än du, att jag kan övertyga bättre än du kan, att jag är
mer passionerad än du är som avgör att min åsikt vinner över din åsikt. Eller
också finns det ett läroämbete som säger: regelboken säger att det är så här
man dömer i den här frågan.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kan ett sådant läroämbete
gestaltas även i frikyrkligheten, eller pekar det automatiskt mot påven?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det finns frön av detta nedlagda överallt. Guds nåd över frikyrkorna och
protestantisk kristendom är fantastisk. Gud verkar ju i alla lemmar i Kristi
kropp.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Men du ser påven som det
yttersta uttrycket för ett sådant läroämbete?</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>– Ja, absolut är han det. </u></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b>Ja, jag
tror på nödvändigheten av en yttersta instans.</b></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b> </b><br />
I nämnda Keryx-artikel problematiserade Ulf även reformationen och beskrev den
som ett "ecklesiologiskt trendbrott", där kyrkosynen förändrades i
grunden. Men han menar ändå att reformationen var nödvändig.<br />
– Det fanns ett stort behov av en reformatorisk förändring. Det som skedde var
att det gick över i en protestantisk revolution, där det polariserades från
båda håll. Och där sker det stora brottet. Resultatet blev att man så småningom
avskaffade läroämbetet och kontinuiteten bröts väldigt tydligt. Man försökte
börja om.<br />
Ulf Ekman ser ett behov av ständig reformation, men frågar sig om det är
nödvändigt att "starta om" vid varje tillfälle.<br />
– Resultatet av omstarten vid reformationen var inte bara det vi har lärt oss –
att kyrkan blev friare och bättre – utan kyrkan blev i stället mer
sekulariserad och splittrad. Så småningom tunnas kyrkosynen ut och den kristna
tron individualiseras.<br />
Om reformationen resulterade i den splittring Ulf Ekman ser, så har den sedan
fortsatt genom olika väckelserörelser, menar han.<br />
– Det finns en tanke genom väckelsehistorien att man ska "dra ut"
från något, för att de andra inte är tillräckligt rena. Detta har lett till den
ena splittringen efter den andra. Man tänker nog att om man gör det, så
renodlar man och då blir man stark. Det vi har upptäckt på vår resa är att
detta inte är sant, utan att man bara blir mer begränsad.<br />
Syftet med väckelse, eller reformation, är enligt Ulf Ekman att vitalisera hela
Kristi kropp.<br />
– Gud låter olika väckelser komma därför att han vill lyfta fram och
levandegöra något och det är ju underbart. Men sedan vill han inkorporera det i
Kristi kropp. När pingstväckelsen blev karismatisk väckelse och gick in i
Kristi kropp på allvar, i stället för att bara vara isolerad, så blev det till
välsignelse för alla samfund. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Och nu
har vi 120 miljoner katolska karismatiker som ett resultat av det.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur ser du på ett begrepp
som Sola Scriptura?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vad många menar med Sola Scriptura i dag är att vi tror på Bibeln och där
håller jag självfallet med. Man kan likaväl säga Skriftens primat, som ju betyder
att vi sätter Skriften främst.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta berättar</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">att upptäckten av enhetens betydelse har
inneburit en förändrad attityd gentemot andra kristna, och inte minst mot just
katoliker.<br />
– Upptäckten av dem och gemenskapen med dem skakade om oss och provocerade och
utmanade vår egen okunnighet och våra egna fördomar, berättar Ulf.<br />
– I kontakten med katoliker så upptäckte vi dels hur levande de är, hur duktiga
de är, hur kunniga de är, hur överlåtna de är och hur starka i sin tro de är.
Detta är ju någonting som väckelsekristna tycker sig ha monopol på, så för mig
var det en tillnyktrande upplevelse att inse att vi inte alls har monopol på
det, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">framhåller särskilt två personer som har
betytt mycket för dem i den process som har varit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Den förste är biskop Anders Arborelius.<br />
</b>– Hans liv och hans exempel har talat högt till mig personligen, nästan
sedan den dag han blev biskop i december 1999, säger Ulf. Om det är någon
svensk som har betytt något för oss i den här frågan, så är det han.<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men även Wilfrid Stinissen, som nyligen
flyttade hem till Herren, har spelat en viktig roll i Ulf och Birgittas beslut.</b><br />
– Han har varit en härlig, härlig vän och fader att sitta och prata med,
berättar Birgitta. Vi saknar honom mycket, för han hjälpte oss verkligen.<br />
Ulf och Birgitta sammanfattar skälen till sitt beslut.<br />
– För oss har detta varit en upptäckt på flera plan. Av levande katolska
människor, stark bibliskt förankrad teologi, ett rikt gudstjänstliv, en stark
mission, ett socialt patos och en etisk styrka. Detta samlat har utövat en
stark attraktionskraft på oss, förklarar Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">När man talar</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">om enhet så tänker nog många på en
relationell sak och inte kanske som en organisatorisk enhet. Hur ser ni på det?<br />
– Alla kristna tycker ju om enhet, men man menar så olika saker. Det är ju
väldigt bra att ha en bra relation till andra människor i olika samfund. Att
komma över skiljaktigheter <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>och sluta
tjafsa.</u></b> Och även om man inte kommer överens kan vi ha en försonlig och
saklig inställning till varandra. Det är ju ett gott och nödvändigt arbete, men
det är inte tillräckligt, menar Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Räcker det inte att vi
älskar varandra?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Så säger ju folk i dag som lever i samboförhållanden. Men Jesus har inte 20
000 fruar, han har inte heller ett samboförhållande med en, utan det finns ett
konkret inre och yttre förhållande med en brud, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Så det krävs en
organisatorisk enhet?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det här går tillbaka till vilken kyrkosyn man har. Kyrkan är Kristi kropp, en
strukturerad enhet. Den är konkret, den är avgränsad, den går att ta på. Den är
inte ett gasmoln utan har både en yttersida och en innersida, kropp och Ande.
Och kroppen syns. Jesus vandrade omkring i trettio år och syntes. På samma sätt
måste kyrkan ha ett konkret uttryck. Och hur var det i början? Vi karismatiker
älskar ju att säga att vi ska tillbaka till Apostlagärningarnas kristendom. Och
då fanns det bara en kyrka, säger Ulf och skrattar.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">En konsekvens av</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">beslutet att upptas i katolska kyrkan är att
Ulf och Birgitta lämnar Livets ord. De lämnar alla styrelseuppdrag (med
undantag för att Birgitta fortsätter att arbeta med Indian Children, som
hjälper fattiga barn i Indien) och går ur församlingen. Tanken på att lämna den
församling de älskar har inte gjort makarna Ekmans beslut lättare.<br />
– Det är en stor brottningskamp som har pågått i det fördolda, för vi älskar ju
våra vänner i Livets ord. Och vi har ju dessutom startat det här. Att gå
härifrån och gå någon annanstans, det är ju egentligen den otänkbara tanken,
säger Birgitta. Vi vill inte såra någon, inte förskräcka någon och heller inte
nedvärdera någon. Så det är klart att detta har varit en stor puckel på vägen.<br />
Men övertygelsen har ändå fått dem att fatta sitt beslut.<br />
– Vi har pratat, funderat och bett Jesus om hjälp hur vi ska göra med detta.
För vi inser att vi tror på den katolska kyrkan och vi tror att den stammar
från Jesus och apostlarna och då känns det ju smärtsamt att inte få vara en del
av den. Vad gör man? Det har varit en period av vånda, men någon gång måste man
fatta beslutet, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">För att kunna</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">upptas i katolska kyrkan krävs studier i
katekesen. En bok som Ulf menar är "den bästa bok han läst".
Studierna har Ulf och Birgitta gjort privat och det var förutsättningslöst. Det
sista var viktigt, berättar de.</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– När vi bestämde oss för att gå igenom undervisningen var det inte automatiskt
förenat med något beslut. Vi kunde välja att göra klart alla studier och sedan
säga att vi inte var intresserade, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ulf berättar att han vid varje viktigt
vägskäl i livet har fått en bekräftelse, ofta genom en profetisk hälsning. Och
den här gången är inget undantag.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Nyligen skickade påven en
hälsning till en konferens som Kenneth Copeland höll i USA.</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Samma dag fick Ulf ett
telefonsamtal från en predikant som just hade varit med på mötet, men som inte
kände till den situation som makarna Ekman stod i.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Mannen som ringer berättar att
han varit på nämnda möte och ropar sedan i telefonen: "Gud säger till mig:
Det ni beslutar er för är rätt. Dit ni är på väg stämmer. Det ni känner att ni
ska göra ska ni göra. Ni ska gå till katolikerna. Ni ska göra det ni har
bestämt er för att göra". För Ulf och Birgitta blev detta ännu en
bekräftelse på det beslut de redan hade fattat.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vad har ni mött för
reaktioner från Livets ords styrelse när ni har berättat detta?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– En reaktion. "Ja, men det har vi
ju anat länge", säger Ulf och skrattar hjärtligt.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b>– Ulf har ju skrivit mycket som pekar åt det här hållet, i Keryxartiklar
och annat, så det kanske inte är så förvånande, förklarar Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Att en pingst-karismatisk</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">pastor av Ulf Ekmans dignitet bestämmer sig
för att upptas i katolska kyrkan hör ändå inte till vanligheterna. Tvärtom lär
det vara historiskt.<br />
Både Ulf och Birgitta är noga med att påpeka att det inte finns någon konflikt
i beslutet, utan att allt sker i harmoni med församlingen Livets ord. Och att
det inte primärt handlar om att ta avstånd från något, utan snarare att bejaka
en kallelse.<br />
– Det finns ingen yttre orsak för mig att lämna Livets ord, att jag skulle ha
tröttnat eller att det finns en konflikt eller så. Tvärtom, jag stortrivs. Så
egentligen är det jättemärkligt att ta ett sådant beslut.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Den enda logiska orsaken till detta beslut är att Gud har talat till oss om
detta och övertygat oss på djupet om att det är detta vi ska göra, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vi har känt att vårt uppdrag efter trettio år nu är avslutat. Herren sade
till oss: "Uppdraget är avslutat, men vänskapen består". Så
relationen till Livets ord kommer förstås bestå så länge vi lever, men den
kommer vara annorlunda naturligtvis, fortsätter han.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
Att Livets ord har fått Joakim Lundqvist som pastor gör att både Ulf och
Birgitta känner en frihet att gå vidare.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Vi är så tacksamma att Gud gav församlingen pastor Joakim, som är en
helhjärtad och entusiastisk pastor. Det är jätteroligt. För man vill ju ta hand
om sina barn, man kan inte lämna dem, säger Birgitta.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">– Men det är också viktigt att säga att
Joakim inte är någon lösning för att vi ska kunna bli katoliker. Däremot kunde
jag tänka klarare när Joakim väl kom. När vi hade insatt Joakim som
förstepastor blev denna möjlighet tydligare, säger Ulf.</b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tror ni att fler kommer
att gå in i katolska kyrkan till följd av ert beslut?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Det här är något djupt personligt för var och en, så det kan man inte
spekulera i, menar Birgitta. Det här är vårt djupt genomarbetade steg och sedan
får var och en leva sitt liv med Herren och ta ansvar för det.<br />
Men de tror inte att deras beslut kommer att vara startskottet för "en
lång exodus". Och de vill också poängtera att deras väg nu skiljs från
Livets ords väg.<br />
– Vi har naturligtvis inga problem med att andra i vår församling upptäcker
samma sak som vi, för vi tror att det är baserat på sanningen. Men beslutet vi
tar, det är vårt eget beslut och vägen vi går är vår egen väg, säger Ulf.<br />
Samtidigt understryker de Livets ords fortsatt viktiga roll i arbetet för
enhet.<br />
– Jag tror att Livets ord har en funktion i att bryta ner fördomar och öka
förståelsen för bredden i Kristi kropp. Och Livets ord har dessutom en kallelse
att predika tro och missionera, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Rent formellt kommer</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ulf och Birgitta att tillhöra Sankt Lars
katolska församling i Uppsala, men de tror själva att de kommer att röra sig i
katolska miljöer både i Sverige och utomlands.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Vi har ägnat ett antal år åt att förklara för vårt sammanhang
vad katolska kyrkan är och inte är. Det ska bli underbart att förenas med
detta, men samtidigt tror jag vi har en roll i att förklara hur protestanter
och pingst-karismatiker tänker. Och hur Gud använder dem. Enhet bygger ju på en
ömsesidig förståelse, från båda sidor, och kan man bidra till det, då är det
inte så dumt, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Finns det även saker som
den katolska kyrkan kan lära av protestanter?</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
– Ja, jag tror också att man från katolskt håll ser att det finns sådant inom
protestantisk kristendom som man kan bejaka och lära av. Inte minst frimodig
personlig evangelisation, säger Ulf.<br />
Ser ni en uppgift för er del i just detta?<br />
– Vi kommer inte med hög svansföring, utan vi kommer därför att vi behöver vad
Jesus har lagt i den katolska kyrkan. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Jag behöver sakramenten, jag behöver läroämbetet, jag behöver
påven, jag behöver den tradition som de förvaltar. Jag har behov av kyrkan för
min egen frälsning. Så det är djupt personligt, förklarar Ulf.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta Ekmans</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">trosvandring fortsätter. För de ger inte sken
av att veta exakt hur framtiden ska gestalta sig.<br />
– Vi känner oss lite som Abraham och Sara. Gamlingarna som går till ett land
som de inte riktigt känner till, säger hon och skrattar.<br />
– Vi har fått leva hela vårt liv i tro och Gud låter oss inte leva på något
annat sätt. Vi har aldrig haft någon annan trygghet än i Gud, och det är
likadant nu, säger Ulf.</span></div>
<a href="mailto:lukas.berggren@varldenidag.se"><b><span style="color: #3288ac; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lukas Berggren</span></b></a><br />
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 25.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord och blir katolik</span></b></div>
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http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565</div>
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<span style="color: #575757; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Ulf
Ekman vid en gudstjänst hos Livets Ord i Uppsala (arkivbild). Foto: Fredrik
Persson/TT_spe3d9de</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Ulf Ekman, grundare och
mångårig pastor i Livets ord i Uppsala, lämnar nu församlingen och konverterar
tillsammans med sin fru till katolicismen. Det skriver Ulf Ekman själv på</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"> </span></b></span><a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">DN Debatt</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"> </span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">på nätet.</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #575757; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Publicerat
söndag 9 mars kl 11:33</span></div>
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<a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-transform: uppercase;">DELA</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565#comments"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-transform: uppercase;">26 KOMMENTARER</span></b></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kontakter med katolska kyrkan
har "lett fram till en omprövning av vår övertygelse och vår kyrkliga
praxis. Vi lämnar nu Livets ord för att denna vår bli upptagna i den katolska
kyrkan", skriver Ulf Ekman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf Ekman, som
grundade församlingen i Uppsala 1983, meddelade samtidigt sitt beslut vid
dagens gudstjänst hos Livets ord i Uppsala.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Församlingen Livets ord ger
sitt stöd till grundaren Ulf Ekmans och hans frus beslut att övergå till den
katolska kyrkan. Det skriver församlingens företrädare i ett pressmeddelande, där
man samtidigt poängterar att Livets ord inte går samma väg.</span></div>
<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">SV:Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vilket ansvar skulle Ulf
Ekman ha för folks oförmåga att tänka och agera själva? Läs mormons bok så
kommer även du till insikt.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok" target="_blank" title="http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">http://mormon.org/swe/gratis-mormons-bok</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Joseph Smith ,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">00:41</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">SV:Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ursäkta, men jag tycker inte
man kan berömma Ulf Ekman för att han beklagar lidande hos f.d. medlemmar (och
andra församlingar) SAMTIDIGT SOM HAN GÅR UR FÖRSAMLINGEN. Lidande som han
istället borde ha stått till svars för, och tillrättalagt MÅNGA ÅR TIDIGARE.
Det är otroligt FEGT att göra det så här - när han är fri från ansvar, och kan
lämna hela sammanhanget bakom sig. Det är inte imponerande. Det är patetiskt
och pinsamt.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">amanda,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">00:25</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf Ekman och hans fru</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hjälp vad mycket utagerande!<br />
Herr och fru Ekman har valt att göra något som de inbördes<br />
är överens om, SRs hemsida får bara på några timmar en<br />
rad laddade meijl om att det av ena eller andra anledningen<br />
är felaktigt eller dömer ut parets kommande handling.<br />
Dom tycks ju ha fått en inre frid och stabilitet.<br />
Jag tycker det verkar sunt och harmoniskt.<br />
Man läser ju om så mycket trasigt och svårt.<br />
Det här var ju en lågmäld glad nyhet.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tallskogen,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 23:40</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Det är djupt tragiskt!</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det är djupt tragiskt att Ulf
Ekman konverterade till katolicismen!<br />
Han som i början på 90-talet lärde kristna folket att strida med Guds Ord och
sade själv:<br />
"Utrusta Guds folk med Hans trosord. Visa dem vilka andliga vapen de
har"<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nu underkastar sig själv inför påvens
makt och den mest auktoritativa kyrkan i världen<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> som anser att de har auktoritet att
tolka Bibeln hur de vill!!<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
</b>Äre det inte djupt tragiskt?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Gregor,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 23:09</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">religion är skit</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men Jesus är sanningen!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">ex livetsorder,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 22:59</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Bibel</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jag är katolik läser Bibeln
flera timmar varje dag det gör de flesta Katoliker</span>
</h3>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Katolik,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 22:42</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Hur kan du</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur kan du överge din tro på
Bibeln ?<br />
Det spelar ingen roll vad du säger för katolska kyrkan<br />
Är inte en bibelförankrad kyrka!<br />
Avgudadyrkan, ber för de döda ja det värsta är att Påven anser sig vara den
enda ställföreträdaren för Gud på jorden!<br />
Hur går det ihop med alla dina före detta predikningar och din förkunnelse
genom åren?!<br />
Du sviker många och framförallt Jesus, läs Bibeln och sluta gå på dina egna
invigelser!<br />
Tänk på alla som lyssnat på dig och litar på din förkunnelse!<br />
Förlåt mig men du borde tänka till en gång till!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Åsa artsberg,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 21:41</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Kristus är vår
rättfärdighet genom tron allena</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Skillnaden
på att vara troende på Jesus Kristus och att vara katolik är att enligt
klassisk kristen syn samt bibel tolkning och tro- så behöver en troende inte gå
via kyrkliga mellanhänder och påvar eller andra så kallade auktoriteter för att
bikta sig och få förlåtelse utan att man kan gå direkt till GUD via bön då man
som troende kristen har Bibeln som auktoritet och finner lösningar samt svaren
endast där..<br />
<br />
<br />
1 Timoteusbrevet 2:5 Ty Gud är en, och en är förmedlaren mellan Gud och
människor, människan, Kristus Jesus, som gav sig själv till lösen för alla.
"</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">MVH-SMISK,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 20:53</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf Ekman och hans fru</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kan man inte vara glad för
att de båda gör något som de vill och trivs med.<br />
Jag tycker att det är en oförarglig nyhet.<br />
Hoppas att de får manga år tillsammans.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Tallskogen,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 20:53</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Diverse skitprat
besvarat</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Min egen kommentar: var och
en måste följa sin egna inre personliga röst, så det Ekman gjorde var rätt. Det
gav också en del extra bonuspoäng att be f.d. livets-ordare som blivit illa
behandlade om ursäkt. Det gör mig litet imponerad.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
laffe: Han startade i "tokvänstern"<br />
Om du med "tokvänstern" menar kristendomen, så har du rätt. Apg
4:34-35: "De som ägde jord eller hus sålde sin egendom och kom med
köpesumman och lade ner den vid apostlarnas fötter, och man delade ut åt var
och en efter hans behov." För allt högerfolk är det bäst att undvika
kyrkan och konvertera till t.ex. asatro eller mammonism eller något.<br />
<br />
Fredrik: (Ang. katolicismen) Dessutom är antisemitismen djupt rotad och
samarbetet med nazismen dokumenterad.<br />
<br />
Osant. Och tänk, det är exakt vad man anklagat protestantism för, p.g.a.
diverse mindre smickrande uttalanden från Luther. Osant, det också, eftersom
nazismen planerade utrota kristendomen och ersätta det med den
"nationalsocialistiska SS-religionen."<br />
<br />
Ateist: "Var glada att vi inte har militanta sekter i Sverige."<br />
Är du alldeles säker på att vi inte har det? Vad sägs om Svenska
Motståndsrörelsen SMR och attackerna i Kärrtorp?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">villolära</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vad kan man förvänta sig av
en villolära som ulf ekman .han har väl bränt sina skepp och gått över till
katolska kyrkan som för mig är ochså fel lära</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">lbebbe,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 19:18</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ojdå.....</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men ärligt, vem bryr sig?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ronny Bergman,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 18:27</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Det våras för
guldplåtarna</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Om fem år så kommer Ulf Ekman
till ny insikt och då är han varmt välkommen. mormon.org</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Joseph Smith,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:25</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Vilken spannande
varldsnyhet...</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ekman bli katolik...Varlden
stannar upp och jordklotet bromsar in....Feta rubriker i varldspressen....Oj,
oj, oj...Vilken spannande nyhet.....<br />
<br />
Halsar Gunnar Bergstrom i Vietnam...</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Gunnar Bergstrom,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:24</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Var glada</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Var glada att vi inte har
militanta sekter i Sverige. Sekter som har mål att döda, skada eller lemlästa.
Islamister, domedagssekter och liknande....<br />
<br />
Var också glada att vi har religionsfrihet. Det är inte alla länder som har
det. Förr i tiden hade Sverige ingen religionsfrihet och man var tvungen att
vara kristen.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ateist,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:16</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ulf och Birgitta</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">har äntligen hittat hem.<br />
Som Ulf säger att det är bland annat den katolska kyrkans moraliska fasthet och
rika sakramentala liv som lockat honom och hustrun att konvertera.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Välkommen hit,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 16:12</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Oj!</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jag tycker faktiskt att det
är trist att en så stor ledare för svensk karismatisk kristenhet så helt tar
avstånd från sitt förflutna och tar ett kliv rakt ut i "tomhet". Låt
oss hoppas att Ulf tillnyktrar och får ny stadga under sina fötter.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
Visserligen tror jag att även katoliker kan få del i himlen givet att de,
liksom jag, tror att Jesus Kristus är Guds son och att han har dött för våra
synder och att han uppstod från det döda på tredje dagen. Dock får vi absolut
inte tillbe Maria eller andra gelikar eftersom det är ENDAST Jesus Kristus som
är Herrarnas Herre och Kungars Konung som har gjort och fullbordat frälsningen,
för dig och mig, och räddat dig och mig från evig förbannelse och främmandeskap
från Abrahams Gud och därmed givit oss evigt liv!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kenneth,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 15:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Låt om oss bedja...</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">...outgrundliga äro Herren
Sebaots vägar.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Carl Cromagnon,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:56</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Debatt?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det märkligaste här är att DN
accepterar en "debattartikel" av det här slaget från en sektledare.
Lite oroväckande.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Olof,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:40</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Bra Ulf,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">vi måste följa vår inre
röst/kompass, även om det smärtar omgivningen.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Också Troende,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 14:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Ekman blir katolik</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Från en extrem till en annan,
från karismatiskt kaos till påvlig dogmatism.<br />
Uffe, det finns så mycket mellan dessa ytterligheter!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">MickeB,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 13:58</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Otroligt konstigt</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Vad händer med alla dessa
människor som upphöjt Ulf Ekman till profetstatus. De måste känna sig
förvirrade och lurade. Verklig kris!</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kris,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 13:15</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Aha, det är alltså så
sektledare går i pension</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Kanske dags för ett
granskande reportage?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Jaså ,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:47</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Tragiskt</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Katolicismen har bara namnet
gemensamt med äkta kristendom dessvärre. Det finns ingen organisation genom
historien som har dödat fler troende än den katolska kyrkan. Dessutom är
antisemitismen djupt rotad och samarbetet med nazismen dokumenterad.<br />
Man får bara hoppas att inte fler följer efter paret Ekman i deras förvillelse.<br />
1 Petrusbrevet 5:8 :<br />
Var nyktra och vaksamma. Er motståndare djävulen går omkring som ett rytande
lejon och söker efter vem han skall sluka.</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Fredrik,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:36</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<h3 style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Han startade i
"tokvänstern"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Han omprövar alltid sin tro</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">laffe,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:35</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">Märklig situation</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Hur går det för alla dessa
som fortfarande tillhör livets ord? Sönderfall?</span></div>
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<span class="comment-name"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anonym,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="date"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">2014-03-09 12:27</span></span><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Svara</span></a><a href="http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=114&artikel=5804565"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Anmäl</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 27.0pt; font-weight: normal;">Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord</span></h1>
<div class="preamble" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 9.75pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Pastor Ulf Ekman, grundare av Livets ord, lämnar
församlingen, konverterar och blir katolik. Samtidigt ber han om ursäkt för det
lidande Livets ord orsakat.</span></b></div>
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http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/ulf-ekman-lamnar-livets-ord_3343744.svd</div>
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<span style="color: #797a7c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">9 mars 2014 kl 17:57 , uppdaterad: 9
mars 2014 kl 19:08</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman skriver
själv på Dagens Nyheters debattsida att han och hans hustru Birgitta har
omprövat sin övertygelse och kyrkliga praxis och nu lämnar Livets ord ”för att
denna vår bli upptagna i den katolska kyrkan”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han ber också
om ursäkt för ”lidande och sår” som människor tillfogats genom kontakter med
Livets ord: ”I detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets ord ett
ansvar, och jag är uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat
att människor fått lida.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman skriver
också att det är bland annat den katolska kyrkans moraliska fasthet och rika
sakramentala liv som lockat honom och hustrun att konvertera.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Joakim
Lundqvist, som efterträdde Ulf Ekman som förstepastor i Livets ord förra året,
anser inte att grundarens avhopp påverkar församlingen eftersom Ekman inte
varit så intensivt involverad de senaste åren som förut.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">TT: Ulf Ekman
är för de flesta synonym med Livets ord, har inte det någon betydelse alls att
han nu lämnar rörelsen?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">- Det är säkert
många som kan känna en förvåning över det steg han nu tar. Samtidigt har han
betonat väldigt tydligt att det här inte är ett avståndstagande, säger han.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 27.0pt; letter-spacing: -.75pt;">Ulf Ekman blir katolik</span></h1>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 15.0pt; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -.75pt; line-height: 115%;">Grundare av Livets ord höll avskedspredikan i förmiddags</span></h2>
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</span>http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article18508752.ab</div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Pastor
Ulf Ekman lämnar Livets ord – och blir katolik.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 16.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">Det berättade han under gudstjänsten i dag.</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 16.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt;">I morgon hålls det ett krismöte för de chockade
församlingsmedlemmarna.</span></b></div>
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På sin
hemsida publicerar Livets ord en intervju med församlingens grundare, pastor
Ulf Ekman och han fru Birgitta, där de båda berättar varför de hoppar av - för
att upptas i katolska kyrkan.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– För Birgitta och mig har det varit en långsam utveckling där vi
gått från att upptäcka nya saker, till att uppskatta det vi upptäckt, till att
närma oss och även lära oss av våra trossyskon. Nu upplever vi att vi skall ta
konsekvenserna av vad vi upptäckt, säger Ekman i intervjun på församlingens
hemsida.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Medieprofilen Siewert Öholm ser sig själv som en god vän till Ulf
Ekman och han tycker att Ekmans beslut om att bli katolik är fel.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Ja, jag är besviken. Jag tycker att han smiter från sitt
ansvar.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Han skulle ha tagit den kampen tillsammans med sin
församling, det han har grundat. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På frågan vad som händer nu menar Öholm, som själv är aktiv
kristen, att det kommer bli en stor förvirring ett tag i församlingen. </span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Men det positiva, som han ser det, är att kyrkan nu får pröva sin
egen teologi och komma fram till vad den står för.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Förklarar avhoppet i brev</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Det var vid gudstjänsten i dag som Ulf Ekman, 63, berättade för
församlingen om avhoppet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ett brev från honom till församlingens medlemmar publicerades
också på hemsidan i dag.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I brevet skriver han, bland annat:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"När du nu läser detta har du säkert redan hört om den
stora nyhet jag berättade om under söndagsgudstjänsten idag den 9 mars. Det
jag berättade var att Birgitta och jag nu under våren kommer att avsluta
vårt engagemang i denna underbara församling för att så småningom upptas i
den Katolska kyrkan. För dig som hörde detta i söndags eller får nyheten nu
på detta sätt, kanske det upplevs som en stor och omskakande
överraskning."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Därefter förklarar han varför han tar detta steg och skriver,
bland annat:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"Denna utveckling har gått steg för steg och är inte
något som kommit plötsligt. På denna resa har vi många gånger känt igen
oss och sagt; ”Ja, men så tror ju vi.” Det jag under dessa år har blivit
övertygad om, det har jag också talat och skrivit om. Övertygelsen har med
tiden breddats och fördjupats och till sist resulterat i det beslut vi nu
tagit, nämligen att vi upplever Herrens ledning att förenas med den Katolska
kyrkan."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Samt:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">"För några månader sedan fick jag vad jag tror var ett ord
från Herren om detta. Det är: ”Uppdraget är slutfört men vänskapen består.”
Så hoppas och tror vi att det skall förbli."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ber om ursäkt för lidande</span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">I en debattartikel i DN ber han om ursäkt för "lidande och
sår" som människor tillfogats genom kontakter med Livets Ord: "I
detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets Ord ett ansvar, och jag är
uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat att människor fått
lida.", skriver han i debattartikeln.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Magnus Dahlberg, pressanvarig för Livets ord säger att Ulf Ekman
slutade som förstepastor i församlingen den 3 mars i fjol. I februari i år gick
han i pension. Joakim Lundqvist, som efterträdde Ulf Ekman som förstepastor i
Livets ord förra året, skriver i ett pressmeddelande att församlingen inte går
samma väg som grundaren och hans hustru.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.05pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-indent: 11.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">På frågan om hur församlingsmedlemmarna reagerade på det som hände
idag säger Magnus Dahlberg:</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">– Det var chockartat för en del, men jag tror inte att det
var chockartat för alla. En del har nog sett det komma och en del har inte
förväntat sig det.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Församlingen kommer att hålla ett extrainkallat möte för
medlemmarna i morgon.</span></div>
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<a href="mailto:lukas.berggren@varldenidag.se"><b><span style="color: #3288ac; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span></b></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"></span>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span><b></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Ulf
Ekman konverterar till katolska kyrkan</span><span style="color: #3288ac; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span></h1>
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<a href="mailto:lukas.berggren@varldenidag.se"><b></b></a><br />
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<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> http://www.dagen.se/nyheter/ulf-ekman-konverterar-till-katolska-kyrkan/</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman
och han fru Birgitta blir katoliker. Det meddelade Ekman i en predikan hos
Livets ord i Uppsala på söndagen.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman berättade om sin långa vandring mot
katolska kyrkan. Den har pågått i närmare 10 år, sade han. Han förklarade sitt
och sin frus steg som en längtan efter enhet. Han betonade att kristna är
splittrade och att detta strider mot Guds ordning.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman underströk att detta är ett
personligt beslut. Han har inte för avsikt att få med församlingen Livets ord
in i katolska kyrkan.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Så kan man inte göra, underströk han.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Katolska kyrkan är bibliskt förankrad i
sina dogmer, menade Ekman.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han talade väl om Livets ord och sade att
arbetet där fortsätter som tidigare. Han berättade hur glad han är över den
positiva utvecklingen i församlingen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Den vilar i goda händer, sade Ekman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Han återkom flera gånger till behovet av
enhet i Kristi kropp. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Han talade om
katolska kyrkan som ”den äldsta kyrkan”.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ekman beskrev hur han och hans fru under
de senaste 10 åren upptäckt katolska kyrkan, lärt sig uppskatta den, velat
närma sig den och nu förena sig med den.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">– Vi upplever att Herren manat oss att förenas med den
katolska kyrkan.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf Ekman sade till gudstjänstbesökarna
att han inte begär att det ska hålla med honom i allt, men att han hoppas att
de ska respektera honom och Birgitta för deras beslut.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Den nuvarande föreståndaren, Joakim
Lundqvist, tog till orda efter Ekmans predikan och underströk att han har fullt
förtroende för Ulf och Birgitta Ekman. Den djupa vänskapen oss emellan består,
sade han.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Gudstjänsten avslutades med att Lundqvist
och församlingen bad för paret Ekman om Guds välsignelse över deras fortsatta
gärning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jonathan Ekman, styrelseordförande och ytterst
ansvarig för hela Livets Ord,</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">
skriver på sin</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><a href="http://jonathan.ekman.nu/2014/03/09/vad-hander-nu-med-livets-ord/#more-547"><span style="color: #006699; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">blogg</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">om föräldrarnas beslut
att bli katoliker. Han beskriver det som en stor och dramatisk nyhet och att
han förstår att många nu ställer sig frågan om vad som sker med Livets ord.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 19.2pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">”Jag känner mig trygg i förtröstan på att
Gud har sin hand över Livets Ord. Vi har mycket kvar att utföra och jag är
fullt övertygad om att våra glansdagar inte på något vis ligger bakom oss. Vi
har vår storhetstid framför oss, skriver Jonathan Ekman.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #006699; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ulf
Ekman skriver själv om sina motiv till beslutet på DN Debatt.</span></b></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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http://www.dn.se/debatt/darfor-lamnar-jag-livets-ord-och-blir-katolik/</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">”Därför lämnar jag Livets Ord och blir katolik”</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Publicerad
2014-03-09 11:00</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">”Sedan millennieskiftet har jag och min hustru
Birgitta på olika sätt kommit i kontakt med den vitala katolska kyrkan. Steg
för steg har det lett fram till en omprövning av vår övertygelse och vår
kyrkliga praxis. Vi lämnar nu Livets Ord för att denna vår bli upptagna i den
katolska kyrkan”, skriver Ulf Ekman, grundare av Livets Ord.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I Sverige har religion, i
stället för att leva en tynande tillvaro, på olika sätt återigen tagit plats i
svensk debatt. Som pastor för Livets Ord har jag aktivt deltagit i den svenska
religiösa debatten samt själv varit föremål för rätt mycket uppmärksamhet. Som
företrädare för en av de senare väckelserörelserna i Sverige, med en i många
stycken ganska typisk väckelseteologi i botten, har jag fått uppleva medial
kritik men också fått se ett arbete växa fram med en mängd olika
verksamhetsområden, inte minst långt utanför Sverige.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Sedan
millennieskiftet</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">har min hustru Birgitta och jag på olika
sätt kommit i kontakt med den katolska kyrkan</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">. Det har varit en spännande upptäckt att i många internationella
sammanhang, inte minst under de tre år vi var bosatta i Israel 2002–2005, möta
en vital och levande katolsk tro. För oss innebar det både en utmaning och ett
glädjefyllt igenkännande. Detta har steg för steg lett fram till en omprövning
av vår teologiska övertygelse och vår kyrkliga praxis.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Kristna
har alltid värnat</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">om
sanningar som för oss är omistliga. Både reformation och väckelse har uppstått
ur behovet av att bevara det vi kristna menar vara centralt, och av behovet av
förnyelse av det andliga livet. Baksidan av detta är de strider som ofta
uppstått, som tyvärr många gånger har medfört djupa splittringar. Det är denna
splittring vi kristna idag lever i och är delaktiga i, som mer än något annat
allt mer har stört och berört mig. Jag har fått inse att den rörelse jag själv
under de sista 30 åren har representerat, trots framgångar och mycket gott som
skett på olika missionsfält, ändå är en del av den ständigt pågående
protestantiska fragmentiseringen av kristenheten. Dessutom måste jag med sorg
konstatera att slitningar, meningsskiljaktigheter och tvister har skapat ovänskap
och att enskilda människor har tillfogats sår och lidanden genom sina kontakter
med rörelsen. I detta har jag själv och andra företrädare för Livets Ord ett
ansvar, och jag är uppriktigt ledsen över det som sårat och det som har orsakat
att människor fått lida.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Det
finns åtskilliga teologiska</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">förklaringsmodeller
till varför man egentligen inte skulle behöva bry sig om kristenhetens
splittring, utan istället se den som en naturlig utveckling eller till och med
en tillgång. Det har för Livets Ord funnits mycket konstruktivt att arbeta med,
utifrån ett protestantiskt evangeliskt perspektiv, genom att aktivt verka för
Jesu missionsbefallning, bygga församlingar och ägna sig åt hjälparbete av
olika slag. Med andra ord, man skulle kunna slå sig till ro med ett pragmatiskt
förhållningssätt, en kreativ entreprenöranda och en fruktbärande verksamhet där
mycket gott har skett, som borde vara nog för att känna sig någorlunda
tillfreds. Ändå har insikten om att detta inte är tillräckligt, vuxit i mig.
Det var något väsentligt som saknades.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Som
protestant har jag</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">varit
influerad av och anammat en gängse anti-katolsk retorik och i vårt tidigare
skede både skrev och uttalade jag mig negativt och sårande om den katolska
kyrkan. Detta är något som jag idag verkligen beklagar och ångrar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Trots stor verksamhet och
glädjande resultat var det den pragmatiska inställningen och kortsiktigheten i
perspektivet på verksamheten, samt bristen på förståelse av vad Kyrka
egentligen är, som störde mig alltmer.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">För
mig började detta</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;"> </span></b></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">så småningom bli både ett teologiskt och ett
existentiellt problem. Är det så att kyrkor kommer och går, att kristna
rörelser försvinner och ersätts av andra? Ska det vara så? Historiskt kan man
ju ge belägg för att det tidvis sett ut så, men håller det teologiskt? Finns
stabiliteten och den historiska kontinuiteten som utgör ett bärande element i
den kristna tron bara på idéplanet, men inte som konkret synlig verklighet? Hur
hänger det ihop med Jesu egna ord i Joh. 17:21: ”Jag ber att de alla skall vara
ett, och att såsom du, Fader, är i mig och jag i dig, också de skall vara i
oss, för att världen skall tro att du har sänt mig.” Utifrån dessa ord ser man
att de kristnas enhet ligger högt upp på Jesu agenda och bildar en
förutsättning för legitimitet och autenticitet för det kristna budskapet,
evangeliet.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">I
våra möten med katoliker</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">, inte
minst internationellt under och efter Israelåren, började min hustru och jag
skönja svar på dessa frågor. Vi började se att Kyrkan inte bara har en
kontinuitet i den teologiska tanken eller genom andliga erfarenheter och
verksamhet genom tiderna, utan också högst påtagligt och konkret i en synlig
och bestående Kyrka. Som förkunnare har jag ofta betonat att det evangelium som
Jesus förkunnade och den Andens kraft med vilken Jesus och apostlarna verkade,
är både sann, verklig och bestående. Det är med andra ord relevant idag i vår
moderna värld.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Vad
jag inte såg</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">var,
att om detta är sant, då är det också sant att Jesus efterlämnade en Kyrka med
apostoliskt ursprung, det som Nya Testamentet kallar för Kristi kropp. Denna
synliga, konkreta Kyrka har en historisk kontinuitet från Jesu och apostlarnas
tid, genom hela historien tills han kommer tillbaka.</span></div>
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<b><span style="border: solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt; font-family: "inherit","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-border-alt: solid #CCCCCC .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Var
finns då Kyrkan</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">i
all denna moderna flora av olika kristna grupperingar? Varför inte nöja sig med
att bara låta alla blommor blomma? Naturligtvis finns Kyrkan på olika sätt
närvarande hos alla Jesustroende. Men jag började inse att autenticiteten och
fullheten av denna Kyrka och dess konkreta uttryck igenom historien finns i den
katolska kyrkan. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Denna insikt kom
genom en djupare förståelse av Kyrkans sakramentala dimension och dess
fasthållande av en autentisk auktoritet som kan avgöra och vägleda i både
lärofrågor och moraliska frågor.</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Tillsammans insåg min
hustru<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>och jag att den enhet
mellan kristna som vi längtade efter fordrade att vi själva förenades med den
Katolska kyrkan, som har funnits allt ifrån apostolisk tid. Vi hade kommit till
den punkt då vi måste ta konsekvenserna av detta. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Den Katolska kyrkans bevarande av den kristna tron, det rika
sakramentala livet och hennes moraliska fasthet</b> och djupt kärleksfulla
barmhärtighet mot de allra fattigaste, de sjuka och de ofödda inger oss stor
respekt och en stor längtan efter att få förenas med henne. Detta blev till
sist en samvetsfråga för oss.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Detta är orsaken</span> <span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">till en stor förändring i våra liv och i vår
trosutövning, och innebär att min hustru och jag nu lämnar Livets Ord <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">för att denna vår bli upptagna i den
katolska kyrkans gemenskap.</b> Det är en stor glädje för oss och har lett oss
till att uppskatta vår Herre Jesus Kristus och hans Kyrka ännu mycket mer.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt;">Ulf Ekman, pastor <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">emeritus</b>
och grundare av Livets Ord</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=emeritus&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">emeritus
(adj.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">c.1600, from Latin <i>emeritus</i> "veteran
soldier who has served his time," literally "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that has <u>finished</u> work, past service,"</b> past participle
of <i>emerere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">serve
out, complete one's service</b>," from <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>ex-</i> "out" (see </b></span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ex-&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ex-</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">) + <i>merere</i> "to
serve, earn</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">," from PIE <i>*(s)mer-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to get a share of something"
(see </b></span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (n.)). </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">First used of retired professors 1794 in American English.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ex-&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ex-</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">word-forming element, in English meaning mainly
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">out of, from," but also
"upwards, <u><span style="font-size: small;">completely, deprive of, without," and "former;"</span></u></b>
from Latin <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>ex</i> "out
of, from within</b>," from PIE<i>*eghs</i> "out" (cf.
Gaulish <i>ex-</i>, Old Irish <i>ess-</i>, Old Church Slavonic <i>izu</i>,
Russian <i>iz</i>). In some cases also from Greek cognate <i>ex</i>, <i>ek</i>.
PIE <i>*eghs</i> had comparative form <i>*eks-tero</i> and
superlative <i>*eks-t(e)r-emo-</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit (n.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">c.1200, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">spiritual credit</b>" (for good works, etc.); c.1300, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">spiritual reward</b>," from Old
French <i>merite</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">wages,
pay, reward; thanks; merit, moral worth, that which assures divine pity,"</b>
and directly from Latin <i>meritum</i> "a merit, service,
kindness, benefit, favor; worth, value, importance," neuter of <i>meritus</i>,
past participle of <i>merere</i>, <i>meriri</i> "to earn,
deserve, acquire, gain," from PIE root <i>*(s)mer-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to allot, assign</b>" (cf. Greek <i>meros</i> "part,
lot," <i>moira</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">share,
fate</b>," <i>moros</i> "</span><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">fate, destiny, doom</span></b></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">,"
Hittite <i>mark</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
divide" a sacrifice).<br />
</b><br />
Sense of "worthiness, excellence" is from early 14c.; from late 14c.
as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"condition or conduct that
deserves either reward <u>or punishment</u>;"</b> also "a reward,
benefit." Related: <i>Merits</i>.<i>Merit system</i> attested
from 1880. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Merit-monger</i></b> was
in common use 16c.-17c. in a sense roughly of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">do-gooder</b>."</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit (v.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">late 15c., "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to be entitled to</b>," from Middle French <i>meriter</i> (Modern
French <i>mériter</i>), from <i>merite</i> (n.), or directly
from Latin <i>meritare</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
earn, yield</b>," frequentative of <i>mereri</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to earn (money);" also "to serve
as a soldier</b>" (see </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (n.)). Related: </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Merited&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Merited</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">; <i>meriting</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merited&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merited
(adj.)</span></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"well-earned," c.1600, past participle
adjective from </span><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=merit&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">merit</span></i></b></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (v.).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 9pt;">Intervjuade i
Vatikanradion. I samband med en pilgrimsresa till Rom ställde Birgitta och Ulf
Ekman upp på en intervju med Vatikanradion. ”Vi har fått jättemånga fina brev
och näthatet har vi inte ägnat oss åt”, säger Birgitta.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 8.5pt; text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> http://www.dagen.se/nyheter/heliga-birgitta-inspiration-pa-vagen-mot-konvertering/<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #123766; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 19.0pt; letter-spacing: 1.2pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; text-transform: uppercase;">NYHETER<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Jag
kan aldrig komma ifrån upplevelsen av att gå dit ned, säger Ulf Ekman."<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Heliga Birgitta inspiration på vägen mot konvertering<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Under 2003
firades 700-årsminnet av den heliga Birgittas födelse. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Det blev också det första vägmärket
för Birgitta Ekman på vägen mot konverteringen.– Det talades mycket om henne så
jag började läsa böcker om henne, säger Ulf Ekmans hustru.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Blev 70 år. Den Heliga Birgitta föddes omkring 1303,
och dog under sitt 70:e levnadsår den 23 juli 1373 i Rom.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Foto:
Livets Ord<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><u>Birgitta Ekman har hållit en låg profil efter beskedet
att hon och maken Ulf ska bli katoliker. Men i samband med en pilgrimsresa till
Rom ställde båda två upp på en intervju med Vatikanradion</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Uppkallad
efter helgonet</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><u>Jag visste ju att jag var
uppkallad efter heliga Birgitta, men att Ulf heter samma som hennes man, det
var också lite roligt</u>. Jag läste mycket om henne och blev nyfiken. Heliga
Birgitta pratade så mycket om Maria och då ville jag veta vad kyrkan egentlig</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">en lär om Maria eftersom
man har hört så mycket om att katoliker förgudar Maria, säger Birgitta Ekman,
<u>som också förklarar att hon många gånger har fått aha-upplevelser och känt igen
sig när hon har läst olika katolska böcker</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">–</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><u>Man kan ju nästan tänka att</u></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><u> det (frågan om
Mariadyrkan) är det sista som man tar itu med, men för oss blev det det första,
fyller Ulf Ekman i</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">”Fått många fina brev”</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">För exakt en månad sedan meddelade Ulf och
Birgitta Ekman att de skulle lämna Livets ord och bli katoliker. Reaktionerna
lät inte vänta på sig, vissa gratulerade dem, men många gav samtidigt uttryck
för sorg och förvirring. På frågan om hur de själva har upplevt allt svarar
Birgitta Ekman ”skiftande”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Vi har fått
jättemånga fina brev och näthatet har vi inte ägnat oss </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">åt. Det har varit ganska mycket tråkiga saker på
nätet. Men i vår själ och i vårt hjärta så är vi väldigt glada och har en
väldig frid och tillförsikt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Tidigare besök i Rom</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Ulf och Birgitta Ekman har besökt Rom och
Vatikanen flera gånger tidigare. Och även denna gång blev det ett besök i
gravplatsen under Peterskyrkan där aposteln Petrus sägs ligga begravd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">–</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Det är
väldigt märkligt varje gång. Första gången var nästan som ett bombnedslag, med
protestantiskt sinne så har man nästan lite svårt att tro att de</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">t är verkligt att det är aposteln Petrus som faktiskt
ligger begravd där. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jag
kan aldrig komma ifrån upplevelsen av att gå dit ned, säger Ulf Ekman.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJAzXEqplUj5qJNqpNiD6gjvQKZSAoDu1Dp4dslhm8U6xXByX1bIWVJ26QmR0T8pxmRno7eo2k4S8L7F7sE3D1yMrKl6-xRNJm_vsfOhEgAruQIrIU4LKSbvn6FML87uesiu50r4Y9CRZ/s1600/scary+pope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJAzXEqplUj5qJNqpNiD6gjvQKZSAoDu1Dp4dslhm8U6xXByX1bIWVJ26QmR0T8pxmRno7eo2k4S8L7F7sE3D1yMrKl6-xRNJm_vsfOhEgAruQIrIU4LKSbvn6FML87uesiu50r4Y9CRZ/s1600/scary+pope.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYk9VmhU3MZDMR0sjcoPnf_toKmjdU7WckywYbvht1irUnoCiQ3bTOxHw117ojbxbvQayOdb13OB0WEt8YWpPuFxSbFXsHCTqfpZdNuLFTA8yEYgaa_O7pUpW3IICkbEyczTQusLsjsAt/s1600/dubbar+tv%C3%A5+riddare+av+graven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYk9VmhU3MZDMR0sjcoPnf_toKmjdU7WckywYbvht1irUnoCiQ3bTOxHw117ojbxbvQayOdb13OB0WEt8YWpPuFxSbFXsHCTqfpZdNuLFTA8yEYgaa_O7pUpW3IICkbEyczTQusLsjsAt/s1600/dubbar+tv%C3%A5+riddare+av+graven.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Otroligt vilka sagoberättelser som uppfostras allt efter behov och nyckfulla vändningar, trolldom och andedyrkan står väl bakom hörnet!?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Even check this Blog: Pope Francis declares himself the Antichrist. </span></b><span style="font-size: large;">http://ivarfjeld.com/2014/06/01/vatican-cantor-hail-lucifer/</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Jc61xBfcGI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pa4nsCYzM1w?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Vatican projects lucifer.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Now for this delusion take care, shake him off.</span></b><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/kb5Kp3HSMuc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<h1 class="yt" id="watch-headline-title" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: start;">
<span class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" style="-webkit-user-select: auto; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: black; cursor: pointer; font-size: 0.9em; letter-spacing: -0.03em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Pope Francis Sends Video Message to Kenneth Copeland Lets Unite">Pope Francis Sends Video Message to Kenneth Copeland Lets Unite!</span></h1>
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<span class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-user-select: auto; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: black; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: -0.03em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Pope Francis Sends Video Message to Kenneth Copeland Lets Unite"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Copeland telling his lies to seduce, and hypnotice!</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-user-select: auto; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: black; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: -0.03em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Pope Francis Sends Video Message to Kenneth Copeland Lets Unite"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/uA4EPOfic5A?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Those charlatans teach catholic demon teachings! </span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/wDuo6HCINcc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Ulf Ekman and Birgitta converts to the antichrist church!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OPAfHQhIRUWUGTvzAAnc0odulh2V85bekwZVL8QpBJOa4ypmV7K7_jP17XsJZTf8XWnz-UfG1sGrL2othTRYYe6SJabtdvAGpgshDCvGn8UYDtsQeGyxYOgAMmpkJ7D_sxxWIVrNq8L_/s1600/Ulf+and+Birgitta+adoring+the+pope.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OPAfHQhIRUWUGTvzAAnc0odulh2V85bekwZVL8QpBJOa4ypmV7K7_jP17XsJZTf8XWnz-UfG1sGrL2othTRYYe6SJabtdvAGpgshDCvGn8UYDtsQeGyxYOgAMmpkJ7D_sxxWIVrNq8L_/s1600/Ulf+and+Birgitta+adoring+the+pope.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Beware of the dogs! (male prostitutes).</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Inlagt av Leif Berg</span></b><br />
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GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-13570302604453163452014-02-28T04:20:00.002-08:002014-02-28T05:52:40.030-08:00WHATS WRONG WITH PROSPERITY ?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpw9VaAeUU-PeMxt9_VRkaOKJ5jhEKfPJmaXMJJwa_JrxPL5nritryp056QEW6ZwZntmEpAtjAOuWWMUNnHVEJNxer4urrdd6I_xSDMPgcEgjgCBICaLViqNIk5Pl2cX6Tlpy89jcRNKQ/s1600/Fooled+by+every+spirit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpw9VaAeUU-PeMxt9_VRkaOKJ5jhEKfPJmaXMJJwa_JrxPL5nritryp056QEW6ZwZntmEpAtjAOuWWMUNnHVEJNxer4urrdd6I_xSDMPgcEgjgCBICaLViqNIk5Pl2cX6Tlpy89jcRNKQ/s1600/Fooled+by+every+spirit.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The further a society drifts from truth the more will it hate those that speak it!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>George Orwell</b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">WHATS WRONG
WITH PROSPERITY ANYWAY?</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The message
of the Bible stands in direct contrast to what these prosperity preachers are
saying…</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The message
of the Bible stands in direct contrast to what these prosperity preachers are
saying…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us to get more for ourselves, but Jesus told
us to get rid of what we already have <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(Luke
12:33).</b> Who’s right –them or the Lord Jesus?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that God wants us to be rich, but the
Apostle Paul said that those who desire to be rich fall into many temptations
and snares and foolish hurtful desires which drown men in destruction <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(1 Timothy 6:9).</b> Who’s right –The
prosperity preachers or the Apostle Paul?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us not to be content with what we have but to
command God to give us more, but the Bible commands us to be content with what
we have <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(Hebrews 13:5).</b> Who’s right
–Them or the Word of God?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that God wants us to have the best that
this world has to offer, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but the Apostle
John told us that if we live like the world and love the things of the world
then we’re not even saved (1 John 2:15).</b> Who’s right? Are we to believe
them or the Apostle John?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are standing up in front of worldwide audiences and
boasting about how much silver and gold they have, but the Apostle Peter had to
say to a poor beggar that he didn’t even have any money to give him <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(Acts 3:6).</b> Surely Peter wasn’t lying.
He actually had no money! Who’s right –the prosperity preachers or the Apostle
Peter?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers have stood in the midst of the Church and used the things
of God to accumulate mass monetary gain <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for
themselves</b>, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but when Jesus entered
the house of God, He did the opposite, He made a whip and cleared out those who
were in it to make money (Mark 11:15).</b> Has the Lord changed His mind?
–Never! He’s the same yesterday, today and forever!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that God wants us to be rich, increased
with goods, and have need of nothing, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but
the Lord Jesus said that those who are such make Him want to vomit (Revelation
3:16-17).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us to serve them and to give to their
ministry, but the Lord Jesus came to serve us and gave all that He had <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(Mark 10:45).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us to give to their ministries and that in return
we will be extraordinarily blessed by God, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but
when a man in the Bible tried to give money to the Apostle Peter in return for
the blessing of the Holy Ghost, the Apostle rebuked and condemned him (Acts
8:18-23).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that they deserve to be rich because of
their great anointing and that we must give to them, but the man of God Elisha
wouldn’t even accept an offering from a man healed under his ministry, and
furthermore, when his servant went and collected the offering afterwards
without Elisha’s consent, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Elisha rebuked
him and the Lord cursed him and his descendants forever (2 Kings 5).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that the world should love us because of
our prosperity and desire to be like us as a result, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but the Lord Jesus pronounced dreadful sorrows on those who are spoken
well of by the world (Luke 6:26).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us that Jesus came to give us life more
abundantly and that this means that we are to have an abundance of the material
things that we possess, but the Lord Jesus said that this abundant life is
Eternal Life and that life doesn’t consist of the material things which a man
possesses <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(John 10:10, Luke 12:15).</b>
Should we believe these prominent wealthy preachers, or the meek and lowly Lord
Jesus?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
prosperity preachers are telling us to use God to get money, that God wants us
to have more money, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but Jesus said that
we cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Lord
said that we will either love God and hate Mammon, or else be devoted to God
and despise Mammon, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but that there could
be no neutrality, and no aspiring after both.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So should we believe them as they serve God and
money at the same time (as proven by their extravagant and luxurious
lifestyles), or should we believe Jesus who despised the world’s good in order
to please His Father in all things?</span></b></div>
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<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rev 3:10<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee
from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them
that dwell upon the earth.</span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
G3986<br />
peirasmos<br />
<br />
From G3985; a putting to proof (by experiment [of good], <span style="font-size: large;"><b>experience [of evil]</b></span>, solicitation, discipline or provocation); by implication adversity: - temptation, X try.<br />
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">tempt (v.) Look up tempt at Dictionary.com</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">c.1200, <b><span style="font-size: large;">of
the devil, flesh, etc., </span>"draw or entice to evil or sin, lure (someone)
from God's law; be alluring or seductive,</b>" from Old French tempter (12c.),
from Latin temptare <b>"to feel, try out, attempt to influence, test,</b>" a
variant of tentare "<b>handle, touch, try, test.</b>" The Latin alteration
is <b>"explainable only as an ancient error due to some confusion</b>"
[Century Dictionary]. From late 14c. as "<b>to provoke, defy" (God,
fate, etc.)</b>. Related: Tempted; tempting.</span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
Temptation:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Tempter. The woman was approached by
the serpent, Devil (Genesis 3:1; Revelation 12:9; Revelation 20:2).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Means. He approached her by speaking in her
own language and by falsely interpreting the law of God (Genesis 3:1-5; John
8:44).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Points Tempted. The woman was tempted in</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lust of the flesh,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lust of the eye,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the pride of life (Genesis 3:1-6; 1
John 2:16).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Results. The woman was deceived (2
Corinthians 11:3); the man was not (1 Timothy 2:13-15), but the eating of the
fruit brought the speedy sentence of death (Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 5:12-19).
All the guilty parties were involved in the results.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Results.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The serpent was doomed to disgrace and
destruction;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The woman was doomed to sorrow in
child-bearing and subserviency to her husband;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the man was doomed to sorrow,
disappointment, and hard labor (Genesis 3:14-19).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remote Results. Man's will power was
doubtless weakened by transgression, but he still had the power to partake of
the tree and life and live forever (Genesis 3:22-24). His memory was doubtless
weakened by sin, but he remembered all the circumstances of the temptation and
transgression (Genesis 3:1-13). His reason was doubtless weakened by
disobedience, but he was able to attempt to shift the responsibility from his
shoulders when confronted with the results of his crime (Genesis 3:12-13).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Important Fact -Causes of Sin and Death.
Sin, death, and their terrible consequences were brought about by</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hearing,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believing,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Yielding to a lie.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Beware!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Rev 3:2-3; Rev 3:10; Rev 12:10-11; Rev 12:17</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Vine's
Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1 <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Strong's Number: g3986
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Greek: peirasmos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Temptation:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">akin to A,
above, is used of</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(1)
"trials" with a beneficial purpose and effect,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(a) <b>of
"trials" or "temptations," </b>Divinely permitted or sent, Luk
22:28; Act 20:19; Jam 1:2; 1Pe 1:6; 4:12, RV, "<b>to prove</b>," AV,
"<b>to try</b>;" 2Pe 2:9 (singular); Rev 3:10, RV, "trial" (AV,
"temptation"); in Jam 1:12, "temptation" apparently has
meanings (1) and (2) combined (see below), and is used in the widest sense;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(b) with a
good or neutral significance, Gal 4:14, of Paul's physical infirmity, "a
temptation" to the Galatian converts, of such a kind as to arouse feelings
of natural repugnance;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(c) of
"trials" of a varied character, Mat 6:13; Luk 11:4, where believers
are commanded to pray not to be led into such by forces beyond their own
control; Mat 26:41; Mar 14:38; <b>Luk 22:40, 46, where they are commanded to watch
and pray against entering into "temptations" by their own
carelessness or disobedience; in all such cases God provides "the way of
escape," 1Cr 10:13 </b>(where peirasmos occurs twice).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(2) Of
"trial" definitely designed to lead to wrong doing,
"temptation," Luk 4:13; 8:13; 1Ti 6:9;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(3) of
"trying" or challenging God, by men, Hbr 3:8.</span></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b>See also:</b><br />
<br />
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.se/2013/06/when-prosperity-gospel-is-more.html<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8B97m2HxurJow24S0Ky_wNySX09HEbfVkZNo8qZw7ibvMxlTo0HsZq-fwZa-91-G-127zVOOybAYQy5TkaxEb6Ot2bVVuegErrBAX7O5tU4YeAhyphenhyphen5XiC9n0S-x9wNI9AAxqocDJr5gn-/s1600/Dominion+gathering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8B97m2HxurJow24S0Ky_wNySX09HEbfVkZNo8qZw7ibvMxlTo0HsZq-fwZa-91-G-127zVOOybAYQy5TkaxEb6Ot2bVVuegErrBAX7O5tU4YeAhyphenhyphen5XiC9n0S-x9wNI9AAxqocDJr5gn-/s1600/Dominion+gathering.jpg" height="260" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: blue;">I find it very difficult to
explain to many Africans that the current gospel they are receiving is one from
the main stream Apostate Laodicean American Church that worships, Man and
Mammon; a Babylonian Mammon or Money gospel with very dire end time
implications that will lead these Christians to worship the Beast and his
system. However, someone will have to stand and speak Truth. </span><span style="color: green;">Kato Mivule</span><span style="color: blue;">,</span></b> <a href="http://takeheedafrica.blogspot.com/2008/03/ugandas-rotten-prosperity-movement.html">http://takeheedafrica.blogspot.com/2008/03/ugandas-rotten-prosperity-movement.html</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Inlagt av Leif Berg </span></b></div>
GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-42576697449027776562014-02-16T14:22:00.000-08:002014-02-16T14:22:04.566-08:00Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God. Part 2.<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Part 2</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />Section II<br />Sub-Section III<br />The Child in Greece</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus much for Egypt. Coming into Greece, not only do we find evidence there to the same effect, but increase of that evidence. The god worshipped as a child in the arms of the great Mother in Greece, under the names of Dionysus, or Bacchus, or Iacchus, is, by ancient inquirers, expressly identified with the Egyptian Osiris. This is the case with Herodotus, who had prosecuted his inquiries in Egypt itself, who ever speaks of Osiris as Bacchus. To the same purpose is the testimony of Diodorus Siculus. ”Orpheus,” says he, ”introduced from Egypt the greatest part of the mystical ceremonies, the orgies that celebrate the wanderings of Ceres, and the whole fable of the shades below. The rites of Osiris and Bacchus are the same; those of Isis and Ceres exactly resemble each other, except in name.” Now, as if to identify Bacchus with Nimrod, ”the Leopard-tamer,” leopards were employed to draw his car; he himself was represented as clothed with a leopard’s skin; his priests were attired in the same manner, or when a leopard’s skin was dispensed with, the spotted skin of a fawn was used as a priestly robe in its stead. This very custom of wearing the spotted fawn-skin seems to have been imported into Greece originally from Assyria, where a spotted fawn was a sacred emblem, as we learn from the Nineveh sculptures; for there we find a divinity bearing a spotted fawn or spotted fallow-deer, in his arm, as a symbol of some mysterious import. The origin of the importance attached to the spotted fawn and its skin had evidently come thus: When Nimrod, as ”the Leopard-tamer,” began to be clothed in the leopard-skin, as the trophy of his skill, his spotted dress and appearance must have impressed the imaginations of those who saw him; and he came to be called not only the ”Subduer of the Spotted one” (for such is the precise meaning of Nimr–the name of the leopard), but to be called ”The spotted one” himself. We have distinct evidence to this effect borne by Damascius, who tells us that the Babylonians called ”the only son” of the great goddess-mother ”Momis, or Moumis.” Now, Momis, or Moumis, in Chaldee, like Nimr, signified ”The spotted one.” Thus, then, it became easy to represent Nimrod by the symbol of the ”spotted fawn,” and especially in Greece, and wherever a pronunciation akin to that of Greece prevailed. The name of Nimrod, as known to the Greeks, was Nebrod. * The name of the fawn, as ”the spotted one,” in Greece was Nebros; ** and thus nothing could be more natural than that Nebros, the ”spotted fawn,” should become a synonym for Nebrod himself. When, therefore, the Bacchus of Greece was symbolised by the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” as we shall find he was symbolised, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with Nimrod?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the name of Nimrod is ”Nebrod.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Nebros, the name of the fawn, signifies ”the spotted one.” Nmr, in Egypt, would also become Nbr; for Bunsen shows that m and b in that land were often convertible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">We have evidence that this god, whose emblem was the Nebros, was known as having the very lineage of Nimrod. From Anacreon, we find that a title of Bacchus was Aithiopais–i.e., ”the son of Aethiops.” But who was Aethiops? As the Aethiopians were Cushites, so Aethiops was Cush. ”Chus,” says Eusebius, ”was he from whom came the Aethiopians.” The testimony of Josephus is to the same effect. As the father of the Aethiopians, Cush was Aethiops, by way of eminence. Therefore Epiphanius, referring to the extraction of Nimrod, thus speaks: ”Nimrod, the son of Cush, the Aethiop.” Now, as Bacchus was the son of Aethiops, or Cush, so to the eye he was represented in that character. As Nin ”the Son,” he was portrayed as a youth or child; and that youth or child was generally depicted with a cup in his hand. That cup, to the multitude, exhibited him as the god of drunken revelry; and of such revelry in his orgies, no doubt there was abundance; but yet, after all, the cup was mainly a hieroglyphic, and that of the name of the god. The name of a cup, in the sacred language, was khus, and thus the cup in the hand of the youthful Bacchus, the son of Aethiops, showed that he was the young Chus, or the son of Chus. In a woodcut, the cup in the right hand of Bacchus is held up in so significant a way, as naturally to suggest that it must be a symbol; and as to the branch in the other hand, we have express testimony that it is a symbol. But it is worthy of notice that the branch has no leaves to determine what precise kind of a branch it is. It must, therefore, be a generic emblem for a branch, or a symbol of a branch in general; and, consequently, it needs the cup as its complement, to determine specifically what sort of a branch it is. The two symbols, then, must be read together, and read thus, they are just equivalent to–the ”Branch of Chus”–i.e., ”the scion or son of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Everyone knows that Homer’s odzos Areos, or ”Branch of Mars,” is the same as a ”Son of Mars.” The hieroglyphic above was evidently formed on the same principle. That the cup alone in the hand of the youthful Bacchus was intended to designate him ”as the young Chus,” or ”the boy Chus,” we may fairly conclude from a statement of Pausanias, in which he represents ”the boy Kuathos” as acting the part of a cup-bearer, and presenting a cup to Hercules (PAUSANIAS Corinthiaca) Kuathos is the Greek for a ”cup,” and is evidently derived from the Hebrew Khus, ”a cup,” which, in one of its Chaldee forms, becomes Khuth or Khuath. Now, it is well known that the name of Cush is often found in the form of Cuth, and that name, in certain dialects, would be Cuath. The ”boy Kuathos,” then, is just the Greek form of the ”boy Cush,” or ”the young Cush.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is another hieroglyphic connected with Bacchus that goes not a little to confirm this–that is, the Ivy branch. No emblem was more distinctive of the worship of Bacchus than this. Wherever the rites of Bacchus were performed, wherever his orgies were celebrated, the Ivy branch was sure to appear. Ivy, in some form or other, was essential to these celebrations. The votaries carried it in their hands, bound it around their heads, or had the Ivy leaf even indelibly stamped upon their persons. What could be the use, what could be the meaning of this? A few words will suffice to show it. In the first place, then, we have evidence that Kissos, the Greek name for Ivy, was one of the names of Bacchus; and further, that though the name of Cush, in its proper form, was known to the priests in the Mysteries, yet that the established way in which the name of his descendants, the Cushites, was ordinarily pronounced in Greece, was not after the Oriental fashion, but as ”Kissaioi,” or ”Kissioi.” Thus, Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of Susa, who were the people of Chusistan, or the ancient land of Cush, says: ”The Susians are called Kissioi,” * –that is beyond all question, Cushites.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* STRABO. In Hesychius, the name is Kissaioi. The epithet applied to the land of Cush in Aeschylus is Kissinos. The above accounts for one of the unexplained titles of Apollo. ”Kisseus Apollon” is plainly ”The Cushite Apollo.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if Kissioi be Cushites, then Kissos is Cush. Then, further, the branch of Ivy that occupied so conspicuous a place in all Bacchanalian celebrations was an express symbol of Bacchus himself; for Hesychius assures us that Bacchus, as represented by his priest, was known in the Mysteries as ”The branch.” From this, then, it appears how Kissos, the Greek name of Ivy, became the name of Bacchus. As the son of Cush, and as identified with him, he was sometimes called by his father’s name–Kissos. His actual relation, however, to his father was specifically brought out by the Ivy branch, for ”the branch of Kissos,” which to the profane vulgar was only ”the branch of Ivy,” was to the initiated ”The branch of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The chaplet, or head-band of Ivy, had evidently a similar hieroglyphical meaning to the above, for the Greek ”Zeira Kissou” is either a ”band or circlet of Ivy,” or ”The seed of Cush.” The formation of the Greek ”Zeira,” a zone or enclosing band, from the Chaldee Zer, to encompass, shows that Zero ”the seed,” which was also pronounced Zeraa, would, in like manner, in some Greek dialects, become Zeira. Kissos, ”Ivy,” in Greek, retains the radical idea of the Chaldee Khesha or Khesa, ”to cover or hide,” from which there is reason to believe the name of Cush is derived, for Ivy is characteristically ”The coverer or hider.” In connection with this, it may be stated that the second person of the Phoenician trinity was Chursorus (WILKINSON), which evidently is Chus-zoro, ”The seed of Cush.” We have already seen that the Phoenicians derived their mythology from Assyria.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this god, who was recognised as ”the scion of Cush,” was worshipped under a name, which, while appropriate to him in his vulgar character as the god of the vintage, did also describe him as the great Fortifier. That name was Bassareus, which, in its two-fold meaning, signified at once ”The houser of grapes, or the vintage gatherer,” and ”The Encompasser with a wall,” * in this latter sense identifying the Grecian god with the Egyptian Osiris, ”the strong chief of the buildings,” and with the Assyrian ”Belus, who encompassed Babylon with a wall.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bassareus is evidently from the Chaldee Batzar, to which both Gesenius and Parkhurst give the two-fold meaning of ”gathering in grapes,” and ”fortifying.” Batzar is softened into Bazzar in the very same way as Nebuchadnetzar is pronounced Nebuchadnezzar. In the sense of ”rendering a defence inaccessible,” Gesenius adduces Jeremiah 51:53, ”Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify (tabatzar) the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord.” Here is evident reference to the two great elements in Babylon’s strength, first her tower; secondly, her massive fortifications, or encompassing walls. In making the meaning of Batzar to be, ”to render inaccessible,” Gesenius seems to have missed the proper generic meaning of the term. Batzar is a compound verb, from Ba, ”in,” and Tzar, ”to compass,” exactly equivalent to our English word ”en-compass.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming evidence, all conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshipped in the arms of the goddess-mother in all these countries in the very character of Ninus or Nin, ”The Son,” was Nimrod, the son of Cush. A feature here, or an incident there, may have been borrowed from some succeeding hero; but it seems impossible to doubt, that of that child Nimrod was the prototype, the grand original.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The amazing extent of the worship of this man indicates something very extraordinary in his character; and there is ample reason to believe, that in his own day he was an object of high popularity. Though by setting up as king, Nimrod invaded the patriarchal system, and abridged the liberties of mankind, yet he was held by many to have conferred benefits upon them, that amply indemnified them for the loss of their liberties, and covered him with glory and renown. By the time that he appeared, the wild beasts of the forest multiplying more rapidly than the human race, must have committed great depredations on the scattered and straggling populations of the earth, and must have inspired great terror into the minds of men. The danger arising to the lives of men from such a source as this, when population is scanty, is implied in the reason given by God Himself for not driving out the doomed Canaanites before Israel at once, though the measure of their iniquity was full (Exo 23:29,30): ”I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased.” The exploits of Nimrod, therefore, in hunting down the wild beasts of the field, and ridding the world of monsters, must have gained for him the character of a pre-eminent benefactor of his race. By this means, not less than by the bands he trained, was his power acquired, when he first began to be mighty upon the earth; and in the same way, no doubt, was that power consolidated. Then, over and above, as the first great city-builder after the flood, by gathering men together in masses, and surrounding them with walls, he did still more to enable them to pass their days in security, free from the alarms to which they had been exposed in their scattered life, when no one could tell but that at any moment he might be called to engage in deadly conflict with prowling wild beasts, in defence of his own life and of those who were dear to him. Within the battlements of a fortified city no such danger from savage animals was to be dreaded; and for the security afforded in this way, men no doubt looked upon themselves as greatly indebted to Nimrod. No wonder, therefore, that the name of the ”mighty hunter,” who was at the same time the prototype of ”the god of fortifications,” should have become a name of renown. Had Nimrod gained renown only thus, it had been well. But not content with delivering men from the fear of wild beasts, he set to work also to emancipate them from that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, and in which alone true happiness can be found. For this very thing, he seems to have gained, as one of the titles by which men delighted to honour him, the title of the ”Emancipator,” or ”Deliverer.” The reader may remember a name that has already come under his notice. That name is the name of Phoroneus. The era of Phoroneus is exactly the era of Nimrod. He lived about the time when men had used one speech, when the confusion of tongues began, and when mankind was scattered abroad. He is said to have been the first that gathered mankind into communities, the first of mortals that reigned, and the first that offered idolatrous sacrifices. This character can agree with none but that of Nimrod. Now the name given to him in connection with his ”gathering men together,” and offering idolatrous sacrifice, is very significant. Phoroneus, in one of its meanings, and that one of the most natural, signifies the ”Apostate.” * That name had very likely been given him by the uninfected portion of the sons of Noah. But that name had also another meaning, that is, ”to set free”; and therefore his own adherents adopted it, and glorified the great ”Apostate” from the primeval faith, though he was the first that abridged the liberties of mankind, as the grand ”Emancipator!” ** And hence, in one form or other, this title was handed down to this deified successors as a title of honour. ***</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Pharo, also pronounced Pharang, or Pharong, ”to cast off, to make naked, to apostatise, to set free.” These meanings are not commonly given in this order, but as the sense of ”casting off” explains all the other meanings, that warrants the conclusion that ”to cast off” is the generic sense of the word. Now ”apostacy” is very near akin to this sense, and therefore is one of the most natural.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** The Sabine goddess Feronia had evidently a relation to Phoroneus, as the ”Emancipator.” She was believed to be the ”goddess of liberty,” because at Terracina (or Anuxur) slaves were emancipated in her temple (Servius, in Aeneid), and because the freedmen of Rome are recorded on one occasion to have collected a sum of money for the purpose of offering it in her temple. (SMITH’S Classical Dictionary, ”Feronia”)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">*** Thus we read of ”Zeus Aphesio” (PAUSANIAS, Attica), that is ”Jupiter Liberator” and of ”Dionysus Eleuthereus” (PAUSANIAS), or ”Bacchus the Deliverer.” The name of Theseus seems to have had the same origin, from nthes ”to loosen,” and so to set free (the n being omissible). ”The temple of Theseus” [at Athens] says POTTER ”…was allowed the privilege of being a Sanctuary for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fled from the persecution of men in power, in memory that Theseus, while he lived, was an assister and protector of the distressed.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostacy of Nimrod, and to his success in leading men away from the patriarchal faith, and delivering their minds from that awe of God and fear of the judgments of heaven that must have rested on them while yet the memory of the flood was recent. And according to all the principles of depraved human nature, this too, no doubt, was one grand element in his fame; for men will readily rally around any one who can give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine which will teach that they can be assured of happiness and heaven at last, though their hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they live without God in the world.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How great was the boon conferred by Nimrod on the human race, in the estimation of ungodly men, by emancipating them from the impressions of true religion, and putting the authority of heaven to a distance from them, we find most vividly described in a Polynesian tradition, that carries its own evidence with it. John Williams, the well known missionary, tells us that, according to one of the ancient traditions of the islanders of the South Seas, ”the heavens were originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were compelled to crawl” under them. ”This was found a very serious evil; but at length an individual conceived the sublime idea of elevating the heavens to a more convenient height. For this purpose he put forth his utmost energy, and by the first effort raised them to the top of a tender plant called teve, about four feet high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed, when, by a second effort, he lifted them to the height of a tree called Kauariki, which is as large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he carried them to the summits of the mountains; and after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious effort, he elevated them to their present situation.” For this, as a mighty benefactor of mankind, ”this individual was deified; and up to the moment that Christianity was embraced, the deluded inhabitants worshipped him as the ‘Elevator of the heavens.’” Now, what could more graphically describe the position of mankind soon after the flood, and the proceedings of Nimrod as Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” * than this Polynesian fable?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The bearing of this name, Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” will be seen in Chapter III, Section I, ”Christmas,” where it is shown that slaves had a temporary emancipation at his birthday.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While the awful catastrophe by which God had showed His avenging justice on the sinners of the old world was yet fresh in the minds of men, and so long as Noah, and the upright among his descendants, sought with all earnestness to impress upon all under their control the lessons which that solemn event was so well fitted to teach, ”heaven,” that is, God, must have seemed very near to earth. To maintain the union between heaven and earth, and to keep it as close as possible, must have been the grand aim of all who loved God and the best interests of the human race. But this implied the restraining and discountenancing of all vice and all those ”pleasures of sin,” after which the natural mind, unrenewed and unsanctified, continually pants. This must have been secretly felt by every unholy mind as a state of insufferable bondage. ”The carnal mind is enmity against God,” is ”not subject to His law,” neither indeed is ”able to be” so. It says to the Almighty, ”Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” So long as the influence of the great father of the new world was in the ascendant, while his maxims were regarded, and a holy atmosphere surrounded the world, no wonder that those who were alienated from God and godliness, felt heaven and its influence and authority to be intolerably near, and that in such circumstances they ”could not walk,” but only ”crawl,”–that is, that they had no freedom to ”walk after the sight of their own eyes and the imaginations of their own hearts.” From this bondage Nimrod emancipated them. By the apostacy he introduced, by the free life he developed among those who rallied around him, and by separating them from the holy influences that had previously less or more controlled them, he helped them to put God and the strict spirituality of His law at a distance, and thus he became the ”Elevator of the heavens,” making men feel and act as if heaven were afar off from earth, and as if either the God of heaven ”could not see through the dark cloud,” or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of His laws. Then all such would feel that they could breathe freely, and that now they could walk at liberty. For this, such men could not but regard Nimrod as a high benefactor.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, who could have imagined that a tradition from Tahiti would have illuminated the story of Atlas? But yet, when Atlas, bearing the heavens on his shoulders, is brought into juxtaposition with the deified hero of the South Seas, who blessed the world by heaving up the superincumbent heavens that pressed so heavily upon it, who does not see that the one story bears a relation to the other? *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Polynesian story the heavens and earth are said to have been ”bound together with cords,” and the ”severing” of these cords is said to have been effected by myriads of ”dragon-flies,” which, with their ”wings,” bore an important share in the great work. (WILLIAMS) Is there not here a reference to Nimrod’s `63 ”mighties” or ”winged ones”? The deified ”mighty ones” were often represented as winged serpents. See WILKINSON, vol. iv. p. 232, where the god Agathodaemon is represented as a ”winged asp.” Among a rude people the memory of such a representation might very naturally be kept up in connection with the ”dragon-fly”; and as all the mighty or winged ones of Nimrod’s age, the real golden age of paganism, when ”dead, became daemons” (HESIOD, Works and Days), they would of course all alike be symbolised in the same way. If any be stumbled at the thought of such a connection between the mythology of Tahiti and of Babel, let it not be overlooked that the name of the Tahitian god of war was Oro (WILLIAMS), while ”Horus (or Orus),” as Wilkinson calls the son of Osiris, in Egypt, which unquestionably borrowed its system from Babylon, appeared in that very character. (WILKINSON) Then what could the severing of the ”cords” that bound heaven and earth together be, but just the breaking of the bands of the covenant by which God bound the earth to Himself, when on smelling a sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice, He renewed His covenant with him as head of the human race. This covenant did not merely respect the promise to the earth securing it against another universal deluge, but contained in its bosom a promise of all spiritual blessings to those who adhere to it. The smelling of the sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice had respect to his faith in Christ. When, therefore, in consequence of smelling that sweet savour, ”God blessed Noah and his sons” (Gen 9:1), that had reference not merely to temporal but to spiritual and eternal blessings. Every one, therefore, of the sons of Noah, who had Noah’s faith, and who walked as Noah walked, was divinely assured of an interest in ”the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” Blessed were those bands by which God bound the believing children of men to Himself–by which heaven and earth were so closely joined together. Those, on the other hand, who joined in the apostacy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in casting off the authority of God, did in effect say, ”Let us break His bands asunder, and cast His cords from us.” To this very act of severing the covenant connection between earth and heaven there is very distinct allusion, though veiled, in the Babylonian history of Berosus. There Belus, that is Nimrod, after having dispelled the primeval darkness, is said to have separated heaven and earth from one another, and to have orderly arranged the world. (BEROSUS, in BUNSEN) These words were intended to represent Belus as the ”Former of the world.” But then it is a new world that he forms; for there are creatures in existence before his Demiurgic power is exerted. The new world that Belus or Nimrod formed, was just the new order of things which he introduced when, setting at nought all Divine appointments, he rebelled against Heaven. The rebellion of the Giants is represented as peculiarly a rebellion against Heaven. To this ancient quarrel between the Babylonian potentates and Heaven, there is plainly an allusion in the words of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, when announcing that sovereign’s humiliation and subsequent restoration, he says (Dan 4:26), ”Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou hast known that the HEAVENS do rule.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, it appears that Atlas, with the heavens resting on his broad shoulders, refers to no mere distinction in astronomical knowledge, however great, as some have supposed, but to a quite different thing, even to that great apostacy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven, and in which apostacy Nimrod, ”the mighty one,” * as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a pre-eminent place. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the term ”mighty” as applied in Genesis 10:8, to Nimrod, is rendered the ordinary name for a ”Giant.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** IVAN and KALLERY, in their account of Japan, show that a similar story to that of Atlas was known there, for they say that once a day the Emperor ”sits on his throne upholding the world and the empire.” Now something like this came to be added to the story of Atlas, for PAUSANIAS shows that Atlas also was represented as upholding both earth and heaven.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in introducing, men were led to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated by mere external means. Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian orgies, which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment, and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God. In his various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the good graces of mankind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />Section II<br />Sub-Section IV<br />The Death of the Child</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How Nimrod died, Scripture is entirely silent. There was an ancient tradition that he came to a violent end. The circumstances of that end, however, as antiquity represents them, are clouded with fable. It is said that tempests of wind sent by God against the Tower of Babel overthrew it, and that Nimrod perished in its ruins. This could not be true, for we have sufficient evidence that the Tower of Babel stood long after Nimrod’s day. Then, in regard to the death of Ninus, profane history speaks darkly and mysteriously, although one account tells of his having met with a violent death similar to that of Pentheus, Lycurgus, * and Orpheus, who were said to have been torn in pieces. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Lycurgus, who is commonly made the enemy of Bacchus, was, by the Thracians and Phrygians, identified with Bacchus, who it is well known, was torn in pieces.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** LUDOVICUS VIVES, Commentary on Augustine. Ninus as referred to by Vives is called ”King of India.” The word ”India” in classical writers, though not always, yet commonly means Ethiopia, or the land of Cush. Thus the Choaspes in the land of the eastern Cushites is called an ”Indian River” (DIONYSIUS AFER. Periergesis); and the Nile is said by Virgil to come from the ”coloured Indians” (Georg)–i.e., from the Cushites, or Ethiopians of Africa. Osiris also is by Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca), called ”an Indian by extraction.” There can be no doubt, then, that ”Ninus, king of India,” is the Cushite or Ethiopian Ninus.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The identity of Nimrod, however, and the Egyptian Osiris, having been established, we have thereby light as to Nimrod’s death. Osiris met with a violent death, and that violent death of Osiris was the central theme of the whole idolatry of Egypt. If Osiris was Nimrod, as we have seen, that violent death which the Egyptians so pathetically deplored in their annual festivals was just the death of Nimrod. The accounts in regard to the death of the god worshipped in the several mysteries of the different countries are all to the same effect. A statement of Plato seems to show, that in his day the Egyptian Osiris was regarded as identical with Tammuz; * and Tammuz is well known to have been the same as Adonis, the famous HUNTSMAN, for whose death Venus is fabled to have made such bitter lamentations.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See WILKINSON’S Egyptians. The statement of Plato amounts to this, that the famous Thoth was a counsellor of Thamus, king of Egypt. Now Thoth is universally known as the ”counsellor” of Osiris. Hence it may be concluded that Thamus and Osiris are the same.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the women of Egypt wept for Osiris, as the Phoenician and Assyrian women wept for Tammuz, so in Greece and Rome the women wept for Bacchus, whose name, as we have seen, means ”The bewailed,” or ”Lamented one.” And now, in connection with the Bacchanal lamentations, the importance of the relation established between Nebros, ”The spotted fawn,” and Nebrod, ”The mighty hunter,” will appear. The Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was the symbol of Bacchus, as representing Nebrod or Nimrod himself. Now, on certain occasions, in the mystical celebrations, the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was torn in pieces, expressly, as we learn from Photius, as a commemoration of what happened to Bacchus, * whom that fawn represented.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Photius, under the head ”Nebridzion” quotes Demosthenes as saying that ”spotted fawns (or nebroi) were torn in pieces for a certain mystic or mysterious reason”; and he himself tells us that ”the tearing in pieces of the nebroi (or spotted fawns) was in imitation of the suffering in the case of Dionysus” or Bacchus. (PHOTIUS, Lexicon)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The tearing in pieces of Nebros, ”the spotted one,” goes to confirm the conclusion, that the death of Bacchus, even as the death of Osiris, represented the death of Nebrod, whom, under the very name of ”The Spotted one,” the Babylonians worshipped. Though we do not find any account of Mysteries observed in Greece in memory of Orion, the giant and mighty hunter celebrated by Homer, under that name, yet he was represented symbolically as having died in a similar way to that in which Osiris died, and as having then been translated to heaven. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See OVID’S Fasti. Ovid represents Orion as so puffed up with pride on account of his great strength, as vain-gloriously to boast that no creature on earth could cope with him, whereupon a scorpion appeared, ”and,” says the poet, ”he was added to the stars.” The name of a scorpion in Chaldee is Akrab; but Ak-rab, thus divided, signifies ”THE GREAT OPPRESSOR,” and this is the hidden meaning of the Scorpion as represented in the Zodiac. That sign typifies him who cut off the Babylonian god, and suppressed the system he set up. It was while the sun was in Scorpio that Osiris in Egypt ”disappeared” (WILKINSON), and great lamentations were made for his disappearance. Another subject was mixed up with the death of the Egyptian god; but it is specially to be noticed that, as it was in consequence of a conflict with a scorpion that Orion was ”added to the stars,” so it was when the scorpion was in the ascendant that Osiris ”disappeared.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From Persian records we are expressly assured that it was Nimrod who was deified after his death by the name of Orion, and placed among the stars. Here, then, we have large and consenting evidence, all leading to one conclusion, that the death of Nimrod, the child worshipped in the arms of the goddess-mother of Babylon, was a death of violence.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, when this mighty hero, in the midst of his career of glory, was suddenly cut off by a violent death, great seems to have been the shock that the catastrophe occasioned. When the news spread abroad, the devotees of pleasure felt as if the best benefactor of mankind were gone, and the gaiety of nations eclipsed. Loud was the wail that everywhere ascended to heaven among the apostates from the primeval faith for so dire a catastrophe. Then began those weepings for Tammuz, in the guilt of which the daughters of Israel allowed themselves to be implicated, and the existence of which can be traced not merely in the annals of classical antiquity, but in the literature of the world from Ultima Thule to Japan.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Of the prevalence of such weepings in China, thus speaks the Rev. W. Gillespie: ”The dragon-boat festival happens in midsummer, and is a season of great excitement. About 2000 years ago there lived a young Chinese Mandarin, Wat-yune, highly respected and beloved by the people. To the grief of all, he was suddenly drowned in the river. Many boats immediately rushed out in search of him, but his body was never found. Ever since that time, on the same day of the month, the dragon-boats go out in search of him.” ”It is something,” adds the author, ”like the bewailing of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz mentioned in Scripture.” As the great god Buddh is generally represented in China as a Negro, that may serve to identify the beloved Mandarin whose loss is thus annually bewailed. The religious system of Japan largely coincides with that of China. In Iceland, and throughout Scandinavia, there were similar lamentations for the loss of the god Balder. Balder, through the treachery of the god Loki, the spirit of evil, according as had been written in the book of destiny, ”was slain, although the empire of heaven depended on his life.” His father Odin had ”learned the terrible secret from the book of destiny, having conjured one of the Volar from her infernal abode. All the gods trembled at the knowledge of this event. Then Frigga [the wife of Odin] called on every object, animate and inanimate, to take an oath not to destroy or furnish arms against Balder. Fire, water, rocks, and vegetables were bound by this solemn obligation. One plant only, the mistletoe, was overlooked. Loki discovered the omission, and made that contemptible shrub the fatal weapon. Among the warlike pastimes of Valhalla [the assembly of the gods] one was to throw darts at the invulnerable deity, who felt a pleasure in presenting his charmed breast to their weapons. At a tournament of this kind, the evil genius putting a sprig of the mistletoe into the hands of the blind Hoder, and directing his aim, the dreaded prediction was accomplished by an unintentional fratricide. The spectators were struck with speechless wonder; and their misfortune was the greater, that no one, out of respect to the sacredness of the place, dared to avenge it. With tears of lamentation they carried the lifeless body to the shore, and laid it upon a ship, as a funeral pile, with that of Nanna his lovely bride, who had died of a broken heart. His horse and arms were burnt at the same time, as was customary at the obsequies of the ancient heroes of the north.” Then Frigga, his mother, was overwhelmed with distress. ”Inconsolable for the loss of her beautiful son,” says Dr. Crichton, ”she despatched Hermod (the swift) to the abode of Hela [the goddess of Hell, or the infernal regions], to offer a ransom for his release. The gloomy goddess promised that he should be restored, provided everything on earth were found to weep for him. Then were messengers sent over the whole world, to see that the order was obeyed, and the effect of the general sorrow was ‘as when there is a universal thaw.’” There are considerable variations from the original story in these two legends; but at bottom the essence of the stories is the same, indicating that they must have flowed from one fountain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />Section II<br />Sub-Section V<br />The Deification of the Child</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If there was one who was more deeply concerned in the tragic death of Nimrod than another, it was his wife Semiramis, who, from an originally humble position, had been raised to share with him the throne of Babylon. What, in this emergency shall she do? Shall she quietly forego the pomp and pride to which she has been raised! No. Though the death of her husband has given a rude shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in nowise checked. On the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her husband had been honoured as a hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a god, yea, as the woman’s promised Seed, ”Zero-ashta,” * who was destined to bruise the serpent’s head, and who, in doing so, was to have his own heel bruised.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Zero–in Chaldee, ”the seed”–though we have seen reason to conclude that in Greek it sometimes appeared as Zeira, quite naturally passed also into Zoro, as may be seen from the change of Zerubbabel in the Greek Septuagint to Zoro-babel; and hence Zuro-ashta, ”the seed of the woman” became Zoroaster, the well known name of the head of the fire-worshippers. Zoroaster’s name is also found as Zeroastes (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis). The reader who consults the able and very learned work of Dr. Wilson of Bombay, on the Parsi Religion, will find that there was a Zoroaster long before that Zoroaster who lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspes. In general history, the Zoroaster of Bactria is most frequently referred to; but the voice of antiquity is clear and distinct to the effect that the first and great Zoroaster was an Assyrian or Chaldean (SUIDAS), and that he was the founder of the idolatrous system of Babylon, and therefore Nimrod. It is equally clear also in stating that he perished by a violent death, even as was the case with Nimrod, Tammuz, or Bacchus. The identity of Bacchus and Zoroaster is still further proved by the epithet Pyrisporus, bestowed on Bacchus in the Orphic Hymns. When the primeval promise of Eden began to be forgotten, the meaning of the name Zero-ashta was lost to all who knew only the exoteric doctrine of Paganism; and as ”ashta” signified ”fire” in Chaldee, as well as ”the woman,” and the rites of Bacchus had much to do with fire-worship, ”Zero-ashta” came to be rendered ”the seed of fire”; and hence the epithet Pyrisporus, or Ignigena, ”fire-born,” as applied to Bacchus. From this misunderstanding of the meaning of the name Zero-ashta, or rather from its wilful perversion by the priests, who wished to establish one doctrine for the initiated, and another for the profane vulgar, came the whole story about the unborn infant Bacchus having been rescued from the flames that consumed his mother Semele, when Jupiter came in his glory to visit her. (Note to OVID’S Metam.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There was another name by which Zoroaster was known, and which is not a little instructive, and that is Zar-adas, ”The only seed.” (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis) In WILSON’S Parsi Religion the name is given either Zoroadus, or Zarades. The ancient Pagans, while they recognised supremely one only God, knew also that there was one only seed, on whom the hopes of the world were founded. In almost all nations, not only was a great god known under the name of Zero or Zer, ”the seed,” and a great goddess under the name of Ashta or Isha, ”the woman”; but the great god Zero is frequently characterised by some epithet which implies that he is ”The only One.” Now what can account for such names or epithets? Genesis 3:15 can account for them; nothing else can. The name Zar-ades, or Zoro-adus, also strikingly illustrates the saying of Paul: ”He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is worthy of notice, that the modern system of Parseeism, which dates from the reform of the old fire-worship in the time of Darius Hystaspes, having rejected the worship of the goddess-mother, cast out also from the name of their Zoroaster the name of the ”woman”; and therefore in the Zend, the sacred language of the Parsees, the name of their great reformer is Zarathustra–i.e., ”The Delivering Seed,” the last member of the name coming from Thusht (the root being–Chaldee–nthsh, which drops the initial n), ”to loosen or set loose,” and so to free. Thusht is the infinitive, and ra appended to it is, in Sanscrit, with which the Zend has much affinity, the well known sign of the doer of an action, just as er is in English. The Zend Zarathushtra, then, seems just the equivalent of Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The patriarchs, and the ancient world in general, were perfectly acquainted with the grand primeval promise of Eden, and they knew right well that the bruising of the heel of the promised seed implied his death, and that the curse could be removed from the world only by the death of the grand Deliverer. If the promise about the bruising of the serpent’s head, recorded in Genesis, as made to our first parents, was actually made, and if all mankind were descended from them, then it might be expected that some trace of this promise would be found in all nations. And such is the fact. There is hardly a people or kindred on earth in whose mythology it is not shadowed forth. The Greeks represented their great god Apollo as slaying the serpent Pytho, and Hercules as strangling serpents while yet in his cradle. In Egypt, in India, in Scandinavia, in Mexico, we find clear allusions to the same great truth. ”The evil genius,” says Wilkinson, ”of the adversaries of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently figured under the form of a snake, whose head he is seen piercing with a spear. The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant serpent Calyia is slain by Vishnu, in his avatar of Crishna; and the Scandinavian deity Thor was said to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace.” ”The origin of this,” he adds, ”may be readily traced to the Bible.” In reference to a similar belief among the Mexicans, we find Humboldt saying, that ”The serpent crushed by the great spirit Teotl, when he takes the form of one of the subaltern deities, is the genius of evil–a real Kakodaemon.” Now, in almost all cases, when the subject is examined to the bottom, it turns out that the serpent destroying god is represented as enduring hardships and sufferings that end in his death. Thus the god Thor, while succeeding at last in destroying the great serpent, is represented as, in the very moment of victory, perishing from the venomous effluvia of his breath. The same would seem to be the way in which the Babylonians represented their great serpent-destroyer among the figures of their ancient sphere. His mysterious suffering is thus described by the Greek poet Aratus, whose language shows that when he wrote, the meaning of the representation had been generally lost, although, when viewed in this light of Scripture, it is surely deeply significant:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”A human figure, ‘whelmed with toil, appears;<br />Yet still with name uncertain he remains;<br />Nor known the labour that he thus sustains;<br />But since upon his knees he seems to fall,<br />Him ignorant mortals Engonasis call;<br />And while sublime his awful hands are spread,<br />Beneath him rolls the dragon’s horrid head,<br />And his right foot unmoved appears to rest,<br />Fixed on the writhing monster’s burnished crest.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The constellation thus represented is commonly known by the name of ”The Kneeler,” from this very description of the Greek poet; but it is plain that, as ”Eugonasis” came from the Babylonians, it must be interpreted, not in a Greek, but in a Chaldee sense, and so interpreted, as the action of the figure itself implies, the title of the mysterious sufferer is just ”The Serpent-crusher.” Sometimes, however the actual crushing of the serpent was represented as a much more easy process; yet, even then, death was the ultimate result; and that death of the serpent-destroyer is so described as to leave no doubt whence the fable was borrowed. This is particularly the case with the Indian god Crishna, to whom Wilkinson alludes in the extract already given. In the legend that concerns him, the whole of the primeval promise in Eden is very strikingly embodied. First, he is represented in pictures and images with his foot on the great serpent’s head, and then, after destroying it, he is fabled to have died in consequence of being shot by an arrow in the foot; and, as in the case of Tammuz, great lamentations are annually made for his death. Even in Greece, also, in the classic story of Paris and Achilles, we have a very plain allusion to that part of the primeval promise, which referred to the bruising of the conqueror’s ”heel.” Achilles, the only son of a goddess, was invulnerable in all points except the heel, but there a wound was deadly. At that his adversary took aim, and death was the result.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if there be such evidence still, that even Pagans knew that it was by dying that the promised Messiah was to destroy death and him that has the power of death, that is the Devil, how much more vivid must have been the impression of mankind in general in regard to this vital truth in the early days of Semiramis, when they were so much nearer the fountain-head of all Divine tradition. When, therefore, the name Zoroaster, ”the seed of the woman,” was given to him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false worship and apostacy, there can be no doubt of the meaning which that name was intended to convey. And the fact of the violent death of the hero, who, in the esteem of his partisans, had done so much to bless mankind, to make life happy, and to deliver them from the fear of the wrath to come, instead of being fatal to the bestowal of such a title upon him, favoured rather than otherwise the daring design. All that was needed to countenance the scheme on the part of those who wished an excuse for continued apostacy from the true God, was just to give out that, though the great patron of the apostacy had fallen a prey to the malice of men, he had freely offered himself for the good of mankind. Now, this was what was actually done. The Chaldean version of the story of the great Zoroaster is that he prayed to the supreme God of heaven to take away his life; that his prayer was heard, and that he expired, assuring his followers that, if they cherished due regard for his memory, the empire would never depart from the Babylonians. What Berosus, the Babylonian historian, says of the cutting off of the head of the great god Belus, is plainly to the same effect. Belus, says Berosus, commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, that from the blood thus shed by his own command and with his own consent, when mingled with the earth, new creatures might be formed, the first creation being represented as a sort of a failure. Thus the death of Belus, who was Nimrod, like that attributed to Zoroaster, was represented as entirely voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It seems to have been now only when the dead hero was to be deified, that the secret Mysteries were set up. The previous form of apostacy during the life of Nimrod appears to have been open and public. Now, it was evidently felt that publicity was out of the question. The death of the great ringleader of the apostacy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of judicial rigour, solemnly inflicted. This is well established by the accounts of the deaths of both Tammuz and Osiris. The following is the account of Tammuz, given by the celebrated Maimonides, deeply read in all the learning of the Chaldeans: ”When the false prophet named Thammuz preached to a certain king that he should worship the seven stars and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, that king ordered him to be put to a terrible death. On the night of his death all the images assembled from the ends of the earth into the temple of Babylon, to the great golden image of the Sun, which was suspended between heaven and earth. That image prostrated itself in the midst of the temple, and so did all the images around it, while it related to them all that had happened to Thammuz. The images wept and lamented all the night long, and then in the morning they flew away, each to his own temple again, to the ends of the earth. And hence arose the custom every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and to weep for Thammuz.” There is here, of course, all the extravagance of idolatry, as found in the Chaldean sacred books that Maimonides had consulted; but there is no reason to doubt the fact stated either as to the manner or the cause of the death of Tammuz. In this Chaldean legend, it is stated that it was by the command of a ”certain king” that this ringleader in apostacy was put to death. Who could this king be, who was so determinedly opposed to the worship of the host of heaven? From what is related of the Egyptian Hercules, we get very valuable light on this subject. It is admitted by Wilkinson that the most ancient Hercules, and truly primitive one, was he who was known in Egypt as having, ”by the power of the gods” * (i.e., by the SPIRIT) fought against and overcome the Giants.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name of the true God (Elohim) is plural. Therefore, ”the power of the gods,” and ”of God,” is expressed by the same term.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by the Pagans to him whom they worshipped as the grand deliverer or Messiah, just as the adversaries of the Pagan divinities came to be stigmatised as the ”Giants” who rebelled against Heaven. But let the reader only reflect who were the real Giants that rebelled against Heaven. They were Nimrod and his party; for the ”Giants” were just the ”Mighty ones,” of whom Nimrod was the leader. Who, then, was most likely to head the opposition to the apostacy from the primitive worship? If Shem was at that time alive, as beyond question he was, who so likely as he? In exact accordance with this deduction, we find that one of the names of the primitive Hercules in Egypt was ”Sem.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If ”Sem,” then, was the primitive Hercules, who overcame the Giants, and that not by mere physical force, but by ”the power of God,” or the influence of the Holy Spirit, that entirely agrees with his character; and more than that, it remarkably agrees with the Egyptian account of the death of Osiris. The Egyptians say, that the grand enemy of their god overcame him, not by open violence, but that, having entered into a conspiracy with seventy-two of the leading men of Egypt, he got him into his power, put him to death, and then cut his dead body into pieces, and sent the different parts to so many different cities throughout the country. The real meaning of this statement will appear, if we glance at the judicial institutions of Egypt. Seventy-two was just the number of the judges, both civil and sacred, who, according to Egyptian law, were required to determine what was to be the punishment of one guilty of so high an offence as that of Osiris, supposing this to have become a matter of judicial inquiry. In determining such a case, there were necessarily two tribunals concerned. First, there were the ordinary judges, who had power of life and death, and who amounted to thirty, then there was, over and above, a tribunal consisting of forty-two judges, who, if Osiris was condemned to die, had to determine whether his body should be buried or no, for, before burial, every one after death had to pass the ordeal of this tribunal. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DIODORUS. The words of Diodorus, as printed in the ordinary editions, make the number of the judges simply ”more than forty,” without specifying how many more. In the Codex Coislianus, the number is stated to be ”two more than forty.” The earthly judges, who tried the question of burial, are admitted both by WILKINSON and BUNSEN, to have corresponded in number to the judges of the infernal regions. Now, these judges, over and above their president, are proved from the monuments to have been just forty-two. The earthly judges at funerals, therefore, must equally have been forty-two. In reference to this number as applying equally to the judges of this world and the world of spirits, Bunsen, speaking of the judgment on a deceased person in the world unseen, uses these words in the passage above referred to: ”Forty-two gods (the number composing the earthly tribunal of the dead) occupy the judgment-seat.” Diodorus himself, whether he actually wrote ”two more than forty,” or simply ”more than forty,” gives reason to believe that forty-two was the number he had present to his mind; for he says, that ”the whole of the fable of the shades below,” as brought by Orpheus from Egypt, was ”copied from the ceremonies of the Egyptian funerals,” which he had witnessed at the judgment before the burial of the dead. If, therefore, there were just forty-two judges in ”the shades below,” that even, on the showing of Diodorus, whatever reading of his words be preferred, proves that the number of the judges in the earthly judgment must have been the same.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As burial was refused him, both tribunals would necessarily be concerned; and thus there would be exactly seventy-two persons, under Typho the president, to condemn Osiris to die and to be cut in pieces. What, then, does the statement account to, in regard to the conspiracy, but just to this, that the great opponent of the idolatrous system which Osiris introduced, had so convinced these judges of the enormity of the offence which he had committed, that they gave up the offender to an awful death, and to ignominy after it, as a terror to any who might afterwards tread in his steps. The cutting of the dead body in pieces, and sending the dismembered parts among the different cities, is paralleled, and its object explained, by what we read in the Bible of the cutting of the dead body of the Levite’s concubine in pieces (Judges 19:29), and sending one of the parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel; and the similar step taken by Saul, when he hewed the two yoke of oxen asunder, and sent them throughout all the coasts of his kingdom (1 Sam 11:7). It is admitted by commentators that both the Levite and Saul acted on a patriarchal custom, according to which summary vengeance would be dealt to those who failed to come to the gathering that in this solemn way was summoned. This was declared in so many words by Saul, when the parts of the slaughtered oxen were sent among the tribes: ”Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen.” In like manner, when the dismembered parts of Osiris were sent among the cities by the seventy-two ”conspirators”–in other words, by the supreme judges of Egypt, it was equivalent to a solemn declaration in their name, that ”whosoever should do as Osiris had done, so should it be done to him; so should he also be cut in pieces.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When irreligion and apostacy again arose into the ascendant, this act, into which the constituted authorities who had to do with the ringleader of the apostates were led, for the putting down of the combined system of irreligion and despotism set up by Osiris or Nimrod, was naturally the object of intense abhorrence to all his sympathisers; and for his share in it the chief actor was stigmatised as Typho, <b>or ”The Evil One.”</b> *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Wilkinson admits that different individuals at different times bore this hated name in Egypt. One of the most noted names by which Typho, or the Evil One, was called, was Seth (EPIPHANIUS, Adv. Hoeres). Now Seth and Shem are synonymous, both alike signifying ”The appointed one.” As Shem was a younger son of Noah, being ”the brother of Japhet the elder” (Gen 10:21), and as the pre-eminence was divinely destined to him, the name Shem, ”the appointed one,” had doubtless been given him by Divine direction, either at his birth or afterwards, to mark him out as Seth had been previously marked out as the ”child of promise.” Shem, however, seems to have been known in Egypt as Typho, not only under the name of Seth, but under his own name; for Wilkinson tells us that Typho was characterised by a name that signified ”to destroy and render desert.” (Egyptians) Now the name of Shem also in one of its meanings signifies ”to desolate” or lay waste. So Shem, the appointed one, was by his enemies made Shem, the Desolator or Destroyer–i.e., the Devil.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The influence that this abhorred Typho wielded over the minds of the so-called ”conspirators,” considering the physical force with which Nimrod was upheld, must have been wonderful, and goes to show, that though his deed in regard to Osiris is veiled, and himself branded by a hateful name, he was indeed none other than that primitive Hercules who overcame the Giants by ”the power of God,” by the persuasive might of his Holy Spirit.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In connection with this character of Shem, the myth that makes Adonis, who is identified with Osiris, perish by the tusks of a wild boar, is easily unravelled. * The tusk of a wild boar was a symbol. In Scripture, a tusk is called ”a horn”; among many of the Classic Greeks it was regarded in the very same light. **</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In India, a demon with a ”boar’s face” is said to have gained such power through his devotion, that he oppressed the ”devotees” or worshippers of the gods, who had to hide themselves. (MOOR’S Pantheon) Even in Japan there seems to be a similar myth.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Pausanian admits that some in his day regarded tusks as teeth; but he argues strongly, and, I think, conclusively, for their being considered as ”horns.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When once it is known that a tusk is regarded as a ”horn” according to the symbolism of idolatry, the meaning of the boar’s tusks, by which Adonis perished, is not far to seek. The bull’s horns that Nimrod wore were the symbol of physical power. The boar’s tusks were the symbol of spiritual power. As a ”horn” means power, so a tusk, that is, a horn in the mouth, means ”power in the mouth”; in other words, the power of persuasion; the very power with which ”Sem,” the primitive Hercules, was so signally endowed. Even from the ancient traditions of the Gael, we get an item of evidence that at once illustrates this idea of power in the mouth, and connects it with that great son of Noah, on whom the blessing of the Highest, as recorded in Scripture, did specially rest. The Celtic Hercules was called Hercules Ogmius, which, in Chaldee, is ”Hercules the Lamenter.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Celtic scholars derive the name Ogmius from the Celtic word Ogum, which is said to denote ”the secret of writing”; but Ogum is much more likely to be derived from the name of the god, than the name of the god to be derived from it.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">No name could be more appropriate, none more descriptive of the history of Shem, than this. Except our first parent, Adam, there was, perhaps, never a mere man that saw so much grief as he. Not only did he see a vast apostacy, which, with his righteous feelings, and witness as he had been of the awful catastrophe of the flood, must have deeply grieved him; but he lived to bury SEVEN GENERATIONS of his descendants. He lived 502 years after the flood, and as the lives of men were rapidly shortened after that event, no less than SEVEN generations of his lineal descendants died before him (Gen 11:10-32). How appropriate a name Ogmius, ”The Lamenter or Mourner,” for one who had such a history! Now, how is this ”Mourning” Hercules represented as putting down enormities and redressing wrongs? Not by his club, like the Hercules of the Greeks, but by the force of persuasion. Multitudes were represented as following him, drawn by fine chains of gold and amber inserted into their ears, and which chains proceeded from his mouth. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Sir W. BETHAM’S Gael and Cymbri. In connection with this Ogmius, one of the names of ”Sem,” the great Egyptian Hercules who overcame the Giants, is worthy of notice. That name is Chon. In the Etymologicum Magnum, apud BRYANT, we thus read: ”They say that in the Egyptian dialect Hercules is called Chon.” Compare this with WILKINSON, where Chon is called ”Sem.” Now Khon signifies ”to lament” in Chaldee, and as Shem was Khon–i.e., ”Priest” of the Most High God, his character and peculiar circumstances as Khon ”the lamenter” would form an additional reason why he should be distinguished by that name by which the Egyptian Hercules was known. And it is not to be overlooked, that on the part of those who seek to turn sinners from the error of their ways, there is an eloquence in tears that is very impressive. The tears of Whitefield formed one great part of his power; and, in like manner, the tears of Khon, ”the lamenting” Hercules, would aid him mightily in overcoming the Giants.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is a great difference between the two symbols–the tusks of a boar and the golden chains issuing from the mouth, that draw willing crowds by the ears; but both very beautifully illustrate the same idea–the might of that persuasive power that enabled Shem for a time to withstand the tide of evil that came rapidly rushing in upon the world.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now when Shem had so powerfully wrought upon the minds of men as to induce them to make a terrible example of the great Apostate, and when that Apostate’s dismembered limbs were sent to the chief cities, where no doubt his system had been established, it will be readily perceived that, in these circumstances, if idolatry was to continue–if, above all, it was to take a step in advance, it was indispensable that it should operate in secret. The terror of an execution, inflicted on one so mighty as Nimrod, made it needful that, for some time to come at least, the extreme of caution should be used. In these circumstances, then, began, there can hardly be a doubt, that system of ”Mystery,” which, having Babylon for its centre, has spread over the world. In these Mysteries, under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath, and by means of all the fertile resources of magic, men were gradually led back to all the idolatry that had been publicly suppressed, while new features were added to that idolatry that made it still more blasphemous than before. That magic and idolatry were twin sisters, and came into the world together, we have abundant evidence. ”He” (Zoroaster), says Justin the historian, ”was said to be the first that invented magic arts, and that most diligently studied the motions of the heavenly bodies.” The Zoroaster spoken of by Justin is the Bactrian Zoroaster; but this is generally admitted to be a mistake. Stanley, in his History of Oriental Philosophy, concludes that this mistake had arisen from similarity of name, and that from this cause that had been attributed to the Bactrian Zoroaster which properly belonged to the Chaldean, ”since it cannot be imagined that the Bactrian was the inventor of those arts in which the Chaldean, who lived contemporary with him, was so much skilled.” Epiphanius had evidently come to the same substantial conclusion before him. He maintains, from the evidence open to him in his day, that it was ”Nimrod, that established the sciences of magic and astronomy, the invention of which was subsequently attributed to (the Bactrian) Zoroaster.” As we have seen that Nimrod and the Chaldean Zoroaster are the same, the conclusions of the ancient and the modern inquirers into Chaldean antiquity entirely harmonise. Now the secret system of the Mysteries gave vast facilities for imposing on the senses of the initiated by means of the various tricks and artifices of magic. Notwithstanding all the care and precautions of those who conducted these initiations, enough has transpired to give us a very clear insight into their real character. Everything was so contrived as to wind up the minds of the novices to the highest pitch of excitement, that, after having surrendered themselves implicitly to the priests, they might be prepared to receive anything. After the candidates for initiation had passed through the confessional, and sworn the required oaths, ”strange and amazing objects,” says Wilkinson, ”presented themselves. Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake around them; sometimes it appeared bright and resplendent with light and radiant fire, and then again covered with black darkness, sometimes thunder and lightning, sometimes frightful noises and bellowings, sometimes terrible apparitions astonished the trembling spectators.” Then, at last, the great god, the central object of their worship, Osiris, Tammuz, Nimrod or Adonis, was revealed to them in the way most fitted to soothe their feelings and engage their blind affections. An account of such a manifestation is thus given by an ancient Pagan, cautiously indeed, but yet in such a way as shows the nature of the magic secret by which such an apparent miracle was accomplished: ”In a manifestation which one must not reveal…there is seen on a wall of the temple a mass of light, which appears at first at a very great distance. It is transformed, while unfolding itself, into a visage evidently divine and supernatural, of an aspect severe, but with a touch of sweetness. Following the teachings of a mysterious religion, the Alexandrians honour it as Osiris or Adonis.” From this statement, there can hardly be a doubt that the magical art here employed was none other than that now made use of in the modern phantasmagoria. Such or similar means were used in the very earliest periods for presenting to the view of the living, in the secret Mysteries, those who were dead. We have statements in ancient history referring to the very time of Semiramis, which imply that magic rites were practised for this very purpose; * and as the magic lantern, or something akin to it, was manifestly used in later times for such an end, it is reasonable to conclude that the same means, or similar, were employed in the most ancient times, when the same effects were produced.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* One of the statements to which I refer is contained in the following words of Moses of Chorene in his Armenian History, referring to the answer made by Semiramis to the friends of Araeus, who had been slain in battle by her: ”I have given commands, says Semiramis, to my gods to lick the wounds of Araeus, and to raise him from the dead. The gods, says she, have licked Araeus, and recalled him to life.” If Semiramis had really done what she said she had done, it would have been a miracle. The effects of magic were sham miracles; and Justin and Epiphanius show that sham miracles came in at the very birth of idolatry. Now, unless the sham miracle of raising the dead by magical arts had already been known to be practised in the days of Semiramis, it is not likely that she would have given such an answer to those whom she wished to propitiate; for, on the one hand, how could she ever have thought of such an answer, and on the other, how could she expect that it would have the intended effect, if there was no current belief in the practice of necromancy? We find that in Egypt, about the same age, such magic arts must have been practised, if Manetho is to be believed. ”Manetho says,” according to Josephus, ”that he [the elder Horus, evidently spoken of as a human and mortal king] was admitted to the sight of the gods, and that Amenophis desired the same privilege.” This pretended admission to the right of the gods evidently implied the use of the magic art referred to in the text.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of imposing upon those who were willing to be imposed upon, who were averse to the holy spiritual religion of the living God, and who still hankered after the system that was put down. It was easy for those who controlled the Mysteries, having discovered secrets that were then unknown to the mass of mankind, and which they carefully preserved in their own exclusive keeping, to give them what might seem ocular demonstration, that Tammuz, who had been slain, and for whom such lamentations had been made, was still alive, and encompassed with divine and heavenly glory. From the lips of one so gloriously revealed, or what was practically the same, from the lips of some unseen priest, speaking in his name from behind the scenes, what could be too wonderful or incredible to be believed? Thus the whole system of the secret Mysteries of Babylon was intended to glorify a dead man; and when once the worship of one dead man was established, the worship of many more was sure to follow. This casts light upon the language of the 106th Psalm, where the Lord, upbraiding Israel for their apostacy, says: ”They joined themselves to Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.” Thus, too, the way was paved for bringing in all the abominations and crimes of which the Mysteries became the scenes; for, to those who liked not to retain God in their knowledge, who preferred some visible object of worship, suited to the sensuous feelings of their carnal minds, nothing could seem a more cogent reason for faith or practice than to hear with their own ears a command given forth amid so glorious a manifestation apparently by the very divinity they adored.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The scheme, thus skilfully formed, took effect. Semiramis gained glory from her dead and deified husband; and in course of time both of them, under the names of Rhea and Nin, or ”Goddess-Mother and Son,” were worshipped with an enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and adored. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It would seem that no public idolatry was ventured upon till the reign of the grandson of Semiramis, Arioch or Arius. (Cedreni Compendium)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Wherever the Negro aspect of Nimrod was found an obstacle to his worship, this was very easily obviated. According to the Chaldean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, all that was needful was just to teach that Ninus had reappeared in the person of a posthumous son, of a fair complexion, supernaturally borne by his widowed wife after the father had gone to glory. As the licentious and dissolute life of Semiramis gave her many children, for whom no ostensible father on earth would be alleged, a plea like this would at once sanctify sin, and enable her to meet the feelings of those who were disaffected to the true worship of Jehovah, and yet might have not fancy to bow down before a Negro divinity. From the light reflected on Babylon by Egypt, as well as from the form of the extant images of the Babylonian child in the arms of the goddess-mother, we have every reason to believe that this was actually done. In Egypt the fair Horus, the son of the black Osiris, who was the favourite object of worship, in the arms of the goddess Isis, was said to have been miraculously born in consequence of a connection, on the part of that goddess, with Osiris after his death, and, in point of fact, to have been a new incarnation of that god, to avenge his death on his murderers. It is wonderful to find in what widely-severed countries, and amongst what millions of the human race at this day, who never saw a Negro, a Negro god is worshipped. But yet, as we shall afterwards see, among the civilised nations of antiquity, Nimrod almost everywhere fell into disrepute, and was deposed from his original pre-eminence, expressly ob deformitatem, ”on account of his ugliness.” Even in Babylon itself, the posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all his father’s glory, yet possessing more of his mother’s complexion, came to be the favourite type of the Madonna’s divine son.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This son, thus worshipped in his mother’s arms, was looked upon as invested with all the attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The Lord, so Tammuz was called Adon or Adonis. Under the name of Mithras, he was worshipped as the ”Mediator.” As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8:33). In this character he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the well known symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or Saviour of men, though a god, he was worshipped as the great ”Victim-Man,” who before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered himself as a sacrifice. The Hindoo sacred writings teach that this mysterious offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have ever been offered since. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the exercise of his office as the Remedial god, Vishnu is said to ”extract the thorns of the three worlds.” (MOOR’S Pantheon) ”Thorns” were a symbol of the curse–Genesis 3:18.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Do any marvel at such a statement being found in the sacred books of a Pagan mythology? Why should they? Since sin entered the world there has been only one way of salvation, and that through the blood of the everlasting covenant–a way that all mankind once knew, from the days of righteous Abel downwards. When Abel, ”by faith,” offered unto God his more excellent sacrifice than that of Cain, it was his faith ”in the blood of the Lamb slain,” in the purpose of God ”from the foundation of the world,” and in due time to be actually offered up on Calvary, that gave all the ”excellence” to his offering. If Abel knew of ”the blood of the Lamb,” why should Hindoos not have known of it? One little word shows that even in Greece the virtue of ”the blood of God” had once been known, though that virtue, as exhibited in its poets, was utterly obscured and degraded. That word is Ichor. Every reader of the bards of classic Greece knows that Ichor is the term peculiarly appropriated to the blood of a divinity. Thus Homer refers to it:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”From the clear vein the immortal Ichor flowed,<br />Such stream as issues from a wounded god,<br />Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood,<br />Unlike our gross, diseased terrestrial blood.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, what is the proper meaning of the term Ichor? In Greek it has no etymological meaning whatever; but, in Chaldee, Ichor signifies ”The precious thing.” Such a name, applied to the blood of a divinity, could have only one origin. It bears its evidence on the very face of it, as coming from that grand patriarchal tradition, that led Abel to look forward to the ”precious blood” of Christ, the most ”precious” gift that love Divine could give to a guilty world, and which, while the blood of the only genuine ”Victim-Man,” is at the same time, in deed and in truth, ”The blood of God” (Acts 20:28). Even in Greece itself, though the doctrine was utterly perverted, it was not entirely lost. It was mingled with falsehood and fable, it was hid from the multitude; but yet, in the secret mystic system it necessarily occupied an important place. As Servius tells us that the grand purpose of the Bacchic orgies ”was the purification of souls,” and as in these orgies there was regularly the tearing asunder and the shedding of the blood of an animal, in memory of the shedding of the life’s blood of the great divinity commemorated in them, could this symbolical shedding of the blood of that divinity have no bearing on the ”purification” from sin, these mystic rites were intended to effect? We have seen that the sufferings of the Babylonian Zoroaster and Belus were expressly represented as voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world, and that in connection with crushing the great serpent’s head, which implied the removal of sin and the curse. If the Grecian Bacchus was just another form of the Babylonian divinity, then his sufferings and blood-shedding must have been represented as having been undergone for the same purpose–viz., for the ”purification of souls.” From this point of view, let the well known name of Bacchus in Greece be looked at. The name was Dionysus or Dionusos. What is the meaning of that name? Hitherto it has defied all interpretation. But deal with it as belonging to the language of that land from which the god himself originally came, and the meaning is very plain. D’ion-nuso-s signifies ”THE SIN-BEARER,” * a name entirely appropriate to the character of him whose sufferings were represented as so mysterious, and who was looked up to as the great ”purifier of souls.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The expression used in Exodus 28:38, for ”bearing iniquity” or in a vicarious manner is ”nsha eon” (the first letter eon being ayn). A synonym for eon, ”iniquity,” is aon (the first letter being aleph). In Chaldee the first letter a becomes i, and therefore aon, ”iniquity,” is ion. Then nsha ”to bear,” in the participle active is ”nusha.” As the Greeks had no sh, that became nusa. De, or Da, is the demonstrative pronoun signifying ”That” or ”The great.” And thus ”D’ion-nusa” is exactly ”The great sin-bearer.” That the classic Pagans had the very idea of the imputation of sin, and of vicarious suffering, is proved by what Ovid says in regard to Olenos. Olenos is said to have taken upon him and willingly to have borne the blame of guilt of which he was innocent. Under the load of this imputed guilt, voluntarily taken upon himself, Olenos is represented as having suffered such horror as to have perished, being petrified or turned into stone. As the stone into which Olenos was changed was erected on the holy mountain of Ida, that shows that Olenos must have been regarded as a sacred person. The real character of Olenos, as the ”sin-bearer,” can be very fully established. (see note</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this Babylonian god, known in Greece as ”The sin-bearer,” and in India as the ”Victim-Man,” among the Buddhists of the East, the original elements of whose system are clearly Babylonian, was commonly addressed as the ”Saviour of the world.” It has been all along well enough known that the Greeks occasionally worshipped the supreme god under the title of ”Zeus the Saviour”; but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some suck-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that ”Zeus the Saviour” was only a title of Dionysus, the ”sin-bearing Bacchus,” his character, as ”The Saviour,” appears in quite a different light. In Egypt, the Chaldean god was held up as the great object of love and adoration, as the god through whom ”goodness and truth were revealed to mankind.” He was regarded as the predestined heir of all things; and, on the day of his birth, it was believed that a voice was heard to proclaim, ”The Lord of all the earth is born.” In this character he was styled ”King of kings, and Lord of lords,” it being as a professed representative of this hero-god that the celebrated Sesostris caused this very title to be added to his name on the monuments which he erected to perpetuate the fame of his victories. Not only was he honoured as the great ”World King,” he was regarded as Lord of the invisible world, and ”Judge of the dead”; and it was taught that, in the world of spirits, all must appear before his dread tribunal, to have their destiny assigned them. As the true Messiah was prophesied of under the title of the ”Man whose name was the branch,” he was celebrated not only as the ”Branch of Cush,” but as the ”Branch of God,” graciously given to the earth for healing all the ills that flesh is heir to. * He was worshipped in Babylon under the name of El-Bar, or ”God the Son.” Under this very name he is introduced by Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as the second in the list of Babylonian sovereigns. **</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* This is the esoteric meaning of Virgil’s ”Golden Branch,” and of the Mistletoe Branch of the Druids. The proof of this must be reserved to the Apocalypse of the Past. I may remark, however, in passing, on the wide extent of the worship of a sacred branch. Not only do the Negroes in Africa in the worship of the Fetiche, on certain occasions, make use of a sacred branch (HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies), but even in India there are traces of the same practice. My brother, S. Hislop, Free Church Missionary at Nagpore, informs me that the late Rajah of Nagpore used every year, on a certain day, to go in state to worship the branch of a particular species of tree, called Apta, which had been planted for the occasion, and which, after receiving divine honours, was plucked up, and its leaves distributed by the native Prince among his nobles. In the streets of the city numerous boughs of the same kind of tree were sold, and the leaves presented to friends under the name of sona, or ”gold.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** BEROSUS, in BUNSEN’S Egypt. The name ”El-Bar” is given above in the Hebrew form, as being more familiar to the common reader of the English Bible. The Chaldee form of the name is Ala-Bar, which in the Greek of Berosus, is Ala-Par, with the ordinary Greek termination os affixed to it. The change of Bar into Par in Greek is just on the same principle as Ab, ”father,” in Greek becomes Appa, and Bard, the ”spotted one,” becomes Pardos, &c. This name, Ala-Bar, was probably given by Berosus to Ninyas as the legitimate son and successor of Nimrod. That Ala-Par-os was really intended to designate the sovereign referred to, as ”God the Son,” or ”the Son of God,” is confirmed by another reading of the same name as given in Greek. There the name is Alasparos. Now Pyrsiporus, as applied to Bacchus, means Ignigena, or the ”Seed of Fire”; and Ala-sporos, the ”Seed of God,” is just a similar expression formed in the same way, the name being Grecised.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Under this name he has been found in the sculptures of Nineveh by Layard, the name Bar ”the Son,” having the sign denoting El or ”God” prefixed to it. Under the same name he has been found by Sir H. Rawlinson, the names ”Beltis” and the ”Shining Bar” being in immediate juxtaposition. Under the name of Bar he was worshipped in Egypt in the earliest times, though in later times the god Bar was degraded in the popular Pantheon, to make way for another more popular divinity. In Pagan Rome itself, as Ovid testifies, he was worshipped under the name of the ”Eternal Boy.” * Thus daringly and directly was a mere mortal set up in Babylon in opposition to the ”Son of the Blessed.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* To understand the true meaning of the above expression, reference must be had to a remarkable form of oath among the Romans. In Rome the most sacred form of an oath was (as we learn from AULUS GELLIUS), ”By Jupiter the STONE.” This, as it stands, is nonsense. But translate ”lapidem” [stone] back into the sacred tongue, or Chaldee, and the oath stands, ”By Jove, the Son,” or ”By the son of Jove.” Ben, which in Hebrew is Son, in Chaldee becomes Eben, which also signifies a stone, as may be seen in ”Eben-ezer,” ”The stone of help.” Now as the most learned inquirers into antiquity have admitted that the Roman Jovis, which was anciently the nominative, is just a form of the Hebrew Jehovah, it is evident that the oath had originally been, ”by the son of Jehovah.” This explains how the most solemn and binding oath had been taken in the form above referred to; and,it shows, also, what was really meant when Bacchus, ”the son of Jovis,” was called ”the Eternal Boy.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">(OVID, Metam.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In different portions of this work evidence has been brought to show that Saturn, ”the father of gods and men,” was in one aspect just our first parent Adam. Now, of Saturn it is said that he devoured all his children. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Sometimes he is said to have devoured only his male children; but see SMITH’S (Larger) Classical Dictionary, ”Hera,” where it will be found that the female as well as the male were devoured.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the exoteric story, among those who knew not the actual fact referred to, this naturally appeared in the myth, in the shape in which we commonly find it–viz., that he devoured them all as soon as they were born. But that which was really couched under the statement, in regard to his devouring his children, was just the Scriptural fact of the Fall–viz., that he destroyed them by eating–not by eating them, but by eating the forbidden fruit. When this was the sad and dismal state of matters, the Pagan story goes on to say that the destruction of the children of the father of gods and men was arrested by means of his wife, Rhea. Rhea, as we have already seen, had really as much to do with the devouring of Saturn’s children, as Saturn himself; but, in the progress of idolatry and apostacy, Rhea, or Eve, came to get glory at Saturn’s expense. Saturn, or Adam, was represented as a morose divinity; Rhea, or Eve, exceedingly benignant; and, in her benignity, she presented to her husband a stone bound in swaddling bands, which he greedily devoured, and henceforth the children of the cannibal father were safe. The stone bound in swaddling bands is, in the sacred language, ”Ebn Hatul”; but Ebn-Hat-tul * also signifies ”A sin-bearing son.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Hata, ”sin,” is found also in Chaldee, Hat. Tul is from Ntl, ”to support.” If the reader will look at Horus with his swathes (BRYANT); Diana with the bandages round her legs; the symbolic bull of the Persian swathed in like manner, and even the shapeless log of the Tahitians, used as a god and bound about with ropes (WILLIAMS); he will see, I think, that there must be some important mystery in this swathing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This does not necessarily mean that Eve, or the mother of mankind, herself actually brought forth the promised seed (although there are many myths also to that effect), but that, having received the glad tidings herself, and embraced it, she presented it to her husband, who received it by faith from her, and that this laid the foundation of his own salvation and that of his posterity. The devouring on the part of Saturn of the swaddled stone is just the symbolical expression of the eagerness with which Adam by faith received the good news of the woman’s seed; for the act of faith, both in the Old Testament and in the New, is symbolised by eating. Thus Jeremiah says, ”Thy words were found of me, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer 15:16). This also is strongly shown by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who, while setting before the Jews the indispensable necessity of eating His flesh, and feeding on Him, did at the same time say: ”It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). That Adam eagerly received the good news about the promised seed, and treasured it up in his heart as the life of his soul, is evident from the name which he gave to his wife immediately after hearing it: ”And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living ones” (Gen 3:20).</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The story of the swaddled stone does not end with the swallowing of it, and the arresting of the ruin of the children of Saturn. This swaddled stone was said to be ”preserved near the temple of Delphi, where care was taken to anoint it daily with oil, and to cover it with wool” (MAURICE’S Indian Antiquities). If this stone symbolised the ”sin-bearing son,” it of course symbolised also the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, in whose symbolic covering our first parents were invested when God clothed them in the coats of skins. Therefore, though represented to the eye as a stone, he must have the appropriate covering of wool. When represented as a branch, the branch of God, the branch also was wrapped in wool (POTTER, Religion of Greece). The daily anointing with oil is very significant. If the stone represented the ”sin-bearing son,” what could the anointing of that ”sin-bearing son” daily with oil mean, but just to point him out as the ”Lord’s Anointed,” or the ”Messiah,” whom the idolatrous worshipped in opposition to the true Messiah yet to be revealed?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">One of the names by which this swaddled and anointed stone was called is very strikingly confirmatory of the above conclusion. That name is Baitulos. This we find from Priscian, who, speaking of ”that stone which Saturn is said to have devoured for Jupiter,” adds, whom the Greeks called ”Baitulos.” Now, ”B’hai-tuloh” signifies the ”Life-restoring child.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Tli, Tleh, or Tloh, ”Infans puer” (CLAVIS STOCKII, Chald.), and Hia, or Haya, ”to live, to restore life.” (GESENIUS) From Hia, ”to live,” with digamma prefixed, comes the Greek ”life.” That Hia, when adopted into Greek, was also pronounced Haya, we have evidence in he noun Hiim, ”life,” pronounced Hayyim, which in Greek is represented by ”blood.” The Mosaic principle, that ”the blood was the life,” is thus proved to have been known by others besides the Jews. Now Haya, ”to live or restore life,” with the digamma prefixed, becomes B’haya: and so in Egypt, we find that Bai signified ”soul,” or ”spirit” (BUNSEN), which is the living principle. B’haitulos, then, is the ”Life-restoring child.” P’haya-n is the same god.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The father of gods and men had destroyed his children by eating; but the reception of ”the swaddled stone” is said to have ”restored them to life” (HESIOD, Theogon.). Hence the name Baitulos; and this meaning of the name is entirely in accordance with what is said in Sanchuniathon about the Baithulia made by the Phoenician god Ouranos: ”It was the god Ouranos who devised Baithulia, contriving stones that moved as having life.” If the stone Baitulos represented the ”life-restoring child,” it was natural that that stone should be made, if possible, to appear as having ”life” in itself.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, there is a great analogy between this swaddled stone that represented the ”sin-bearing son,” and that Olenos mentioned by Ovid, who took on him guilt not his own, and in consequence was changed into a stone. We have seen already that Olenos, when changed into a stone, was set up in Phrygia on the holy mountain of Ida. We have reason to believe that the stone which was fabled to have done so much for the children of Saturn, and was set up near the temple of Delphi, was just a representation of this same Olenos. We find that Olen was the first prophet at Delphi, who founded the first temple there (PAUSA Phocica). As the prophets and priests generally bore the names of the gods whom they represented (Hesychius expressly tells us that the priest who represented the great god under the name of the branch in the mysteries was himself called by the name of Bacchus), this indicates one of the ancient names of the god of Delphi. If, then, there was a sacred stone on Mount Ida called the stone of Olenos, and a sacred stone in the precincts of the temple of Delphi, which Olen founded, can there be a doubt that the sacred stone of Delphi represented the same as was represented by the sacred stone of Ida? The swaddled stone set up at Delphi is expressly called by Priscian, in the place already cited, ”a god.” This god, then, that in symbol was divinely anointed, and was celebrated as having restored to life the children of Saturn, father of gods and men, as identified with the Idaean Olenos, is proved to have been regarded as occupying the very place of the Messiah, the great Sin-bearer, who came to bear the sins of men, and took their place and suffered in their room and stead; for Olenos, as we have seen, voluntarily took on him guilt of which he was personally free.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While thus we have seen how much of the patriarchal faith was hid under the mystical symbols of Paganism, there is yet a circumstance to be noted in regard to the swaddled stone, that shows how the Mystery of Iniquity in Rome has contrived to import this swaddled stone of Paganism into what is called Christian symbolism. The Baitulos, or swaddled stone, was a round or globular stone. This globular stone is frequently represented swathed and bound, sometimes with more, sometimes with fewer bandages. In BRYANT, where the goddess Cybele is represented as ”Spes Divina,” or Divine hope, we see the foundation of this divine hope held out to the world in the representation of the swaddled stone at her right hand, bound with four different swathes. In DAVID’S Antiquites Etrusques, we find a goddess represented with Pandora’s box, the source of all ill, in her extended hand, and the swaddled globe depending from it; and in this case that globe has only two bandages, the one crossing the other. And what is this bandage globe of Paganism but just the counterpart of that globe, with a band around it, and the mystic Tau, or cross, on the top of it, that is called ”the type of dominion,” and is frequently represented in the hands of the profane representations of God the Father. The reader does not now need to be told that the cross is the chosen sign and mark of that very God whom the swaddled stone represented; and that when that God was born, it was said, ”The Lord of all the earth is born” (WILKINSON). As the god symbolised by the swaddled stone not only restored the children of Saturn to life, but restored the lordship of the earth to Saturn himself, which by transgression he had lost, it is not to be wondered at that it is said of ”these consecrated stones,” that while ”some were dedicated to Jupiter, and others to the sun,” ”they were considered in a more particular manner sacred to Saturn,” the Father of the gods (MAURICE), and that Rome, in consequence, has put the round stone into the hand of the image, bearing the profaned name of God the Father attached to it, and that from his source the bandaged globe, surmounted with the mark of Tammuz, has become the symbol of dominion throughout all Papal Europe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />Section III<br />The Mother of the Child</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now while the mother derived her glory in the first instance from the divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother in the long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there would be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the Son of God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of man. But there was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to lead any one to anticipate that a woman should ever be invested with attributes that should raise her to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree improbable, therefore, that when the mother was first exhibited with the child in her arms, it should be intended to give divine honours to her. She was doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of the divine Son, and holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it would be counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the promised seed, the world’s only hope. But while this, no doubt, was the design, it is a plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the senses must make the most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new incarnation, when Nimrod was believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was exhibited merely as a child, without any very particular attraction; while the mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all the art of painting and sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty which in reality belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among them; and it is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their minds by her appearance on that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in Babylon, representing her in the guise in which she had fascinated them so much. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Valerius Maximus does not mention anything about the representation of Semiramis with the child in her arms; but as Semiramis was deified as Rhea, whose distinguishing character was that of goddess Mother, and as we have evidence that the name, ”Seed of the Woman,” or Zoroaster, goes back to the earliest times–viz., her own day (CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis), this implies that if there was any image-worship in these times, that ”Seed of the Woman” must have occupied a prominent place in it. As over all the world the Mother and the child appear in some shape or other, and are found on the early Egyptian monuments, that shows that this worship must have had its roots in the primeval ages of the world. If, therefore, the mother was represented in so fascinating a form when singly represented, we may be sure that the same beauty for which she was celebrated would be given to her when exhibited with the child in her arms.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This Babylonian queen was not merely in character coincident with the Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact, the historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as the very embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was identical with Astarte, and Astarte being interpreted, is none other than ”The woman that made towers or encompassing walls”–i.e., Semiramis. The Roman Venus, as is well known, was the Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is historically proved to have been derived from Babylon. Now, what in these circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If the child was to be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the favourite object of worship. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* How extraordinary, yea, frantic, was the devotion in the minds of the Babylonians to this goddess queen, is sufficiently proved by the statement of Herodotus, as to the way in which she required to be propitiated. That a whole people should ever have consented to such a custom as is there described, shows the amazing hold her worship must have gained over them. Nonnus, speaking of the same goddess, calls her ”The hope of the whole world.” (DIONUSIACA in BRYANT) It was the same goddess, as we have seen, who was worshipped at Ephesus, whom Demetrius the silversmith characterised as the goddess ”whom all Asia and the world worshipped” (Acts 19:27). So great was the devotion to this goddess queen, not of the Babylonians only, but of the ancient world in general, that the fame of the exploits of Semiramis has, in history, cast the exploits of her husband Ninus or Nimrod, entirely into the shade.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In regard to the identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus, see note below.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the serpent’s head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant and plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his mortal life had only begun.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman, as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation against the serpent thus: ”She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.” The same was held by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In the uppermost story of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus tells us there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head. Among the Greeks the same thing was symbolised; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of her hands a serpent deprived of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis’ history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be miraculous: and therefore she was called ”Alma Mater,” * ”the Virgin Mother.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The term Alma is the precise term used by Isaiah in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, when announcing, 700 years before the event, that Christ should be born of a Virgin. If the question should be asked, how this Hebrew term Alma (not in a Roman, but a Hebrew sense) could find its way to Rome, the answer is, Through Etruria, which had an intimate connection with Assyria. The word ”mater” itself, from which comes our own ”mother,” is originally Hebrew. It comes from Heb. Msh, ”to draw forth,” in Egyptian Ms, ”to bring forth” (BUNSEN), which in the Chaldee form becomes Mt, whence the Egyptian Maut, ”mother.” Erh or Er, as in English (and a similar form is found in Sanscrit), is, ”The doer.” So that Mater or Mother signifies ”The bringer forth.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It may be thought an objection to the above account of the epithet Alma, that this term is often applied to Venus, who certainly was no virgin. But this objection is more apparent than real. On the testimony of Augustine, himself an eye-witness, we know that the rites of Vesta, emphatically ”the virgin goddess of Rome,” under the name of Terra, were exactly the same as those of Venus, the goddess of impurity and licentiousness (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate Dei). Augustine elsewhere says that Vesta, the virgin goddess, ”was by some called Venus.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even in the mythology of our own Scandinavian ancestors, we have a remarkable evidence that Alma Mater, or the Virgin Mother, had been originally known to them. One of their gods called Heimdal, who is described in the most exalted terms, as having such quick perceptions as that he could hear the grass growing on the ground, or the wool on the sheep’s back, and whose trumpet, when it blew, could be heard through all the worlds, is called by the paradoxical name, ”the son of nine virgins.” (MALLET) Now this obviously contains an enigma. Let the language in which the religion of Odin was originally delivered–viz., the Chaldee, be brought to bear upon it, and the enigma is solved at once. In Chaldee ”the son of nine virgins” is Ben-Almut-Teshaah. But in pronunciation this is identical with ”Ben-Almet-Ishaa,” ”the son of the virgin of salvation.” That son was everywhere known as the ”saviour seed.” ”Zera-hosha” and his virgin mother consequently claimed to be ”the virgin of salvation.” Even in the very heavens the God of Providence has constrained His enemies to inscribe a testimony to the great Scriptural truth proclaimed by the Hebrew prophet, that a ”virgin should bring forth a son, whose name should be called Immanuel.” The constellation Virgo, as admitted by the most learned astronomers, was dedicated to Ceres (Dr. JOHN HILL, in his Urania, and Mr. A. JAMIESON, in his Celestial Atlas), who is the same as the great goddess of Babylon, for Ceres was worshipped with the babe at her breast (SOPHOCLES, Antigone), even as the Babylonian goddess was. Virgo was originally the Assyrian Venus, the mother of Bacchus or Tammuz. Virgo then, was the Virgin Mother. Isaiah’s prophecy was carried by the Jewish captives to Babylon, and hence the new title bestowed upon the Babylonian goddess.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for thousands of years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin was to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no Popish or Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Thibet and China, and not only found a mother and a child worshipped as at home, but that mother worshipped under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna, ”Virgo Deipara,” ”The Virgin mother of God,” * and that, too, in regions where they could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus Christ having ever been known.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See Sir J. F. DAVIS’S China, and LAFITAN, who says that the accounts sent home by the Popish missionaries bore that the sacred books of the Chinese spoke not merely of a Holy Mother, but of a Virgin Mother. For further evidence on this subject, see note</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The primeval promise that the ”seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head,” naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous birth. Priestcraft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the fulfilment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the first to whom that honour was given. The highest titles were accordingly bestowed upon her. She was called the ”queen of heaven.” (Jer 44:17,18,19,25) *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* When Ashta, or ”the woman,” came to be called the ”queen of heaven,” the name ”woman” became the highest title of honour applied to a female. This accounts for what we find so common among the ancient nations of the East, that queens and the most exalted personages were addressed by the name of ”woman.” ”Woman” is not a complimentary title in our language; but formerly it had been applied by our ancestors in the very same way as among the Orientals; for our word ”Queen” is derived from Cwino, which in the ancient Gothic just signified a woman.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt she was styled Athor–i.e., ”the Habitation of God,” (BUNSEN) to signify that in her dwelt all the ”fulness of the Godhead.” To point out the great goddess-mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at once the Infinite and Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was engraven upon one of her temples in Egypt: ”I am all that has been, or that is, or that shall be. No mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.” (Ibid.) In Greece she had the name of Hesita, and amongst the Romans, Vesta, which is just a modification of the same name–a name which, though it has been commonly understood in a different sense, really meant ”The Dwelling-place.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Hestia, in Greek, signifies ”a house” or ”dwelling.” This is usually thought to be a secondary meaning of the word, its proper meaning being believed to be ”fire.” But the statements made in regard to Hestia, show that the name is derived from Hes or Hese, ”to cover, to shelter,” which is the very idea of a house, which ”covers” or ”shelters” from the inclemency of the weather. The verb ”Hes” also signifies ”to protect,” to ”show mercy,” and from this evidently comes the character of Hestia as ”the protectress of suppliants.” Taking Hestia as derived from Hes, ”to cover,” or ”shelter,” the following statement of Smith is easily accounted for: ”Hestia was the goddess of domestic life, and the giver of all domestic happiness; as such she was believed to dwell in the inner part of every house, and to have invented the art of building houses.” If ”fire” be supposed to be the original idea of Hestia, how could ”fire” ever have been supposed to be ”the builder of houses”! But taking Hestia in the sense of the Habitation or Dwelling-place, though derived from Hes, ”to shelter,” or ”cover,” it is easy to see how Hestia would come to be identified with ”fire.” The goddess who was regarded as the ”Habitation of God” was known by the name of Ashta, ”The Woman”; while ”Ashta” also signified ”The fire”; and thus Hestia or Vesta, as the Babylonian system was developed, would easily come to be regarded as ”Fire,” or ”the goddess of fire.” For the reason that suggested the idea of the Goddess-mother being a Habitation, see note below.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or Vesta addressed in the Orphic Hymns:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Daughter of Saturn, venerable dame,<br />Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,<br />In thee the gods have fix’d their DWELLING-PLACE,<br />Strong stable basis of the mortal race.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns: Hymn to Vesta. Though Vesta is here called the daughter of Saturn, she is also identified in all the Pantheons with Cybele or Rhea, the wife of Saturn.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even when Vesta is identified with fire, this same character of Vesta as ”The Dwelling-place” still distinctly appears. Thus Philolaus, speaking of a fire in the middle of the centre of the world, calls it ”The Vesta of the universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods.” In Babylon, the title of the goddess-mother as the Dwelling-place of God was Sacca, or in the emphatic form, Sacta, that is, ”The Tabernacle.” Hence, at this day, the great goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god whom they represent, are called ”Sacti,” or the ”Tabernacle.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* KENNEDY and MOOR. A synonym for Sacca, ”a tabernacle,” is ”Ahel,” which, with the points, is pronounced ”Ohel.” From the first form of the word, the name of the wife of the god Buddha seems to be derived, which, in KENNEDY, is Ahalya, and in MOOR’S Pantheon, Ahilya. From the second form, in like manner, seems to be derived the name of the wife of the Patriarch of the Peruvians, ”Mama Oello.” (PRESCOTT’S Peru) Mama was by the Peruvians used in the Oriental sense: Oello, in all likelihood, was used in the same sense.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God, not only all power, but all grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of gentleness and mercy was regarded as centred in her; and when death had closed her career, while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, * to express the celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of ”D’Iune,” ** or ”The Dove,” or without the article, ”Juno”–the name of the Roman ”queen of heaven,” which has the very same meaning; and under the form of a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DIODORUS SIC. In connection with this the classical reader will remember the title of one of the fables in OVID’S Metamorphoses. ”Semiramis into a pigeon.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Dione, the name of the mother of Venus, and frequently applied to Venus herself, is evidently the same name as the above. Dione, as meaning Venus, is clearly applied by Ovid to the Babylonian goddess. (Fasti)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth, as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for ”Z’emir-amit” means ”The branch-bearer.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Ze, ”the” or ”that,” emir, ”branch,” and amit, ”bearer,” in the feminine. HESYCHIUS says that Semiramis is a name for a ”wild pigeon.” The above explanation of the original meaning of the name Semiramis, as referring to Noah’s wild pigeon (for it was evidently a wild one, as the tame one would not have suited the experiment), may account for its application by the Greeks to any wild pigeon.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch, there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great event. ”A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the Assyrian ”Juno,” or ”The Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air. Thus Julius Firmicus says: ”The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element] under the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus.” Why was air thus identified with Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the ”Holy Ghost.” The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the statement of Proclus, that ”Juno imports the generation of soul.” Whence could the soul–the spirit of man–be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God. In accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in the ”Orphic Hymns”:</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”O royal Juno, of majestic mien,<br />Aerial formed, divine, Jove’s blessed queen,<br />Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,<br />The race of mortals is thy constant care;<br />The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,<br />Which nourish life, which every life desires;<br />Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone<br />Producing all things, mortal life is known;<br />All natures show thy temperament divine,<br />And universal sway alone is thine,<br />With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea<br />And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns. Every classical reader must be aware of the identification of Juno with the air. The following, however, as still further illustrative of the subject from Proclus, may not be out of place: ”The series of our sovereign mistress Juno, beginning from on high, pervades the last of things, and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air; for air is a symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, ”Semeion.” (BRYANT) What is the meaning of Semeion? It is evidently ”The Habitation”; * and the ”golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell in her–even the Spirit of God.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Ze, ”that,” or ”the great,” and ”Maaon,” or Maion, ”a habitation,” which, in the Ionic dialect, in which Lucian, the describer of the goddess, wrote, would naturally become Meion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on her, when such winning characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all, her images presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, ”the heavenly Venus,” the queen of beauty, who assured her worshippers of salvation, while giving loose reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite–no wonder that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored. Under the name of the ”Mother of the gods,” the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost universal worship. ”The Mother of the gods,” says Clericus, ”was worshipped by the Persians, the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most profound religious veneration.” Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian goddess was worshipped in the heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded Britain, found that the priests of this same goddess, known by the name of Druids, had been there before him. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* CAESAR, De Bello Gallico. The name Druid has been thought to be derived from the Greek Drus, an oak tree, or the Celtic Deru, which has the same meaning; but this is obviously a mistake. In Ireland, the name for a Druid is Droi, and in Wales Dryw; and it will be found that the connection of the Druids with the oak was more from the mere similarity of their name to that of the oak, than because they derived their name from it. The Druidic system in all its parts was evidently the Babylonian system. Dionysius informs us, that the rites of Bacchus were duly celebrated in the British Islands and Strabo cites Artemidorus to show that, in an island close to Britain, Ceres and Proserpine were venerated with rites similar to the orgies of Samothrace. It will be seen from the account of the Druidic Ceridwen and her child, afterwards to be noticed (see Chapter IV, Section III), that there was a great analogy between her character and that of the great goddess-mother of Babylon. Such was the system; and the name Dryw, or Droi, applied to the priests, is in exact accordance with that system. The name Zero, given in Hebrew or the early Chaldee, to the son of the great goddess queen, in later Chaldee became ”Dero.” The priest of Dero, ”the seed,” was called, as is the case in almost all religions, by the name of his god; and hence the familiar name ”Druid” is thus proved to signify the priest of ”Dero”–the woman’s promised ”seed.” The classical Hamadryads were evidently in like manner priestesses of ”Hamed-dero,”–”the desired seed”–i.e., ”the desire of all nations.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies, that in Egypt this ”queen of heaven” was ”the greatest and most worshipped of all the divinities.” Wherever her worship was introduced, it is amazing what fascinating power it exerted. Truly, the nations might be said to be ”made drunk” with the wine of her fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in the days of Jeremiah drink of her wine cup, so bewitched were they with her idolatrous worship, that even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up. While dwelling in Egypt as forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism around them, they were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against them, if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but his warnings were in vain. ”Then,” saith the prophet, ”all the men which knew that their wives had burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee; but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil” (Jer 44:15-17). Thus did the Jews, God’s own peculiar people, emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The worship of the goddess-mother with the child in her arms continued to be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the Gospel had come in power among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess-queen would have been overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshipped with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open and avowed Pagans. The consequence was, that when, in AD 325, the Nicene Council was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius, who denied the true divinity of Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without the help of men who gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level with the Creator, to set the Virgin-mother side by side with her Son. At the Council of Nice, says the author of ”Nimrod,” ”The Melchite section”–that is, the representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt–”held that there were three persons in the Trinity–the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their Son.” In reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council, Father Newman speaks exultingly of these discussions as tending to the glorification of Mary. ”Thus,” says he, ”the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Thus, there was a wonder in Heaven; a throne was seen far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as the morning star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne, robes pure as the heavens, and a sceptre over all. And who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that wisdom, and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and far, and holy hope, exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created from the beginning before the world, in God’s counsels, and in Jerusalem was her power? The vision is found in the Apocalypse ‘a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* NEWMAN’S Development. The intelligent reader will see at a glance the absurdity of applying this vision of the ”woman” of the Apocalypse to the Virgin Mary. John expressly declares that what he saw was a ”sign” or ”symbol” (semeion). If the woman here is a literal woman, the woman that sits on the seven hills must be the same. ”The woman” in both cases is a ”symbol.” ”The woman” on the seven hills is the symbol of the false church; the woman clothed with the sun, of the true church–the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The votaries of Mary,” adds he, ”do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy.” This is the very poetry of blasphemy. It contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to? It just amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and worthy of Divine honours, His mother, from whom He derived merely His humanity, must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all creatures, and be worshipped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of His mother. Such is Popery in the nineteenth century; yea, such is Popery in England. It was known already that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its blasphemies; that in Lisbon a church was to be seen with these words engraven on its front, ”To the virgin goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY, have dedicated this temple.” (Journal of Professor GIBSON, in Scottish Protestant) But when till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the great goddess-mother. The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of Babylon. The ”Queen of Heaven” in the one system is the same as the ”Queen of Heaven” in the other. The goddess worshipped in Babylon and Egypt as the Tabernacle or Habitation of God, is identical with her who, under the name of Mary, is called by Rome ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” ”the awful Dwelling-place,” * ”the Mansion of God” (Pancarpium Marioe), the ”Tabernacle of the Holy Ghost” (Garden of the Soul), the ”Temple of the Trinity” (Golden Manual in Scottish Protestant).</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Golden Manual in Scottish Protestant. The word here used for ”Dwelling-place” in the Latin of this work is a pure Chaldee word–”Zabulo,” and is from the same verb as Zebulun (Gen 30:20), the name which was given by Leah to her son, when she said ”Now will my husband dwell with me.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Some may possibly be inclined to defend such language, by saying that the Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import? Now, no doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor 3:16), ”Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is not only true, but it is a great truth, and a blessed one–a truth that enhances every comfort when enjoyed, and takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes, that every genuine Christian has less or more experience of what is contained in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor 6:16), ”Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It must also be admitted, and gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the Persons of the glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John 14:23), ”If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” But while admitting all this, on examination it will be found that the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these expressions, however apparently similar, are essentially different. When it is said that a believer is ”a temple of God,” or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the meaning is (Eph 3:17) that ”Christ dwells in the heart by faith.” But when Rome says that Mary is ”The Temple” or ”Tabernacle of God,” the meaning is the exact Pagan meaning of the term–viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a union akin to the hypostatical union between the divine and human nature of Christ. The human nature of Christ is the ”Tabernacle of God,” inasmuch as the Divine nature has veiled its glory in such a way, by assuming our nature, that we can come near without overwhelming dread to the Holy God. To this glorious truth John refers when he says (John 1:14), ”The Word was made flesh, and dwelt (literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In this sense, Christ, the God-man, is the only ”Tabernacle of God.” Now, it is precisely in this sense that Rome calls Mary the ”Tabernacle of God,” or of the ”Holy Ghost.” Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation of the Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given to Mary: ”Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the city of God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and exaltation, and eternal glorification…Is it most clear that this is true of the holy church? and in like manner also equally true of the most holy sacrament of the Lord’s body? Is it (true) of every one of us in as far as we are truly Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this mystery (as existing) in a peculiar manner in the most holy Mother of our Lord.” (Pancarpium Marioe) Then the author, after endeavouring to show that ”Mary is rightly considered as the Tabernacle of God with men,” and that in a peculiar sense, a sense different from that in which all Christians are the ”temple of God,” thus proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the Tabernacle: ”Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the Tabernacle of God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become man.” (Ibid.) Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least is shared with her. The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards of two hundred years ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented of its blasphemies? No, the very reverse. The quotation already given from Father Newman proves this; but there is still stronger proof. In a recently published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more clearly unfolded. While Mary is called ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” and the ”TEMPLE of the Trinity,” the following versicle and response will show in what sense she is regarded as the temple of the Holy Ghost: ”V. The Lord himself created HER in the Holy Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,” &c. This astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with the Holy Ghost, when it speaks of her ”being poured out” on ”all the works of God”; and that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman, regarded as the ”Tabernacle” or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon. Where is such language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in the dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and centre of the world’s enlightenment.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on Mary have not one shadow of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the Babylonian idolatry. Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas. Had these pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent the mother of our Lord, naturally they would have been cast either in the one mould or the other. But it was not so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with raven locks, the Madonna was always represented with blue eyes and golden hair, a complexion entirely different form the Jewish complexion, which naturally would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord, but which precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with golden or yellow hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype, to which they were all made to correspond. The ”yellow-haired Ceres,” might not have been accounted of any weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for it might have been supposed in that case that the epithet ”yellow-haired” was borrowed from the corn that was supposed to be under her guardian care. But many other goddesses have the very same epithet applied to them. Europa, whom Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is called ”The yellow-haired Europa.” (OVID, Fasti) Minerva is called by Homer ”the blue-eyed Minerva,” and by Ovid ”the yellow-haired”; the huntress Diana, who is commonly identified with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as ”the yellow-haired daughter of Jupiter,” a title which the pale face of the silver moon could surely never have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by Theocritus as ”yellow-haired.” Venus herself is frequently called ”Aurea Venus,” the ”golden Venus.” (HOMER’S Iliad) The Indian goddess Lakshmi, the ”Mother of the Universe,” is described as of ”a golden complexion.” (Asiatic Researches) Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, was called ”the yellow-haired Ariadne.” (HESIOD, Theogonia) Thus does Dryden refer to her golden or yellow hair:</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Where the rude waves in Dian’s harbour play,<br />The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;<br />There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,<br />Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Gorgon Medusa before her transformation, while celebrated for her beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Medusa once had charms: to gain her love<br />A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.<br />They who have seen her, own they ne’er did trace<br />More moving features in a sweeter face;<br />But above all, her length of hair they own<br />In golden ringlets waves, and graceful shone.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic tales of the north, which was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish goddess of Syria, who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified with Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. ”The Ellewoman,” such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, ”is fair,” says the introduction to the ”Danish Tales” of Hans Andersen, ”and gold-haired, and plays most sweetly on a stringed instrument.” ”She is frequently seen sitting on the surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a golden comb.” Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow’s head and neck were gilded. (HERODOTUS and WILKINSON) When, therefore, it is known that the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a fair complexion and with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented, <b>only because she had been copied form the same prototype as the Pagan divinities?</b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly their own. But the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the heads of the so-called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if His head had been merely surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretence for saying that that was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy mount His face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass of Scripture, do we ever read that His head was surrounded with a disk, or a circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is found in he artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were the well known symbols of the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. From Pompeii there is a representation of Circe, ”the daughter of the Sun” with her head surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they correspond. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The explanation of the figure is thus given in Pompeii: ”One of them [the paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of the antidote given him by Mercury [it is well known that Circe had a 'golden cup,' even as the Venus of Babylon had], draws his sword, and advances to avenge his companions,” who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into swine. The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by Homer; Ulysses himself being the narrator:</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Hence, seek the sty, there wallow with thy friends,<br />She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh<br />My Falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,<br />Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,<br />Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,<br />And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:<br />‘Say, who art thou,’” &c.–COWPER’S Odyssey</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”This picture,” adds the author of Pompeii, ”is remarkable, as teaching us the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which the heads of saints are often surrounded…This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be ‘the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.’ It belongs with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors, with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and customs, into the use of the Church.” The emperors here get rather more than a fair share of the blame due to them. It was not the emperors that brought ”Pagan superstition” into the Church, so much as the Bishop of Rome. See Chapter VII, Section II.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, could any one possibly believe that all this coincidence could be accidental. Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled the Virgin Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries, is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus ”the Son,” as the rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry. What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus? When she was worshipped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of His glorious character, as the name of Jesus. He was called ”Zoro-ashta,” ”the seed of the woman.” But that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against those in the days of old who worshipped that ”image of jealousy, provoking to jealousy.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Ezekiel 8:3. There have been many speculations about what this ”image of jealousy” could be. But when it is known that the grand feature of ancient idolatry was just the worship of the Mother and the child, and that child as the Son of God incarnate, all is plain. Compare verses 3 and 5 with verse 14, and it will be seen that the ”women weeping for Tammuz” were weeping close beside the image of jealousy.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to the infant in the arms of the Romish Madonna, make it less the ”image of jealousy,” less offensive to the Most High, less fitted to provoke His high displeasure, when it is evident that that infant is worshipped as the child of her who was adored as Queen of Heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time the ”Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Image-worship in every case the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it wonderful that such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God against the Romish apostacy, and that the vials of this tremendous wrath are destined to be outpoured upon its guilty head? If these things be true (and gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines, who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy Trinity consisted of ”the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son”? (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, July, 1852) Is there one who would not shrink with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a Church that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the following lines?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Heart of Jesus, I adore thee;<br />Heart of Mary, I implore thee;<br />Heart of Joseph, pure and just;<br />IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* What every Christian must Know and Do. By the Rev. J. FURNISS. Published by James Duffy, Dublin. The edition of this Manual of Popery quoted above, besides the blasphemy it contains, contains most immoral principles, teaching distinctly the harmlessness of fraud, if only kept within due bounds. On this account, a great outcry having been raised against it, I believe this edition has been withdrawn from general circulation. The genuineness of the passage above given is, however, beyond all dispute. I received myself from a fried in Liverpool a copy of the edition containing these words, which is now in my possession, having previously seen them in a copy in the possession of the Rev. Richard Smyth of Armagh. It is not in Ireland, however, only, that such a trinity is exhibited for the worship of Romanists. In a Card, or Fly-leaf, issued by the Popish priests of Sunderland, now lying before me, with the heading ”Paschal Duty, St. Mary’s Church, Bishopwearmouth, 1859,” the following is the 4th admonition given to the ”Dear Christians” to whom it is addressed:</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”4. And never forget the acts of a good Christian, recommended to you so often during the renewal of the Mission.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Blessed be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.<br />Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart, my life, and my soul.<br />Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me always; and in my last agony,<br />Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, receive my last breath. Amen.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To induce the adherents of Rome to perform this ”act of a good Christian,” a considerable bribe is held out. In p. 30 of Furniss’ Manual above referred to, under the head ”Rule of Life,” the following passage occurs: ”In the morning, before you get up, make the sign of the cross, and say, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. (Each time you say this prayer, you get an indulgence of 100 days, which you can give to the souls in Purgatory)!” I must add that the title of Furniss’ book, as given above, is the title of Mr. Smyth’s copy. The title of the copy in my possession is ”What every Christian must Know.” London: Richardson & Son, 147 Strand. Both copies alike have the blasphemous words given in the text, and both have the ”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name? Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of Ireland from tender infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest books of catechetical instruction is presented as the grand object of devotion to the adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth with the express ”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen,” Popish Archbishop of Dublin. Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan Babylonians, so did the Egyptians, so do the Hindoos at this hour, in the very same sense in which Rome does. They all admitted A trinity, but did they worship THE Triune Jehovah, the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one say with such evidence before him, that Rome does so? <b>Away then, with the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian!</b> There might once have been some palliation for entertaining such a supposition; but every day the ”Grand Mystery” is revealing itself more and more in its true character. There is not, and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in ”Babylon.” ”Come out of her, my people,” is the loud and express command of God. Those who disobey that command, do it at their peril.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the exoteric doctrine of Greece and Rome, the characters of Cybele, the mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of love, are generally very distinct, insomuch that some minds may perhaps find no slight difficulty in regard to the identification of these two divinities. But that difficulty will disappear, if the fundamental principle of the Mysteries be borne in mind–viz., that at bottom they recognised only Adad, ”The One God.” Adad being Triune, this left room, when the Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity took shape, for three different FORMS of divinity–the father, the mother, and the son; but all the multiform divinities with which the Pagan world abounded, whatever diversities there were among them, were resolved substantially into so many manifestations of one or other of these divine persons, or rather of two, for the first person was generally in the background. We have distinct evidence that this was the case. Apuleius tells us, that when he was initiated, the goddess Isis revealed herself to him as ”The first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation of the gods and goddesses…WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth venerated, and under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety of appellations”; and going over many of these appellations, she declares herself to be at once ”Pessinuntica, the mother of the gods [i.e. Cybele], and Paphian Venus.” Now, as this was the case in the later ages of the Mysteries, so it must have been the case from the very beginning; because they SET OUT, and necessarily set out, with the doctrine of the UNITY of the Godhead. This, of course, would give rise to no little absurdity and inconsistency in the very nature of the case. Both Wilkinson and Bunsen, to get rid of the inconsistencies they have met with in the Egyptian system, have found it necessary to have recourse to substantially the same explanation as I have done. Thus we find Wilkinson saying: ”I have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form of different deities, which, though it appears at first sight to present some difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we consider that each of those whose figures or emblem were adopted, was only an EMANATION, or deified attribute of the SAME GREAT BEING to whom they ascribed various characters, according to the several offices he was supposed to perform.” The statement of Bunsen is to the same effect, and it is this: ”Upon these premises, we think ourselves justified in concluding that the two series of gods were originally identical, and that, in the GREAT PAIR of gods, all those attributes were concentrated, from the development of which, in various personifications, that mythological system sprang up which we have been already considering.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The bearing of all this upon the question of the identification of Cybele and Astarte, or Venus, is important. Fundamentally, there was but one goddess–the Holy Spirit, represented as female, when the distinction of sex was wickedly ascribed to the Godhead, through a perversion of the great Scripture idea, that all the children of God are at once begotten of the Father, and born of the Spirit; and under this idea, the Spirit of God, as Mother, was represented under the form of a dove, in memory of the fact that that Spirit, at the creation, ”fluttered”–for so, as I have observed, is the exact meaning of the term in Genesis 1:2–”on the face of the waters.” This goddess, then, was called Ops, ”the flutterer,” or Juno, ”The Dove,” or Khubele, ”The binder with cords,” which last title had reference to ”the bands of love, the cords of a man” (called in Hosea 11:4, ”Khubeli Adam”), with which not only does God @mL3 continually, by His providential goodness, draw men unto Himself, but with which our first parent Adam, through the Spirit’s indwelling, while the covenant of Eden was unbroken, was sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely dwelt on in Pagan story, and the evidence is very abundant; but I cannot enter upon it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that the Romans joined the two terms Juno and Khubele–or, as it is commonly pronounced, Cybele–together; and on certain occasions invoked their supreme goddess, under the name of Juno Covella–that is, ”The dove that binds with cords.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the reader looks, in Layard, at the triune emblem of the supreme Assyrian divinity, he will see this very idea visibly embodied. There the wings and tail of the dove have two bands associated with them instead of feet (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains).</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In reference to events after the Fall, Cybele got a new idea attached to her name. Khubel signifies not only to ”bind with cords,” but also ”to travail in birth”; and therefore Cybele appeared as the ”Mother of the gods,” by whom all God’s children must be born anew or regenerated. But, for this purpose, it was held indispensable that there should be a union in the first instance with Rhea, ”The gazer,” the human ”mother of gods and men,” that the ruin she had introduced might be remedied. Hence the identification of Cybele and Rhea, which in all the Pantheons are declared to be only two different names of the same goddess, though, as we have seen, these goddesses were in reality entirely distinct. This same principle was applied to all the other deified mothers. They were deified only through the supposed miraculous identification with them of Juno or Cybele–in other words, of the Holy Spirit of God. Each of these mothers had her own legend, and had special worship suited thereto; but, as in all cases, she was held to be an incarnation of the one spirit of God, as the great Mother of all, the attributes of that one Spirit were always pre-supposed as belonging to her. This, then, was the case with the goddess recognised as Astarte or Venus, as well as with Rhea. Though there were points of difference between Cybele, or Rhea, and Astarte or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus, Layard shows that there were also distinct points of contact between them. Cybele or Rhea was remarkable for her turreted crown. Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented with a similar crown. Cybele, or Rhea, was drawn by lions; Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented as standing on a lion. The worship of Mylitta, or Astarte, was a mass of moral pollution (HERODOTUS). The worship of Cybele, under the name of Terra, was the same (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate).</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis, as the first deified man was her husband. But it is evident that it was some time after the Mysteries began that this deification took place; for it was not till after Semiramis was dead that she was exalted to divinity, and worshipped under the form of a dove. When, however, the Mysteries were originally concocted, the deeds of Eve, who, through her connection with the serpent, brought forth death, must necessarily have occupied a place; for the Mystery of sin and death lies at the very foundation of all religion, and in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem and Ham, all men must have been well acquainted with the facts of the Fall. At first the sin of Eve may have been admitted in all its sinfulness (otherwise men generally would have been shocked, especially when the general conscience had been quickened through the zeal of Shem); but when a woman was to be deified, the shape that the mystic story came to assume shows that that sin was softened, yea, that it changed its very character, and that by a perversion of the name given to Eve, as ”the mother of all living ones,” that is, all the regenerate, she was glorified as the authoress of spiritual life, and, under the very name Rhea, was recognised as the mother of the gods. Now, those who had the working of the Mystery of Iniquity did not find it very difficult to show that this name Rhea, originally appropriate to the mother of mankind, was hardly less appropriate for her who was the actual mother of the gods, that is, of all the deified mortals. Rhea, in the active sense, signifies ”the Gazing woman,” but in the passive it signifies ”The woman gazed at,” that is, ”The beauty,” and thus, under one and the same term, the mother of mankind and the mother of the Pagan gods, that is, Semiramis, were amalgamated; insomcuh, that now, as is well known, Rhea is currently recognised as the ”Mother of gods and men” (HESIOD, Theogon). It is not wonderful, therefore that the name Rhea is found applied to her, who, by the Assyrians, was worshipped in the very character of Astarte or Venus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Virgin Mother of Paganism</span></b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Almost all the Tartar princes,” says SALVERTE (Des Sciences Occultes), ”trace their genealogy to a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sun-beam, or some equally miraculous means.” In India, the mother of Surya, the sun-god, who was born to destroy the enemies of the gods, is said to have become pregnant in this way, a beam of the sun having entered her womb, in consequence of which she brought forth the sun-god. Now the knowledge of this widely diffused myth casts light on the secret meaning of the name Aurora, given to the wife of Orion, to whose marriage with that ”mighty hunter” Homer refers (Odyssey). While the name Aur-ora, in the physical sense, signifies also ”pregnant with light”; and from ”ohra,” ”to conceive” or be ”pregnant,” we have in Greek, the word for a wife. As Orion, according to Persian accounts, was Nimrod; and Nimrod, under the name of Ninus, was worshipped as the son of his wife, when he came to be deified as the sun-god, that name Aurora, as applied to his wife, is evidently intended to convey the very same idea as prevails in Tartary and India. These myths of the Tartars and Hindoos clearly prove that the Pagan idea of the miraculous conception had not come from any intermixture of Christianity with that superstition, but directly from the promise of ”the seed of the woman.” But how, it may be asked, could the idea of being pregnant with a sunbeam arise? There is reason to believe that it came from one of the natural names of the sun. From the Chaldean zhr, ”to shine,” comes, in the participle active, zuhro or zuhre, ”the Shiner”; and hence, no doubt, from zuhro, ”the Shiner,” under the prompting of a designing priesthood, men would slide into the idea of zuro, ”the seed,”–”the Shiner” and ”the seed,” according to the genius of Paganism, being thus identified. This was manifestly the case in Persia, where the sun as the great divinity; for the ”Persians,” says Maurice, ”called God Sure” (Antiquities).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">What could ever have induced mankind to think of calling the great Goddess-mother, or mother of gods and men, a House or Habitation? The answer is evidently to be found in a statement made in Genesis 2:21, in regard to the formation of the mother of mankind: ”And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made (margin, literally BUILDED) he into a woman.” That this history of the rib was well known to the Babylonians, is manifest from one of the names given to their primeval goddess, as found in Berosus. That name is Thalatth. But Thalatth is just the Chaldean form of the Hebrew Tzalaa, in the feminine,–the very word used in Genesis for the rib, of which Eve was formed; and the other name which Berosus couples with Thalatth, does much to confirm this; for that name, which is Omorka, * just signifies ”The Mother of the world.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From ”Am,” ”mother,” and ”arka,” ”earth.” The first letter aleph in both of these words is often pronounced as o. Thus the pronunciation of a in Am, ”mother,” is seen in the Greek a ”shoulder.” Am, ”mother,” comes from am, ”to support,” and from am, pronounced om, comes the shoulder that bears burdens. Hence also the name Oma, as one of the names of Bona Des. Oma is evidently the ”Mother.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When we have thus deciphered the meaning of the name Thalatth, as applied to the ”mother of the world,” that leads us at once to the understanding, of the name Thalasius, applied by the Romans to the god of marriage, the origin of which name has hitherto been sought in vain. Thalatthi signifies ”belonging to the rib,” and, with the Roman termination, becomes Thalatthius or ”Thalasius, the man of the rib.” And what name more appropriate than this for Adam, as the god of marriage, who, when the rib was brought to him, said, ”This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.” At first, when Thalatth, the rib, was builded into a woman, that ”woman” was, in a very important sense, the ”Habitation” or ”Temple of God”; and had not the Fall intervened, all her children would, in consequence of mere natural generation, have been the children of God. The entrance of sin into the world subverted the original constitution of things. Still, when the promise of a Saviour was given and embraced, the renewed indwelling of the Holy Spirit was given too, not that she might thereby have any power in herself to bring forth children unto God, but only that she might duly act the part of a mother to a spiritually living offspring–to those whom God of his free grace should quicken, and bring from death unto life. Now, Paganism willingly overlooked all this; and taught, as soon as its votaries were prepared for receiving it, that this renewed indwelling of the spirit of God in the woman, was identification, and so it deified her. Then Rhea, ”the gazer,” the mother of mankind, was identified with Cybele ”the binder with cords,” or Juno, ”the Dove,” that is, the Holy Spirit. Then, in the blasphemous Pagan sense, she became Athor, ”the Habitation of God,” or Sacca, or Sacta, ”the tabernacle” or ”temple,” in whom dwelt ”all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Thus she became Heva, ”The Living One”; not in the sense in which Adam gave that name to his wife after the Fall, when the hope of life out of the midst of death was so unexpectedly presented to her as well as to himself; but in the sense of the communicator of spiritual and eternal life to men; for Rhea was called the ”fountain of the blessed ones.” The agency, then, of this deified woman was held to be indispensable for the begetting of spiritual children to God, in this, as it was admitted, fallen world. Looked at from this point of view, the meaning of the name given to the Babylonian goddess in 2 Kings 17:30, will be at once apparent. The name Succoth-benoth has very frequently been supposed to be a plural word, and to refer to booths or tabernacles used in Babylon for infamous purposes. But, as observed by Clericus (De Chaldoeis), who refers to the Rabbins as being of the same opinion, the context clearly shows that the name must be the name of an idol: (vv 29,30), ”Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth.” It is here evidently an idol that is spoken of; and as the name is feminine, that idol must have been the image of a goddess. Taken in this sense, then, and in the light of the Chaldean system as now unfolded, the meaning of ”Succoth-benoth,” as applied to the Babylonian goddess, is just ”The tabernacle of child-bearing.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* That is, the Habitation in which the Spirit of God dwelt, for the purpose of begetting spiritual children.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the Babylonian system was developed, Eve was represented as the first that occupied this place, and the very name Benoth, that signifies ”child-bearing,” explains also how it came about that the Woman, who, as Hestia or Vesta, was herself called the ”Habitation,” got the credit of ”having invented the art of building houses” (SMITH, ”Hestia”). Benah, the verb, from which Benoth comes, signifies at once to ”bring forth children” and ”to build houses”; the bringing forth of children being metaphorically regarded as the ”building up of the house,” that is, of the family.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While the Pagan system, so far as a Goddess-mother was concerned, was founded on this identification of the Celestial and Terrestrial mothers of the ”blessed” immortals, each of these two divinities was still celebrated as having, in some sense, a distinct individuality; and, in consequence, all the different incarnations of the Saviour-seed were represented as born of two mothers. It is well known that Bimater, or Two-mothered, is one of the distinguishing epithets applied to Bacchus. Ovid makes the reason of the application of this epithet to him to have arisen from the myth, that when in embryo, he was rescued from the flames in which is mother died, was sewed up in Jupiter’s thigh, and then brought forth at the due time. Without inquiring into the secret meaning of this, it is sufficient to state that Bacchus had two goddess-mothers; for, not only was he conceived by Semele, but he was brought into the world by the goddess Ippa (PROCLUS in Timoeum). This is the very same thing, no doubt, that is referred to, when it is said that after his mother Semele’s death, his aunt Ino acted the part of a mother and nurse unto him. The same thing appears in the mythology of Egypt, for there we read that Osiris, under the form of Anubis, having been brought forth by Nepthys, was adopted and brought up by the goddess Isis as her own son. In consequence of this, the favourite Triad came everywhere to be the two mothers and the son. In WILKINSON, the reader will find a divine Triad, consisting of Isis and Nepthys, and the child of Horus between them. In Babylon, the statement of Diodorus shows that the Triad there at one period was two goddesses and the son–Hera, Rhea, and Zeus; and in the Capitol at Rome, in like manner, the Triad was Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter; while, when Jupiter was worshipped by the Roman matrons as ”Jupiter puer,” or ”Jupiter the child,” it was in company with Juno and the goddess Fortuna (CICERO, De Divinatione). This kind of divine Triad seems to be traced up to very ancient times among the Romans; for it is stated both by Dionysius Halicarnassius and by Livy, that soon after the expulsion of the Tarquins, there was at Rome a temple in which were worshipped Ceres, Liber, and Libera (DION. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">HALICARN and LIVY).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />Festivals<br />Section I. Christmas and Lady-day</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the worshipping of whom the fierce anger of God was provoked against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it is of the last consequence that the fact should be established beyond all possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who trembles at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either individually or nationally, the least countenance or support. Something has been said already that goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence becomes still more overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different festivals is peculiarly so.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation–viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected with the 25th of December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GILL, in his Commentary on Luke 2:8, has the following: ”There are two sorts of cattle with the Jews…there are the cattle of the house that lie in the city; the cattle of the wilderness are they that lie in the pastures. On which one of the commentators (MAIMONIDES, in Misn. Betza), observes, ‘These lie in the pastures, which are in the villages, all the days of the cold and heat, and do not go into the cities until the rains descend.’ The first rain falls in the month Marchesvan, which answers to the latter part of our October and the former part of November…From whence it appears that Christ must be born before the middle of October, since the first rain was not yet come.” KITTO, on Deuteronomy 11:14 (Illustrated Commentary), says that the ”first rain,” is in ”autumn,” ”that is, in September or October.” This would make the time of the removal of the flocks from the fields somewhat earlier than I have stated in the text; but there is no doubt that it could not be later than there stated, according to the testimony of Maimonides, whose acquaintance with all that concerns Jewish customs is well known.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have taken place at the end of December. There is great unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, in his ”Jewish Antiquities,” who are all of opinion that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord’s nativity, the celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the following;–”At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for women with child, and children to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the gospel, ‘Pray that your flight be not in the winter.’ If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in.” Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our Lord’s birth cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER’s Manual of Presbytery. Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into the Worship of the Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival was observed in that Church, and adds–”It seems improbably that they should celebrate Christ’s nativity when they disagreed about the month and the day when Christ was born.” See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of Christ’s birth is uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could not have been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob’s complaint to Laban, ”By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night.” Now the whole force of Jacob’s complaint against his churlish kinsman lay in this, that Laban made him do what no other man would have done, and, therefore, if he refers to the cold nights of winter (which, however, is not the common understanding of the expression), it proves just the opposite of what it is brought by Mr. Ryle to prove–viz., that it was not the custom for shepherds to tend their flocks in the fields by night in winter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** GIESELER, CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Christi), writing in Antioch about AD 380, says: ”It is not yet ten years since this day was made known to us”. ”What follows,” adds Gieseler, ”furnishes a remarkable illustration of the ease with which customs of recent date could assume the character of apostolic institutions.” Thus proceeds Chrysostom: ”Among those inhabiting the west, it was known before from ancient and primitive times, and to the dwellers from Thrace to Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and well-known,” that is, the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch in the east, on the very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was perfectly well-known in all the European region of the west, from Thrace even to Spain!</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. ”By us,” says he, ”who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.” Upright men strive to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ”about the time of the winter solstice.” The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves–Yule-day –proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. ”Yule” is the Chaldee name for an ”infant” or ”little child”; * and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ”Yule-day,” or the ”Child’s day,” and the night that preceded it, ”Mother-night,” long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Eol, an ”infant.” In Scotland, at least in the Lowlands, the Yule-cakes are also called Nur-cakes. Now in Chaldee Nour signifies ”birth.” Therefore, Nur-cakes are ”birth-cakes.” The Scandinavian goddesses, called ”norns,” who appointed children their destinies at their birth, evidently derived their name from the cognate Chaldee word ”Nor,” a child.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is indubitably evidence that the festival in question had a much higher reference than this–that it commemorated not merely the figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day of the grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry, the same period was observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley’s Sabean Philosophy: ”On the 24th of the tenth month,” that is December, according to our reckoning, ”the Arabians celebrated the BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD–that is the Moon.” The Lord Moon was the great object of Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December, which clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if Christmas-day among the ancient Saxons of this island, was observed to celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the case must have been precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known, regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* SHARON TURNER. Turner cites an Arabic poem which proves that a female sun and a masculine moon were recognised in Arabia as well as by the Anglo-Saxons.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of the Divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, ”But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad, and that furnish the drink-offering unto Meni.” There is reason to believe that Gad refers to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the moon-divinity. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">*See KITTO, vol. iv. p. 66, end of Note. The name Gad evidently refers, in the first instance, to the war-god, for it signifies to assault; but it also signifies ”the assembler”; and under both ideas it is applicable to Nimrod, whose general character was that of the sun-god, for he was the first grand warrior; and, under the name Phoroneus, he was celebrated for having first gathered mankind into social communities. The name Meni, ”the numberer,” on the other hand, seems just a synonym for the name of Cush or Chus, which, while it signifies ”to cover” or ”hide,” signifies also ”to count or number.” The true proper meaning of the name Cush is, I have no doubt, ”The numberer” or ”Arithmetician”; for while Nimrod his son, as the ”mighty” one, was the grand propagator of the Babylonian system of idolatry, by force and power, he, as Hermes, was the real concocter of that system, for he is said to have ”taught men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayers and sacrifice” (WILKINSON); and seeing idolatry and astronomy were intimately combined, to enable him to do so with effect, it was indispensable that he should be pre-eminently skilled in the science of numbers. Now, Hermes (that is Cush) is said to have ”first discovered numbers, and the art of reckoning, geometry, and astronomy, the games of chess and hazard” (Ibid.); and it is in all probability from reference to the meaning of the name of Cush, that some called ”NUMBER the father of gods and men” (Ibid.). The name Meni is just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew ”Mene,” the ”numberer” for in Chaldee i often takes the place of the final e. As we have seen reason to conclude with Gesenius, that Nebo, the great prophetic god of Babylon, was just the same god as Hermes, this shows the peculiar emphasis of the first words in the Divine sentence that sealed the doom of Belshazzar, as representing the primeval god–”MENE, MENE, Tekel, Upharsin,” which is as much as covertly to say, ”The numberer is numbered.” As the cup was peculiarly the symbol of Cush, hence the pouring out of the drink-offering to him as the god of the cup; and as he was the great Diviner, hence the divinations as to the future year, which Jerome connects with the divinity referred to by Isaiah. Now Hermes, in Egypt as the ”numberer,” was identified with the moon that numbers the months. He was called ”Lord of the moon” (BUNSEN); and as the ”dispenser of time” (WILKINSON), he held a ”palm branch, emblematic of a year” (Ibid.). Thus, then, if Gad was the ”sun-divinity,” Meni was very naturally regarded as ”The Lord Moon.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Meni, or Manai, signifies ”The Numberer.” And it is by the changes of the moon that the months are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, ”He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth the time of its going down.” The name of the ”Man of the Moon,” or the god who presided over that luminary among the Saxons, was Mane, as given in the ”Edda,” and Mani, in the ”Voluspa.” That it was the birth of the ”Lord Moon” that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of Scotland to the feast on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant of the old birth festival for the cakes then made are called Nur-Cakes, or Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, ”Hog-Manai” in Chaldee signifies ”The feast of the Numberer”; in other words, the festival of Deus Lunus, or of the Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the inveterate endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, commenting on the very words of Isaiah already quoted, about spreading ”a table for Gad,” and ”pouring out a drink-offering to Meni,” observes that it ”was the custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities especially in Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the last day of the month and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in respect of the fruitfulness of the year.” The Egyptian year began at a different time from ours; but this is a near as possible (only substituting whisky for wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the last month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any omens are drawn from anything that takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland is personally cognisant of the fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before New Year’s day, among those who observe old customs, a table is spread, and that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can afford them, oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes but on this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the provision.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an incarnation of the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology, which is admitted to be essentially Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is represented as being incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See the Sanscrit Researches of Col. VANS KENNEDY. Col. K., a most distinguished Sanscrit scholar, brings the Brahmins from Babylon (Ibid.). Be it observed the very name Surya, given to the sun over all India, is connected with this birth. Though the word had originally a different meaning, it was evidently identified by the priests with the Chaldee ”Zero,” and made to countenance the idea of the birth of the ”Sun-god.” The Pracrit name is still nearer the Scriptural name of the promised ”seed.” It is ”Suro.” It has been seen, in a previous chapter, that in Egypt also the Sun was represented as born of a goddess.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the winter solstice. That festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; * loose reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, ** and used all manner of freedoms with their masters.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Subsequently the number of the days of the Saturnalia was increased to seven.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** If Saturn, or Kronos, was, as we have seen reason to believe, Phoroneus, ”The emancipator,” the ”temporary emancipation” of the slaves at his festival was exactly in keeping with his supposed character.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon. ”It was the custom,” says he, ”during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in subjection to their servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a king.” This ”purple-robed” servant was called ”Zoganes,” the ”Man of sport and wantonness,” and answered exactly to the ”Lord of Misrule,” that in the dark ages, was chosen in all Popish countries to head the revels of Christmas. The wassailling bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the ”Drunken festival” of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up among ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honour to him: for it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his altars. The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognised as the ”Man the branch.” And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, ”The seed of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or ”born of the fire,” he has to enter the fire on ”Mother-night,” that he may be born the next day out of it, as the ”Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men. But why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself around the dead stock, and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree–a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile power–even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The Christmas-tree, as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the Christmas-fir; for that covertly symbolised the new-born God as Baal-berith, * ”Lord of the Covenant,” and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, not that after having fallen before his enemies, he had risen triumphant over them all.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Baal-bereth, which differs only in one letter from Baal-berith, ”Lord of the Covenant,” signifies ”Lord of the fir-tree.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, ”The birth-day of the unconquered Sun.” Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus–the slain god come to life again. In the light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger among us, the origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the reader look at the singular practice still kept up in the South on Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That mistletoe bough in the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon, was a representation of the Messiah, ”The man the branch.” The mistletoe was regarded as a divine branch *–a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprung out of the earth.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is distinguished from the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian myths somewhat differed; but yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it is evident that some marvellous power was attributed to the mistletoe branch; for it was able to do what nothing else in the compass of creation could accomplish; it slew the divinity on whom the Anglo-Saxons regarded ”the empire” of their ”heaven” as ”depending.” Now, all that is neceesary to unravel this apparent inconsistency, is just to understand ”the branch” that had such power, as a symbolical expression for the true Messiah. The Bacchus of the Greeks came evidently to be recognised as the ”seed of the serpent”; for he is said to have been brought forth by his mother in consequence of intercourse with Jupiter, when that god had appeared in the form of a serpent. If the character of Balder was the same, the story of his death just amounted to this, that the ”seed of the serpent” had been slain by the ”seed of the woman.” This story, of course, must have originated with his enemies. But the idolators took up what they could not altogether deny, evidently with the view of explaining it away.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation. Whence could such an idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11, ”Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the promised Saviour], and righteousness shall look down from heaven”? Certain it is that that Psalm was written soon after the Babylonish captivity; and as multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in Babylon under the guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the Divine word it must have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine. Babylon was, at that time, the centre of the civilised world; and thus Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol as it ever has done, had opportunities of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the ends of the earth, through the Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system in Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to materialise, carnalise, and degrade them.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar was fabled to have done him. According to one version of the story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as we have seen, in consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great mother of the gods, has frequently the boar’s head as her accompaniment, in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she occupied so conspicuous a place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that killed Adonis, because when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically that it had not killed her husband of malice prepense, but only through accident. But yet, in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess. In Smith, Diana is represented with a boar’s head lying beside her, on the top of a heap of stones in which the Roman Emperor Trajan is represented burning incense to the same goddess, the boar’s head forms a very prominent figure. On Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the Sun, to propitiate her * for the loss of her beloved Adonis.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The reader will remember the Sun was a goddess. Mallet says, ”They offered the largest hog they could get to Frigga”–i.e., the mother of Balder the lamented one. In Egypt swine were offered once a year, at the feast of the Moon, to the Moon, and Bacchus or Osiris; and to them only it was lawful to make such an offering. (AELIAN)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of Martial:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”That boar will make you a good Saturnalia.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Hence the boar’s head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the ”Christmas goose” and ”Yule cakes” were essential articles in the worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at Rome. Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that ”the favourite offering” of Osiris was ”a goose,” and moreover, that the ”goose could not be eaten except in the depth of winter.” As to Rome, Juvenal says, ”that Osiris, if offended, could be pacified only by a large goose and a thin cake.” In many countries we have evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is well known that the capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being surprised by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno, kept in the temple of Jupiter. In India, the goose occupied a similar position; for in that land we read of the sacred ”Brahmany goose,” or goose sacred to Brahma. Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in Rome or Egypt, for there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and his sacrificing knife in the other. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The symbolic meaning of the offering of the goose is worthy of notice. ”The goose,” says Wilkinson, ”signified in hieroglyphics a child or son”; and Horapolo says, ”It was chosen to denote a son, from its love to its young, being always ready to give itself up to the chasseur, in order that they might be preserved; for which reason the Egyptians thought it right to revere this animal.” (WILKINSON’s Egyptians) Here, then, the true meaning of the symbol is a son, who voluntarily gives himself up as a sacrifice for those whom he loves–viz., the Pagan Messiah.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter solstice–in other words, Christmas–was held in honour of the birth of the Babylonian Messiah.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives the very strongest confirmation to what has now been said. That festival, called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on the 25th of March, in alleged commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who could tell when this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all in regard to the time. But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the ”Annunciation of the Virgin” was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele, the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, and MACROB., Sat. The fact stated in the paragraph above casts light on a festival held in Egypt, of which no satisfactory account has yet been given. That festival was held in commemoration of ”the entrance of Osiris into the moon.” Now, Osiris, like Surya in India, was just the Sun. (PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride) The moon, on the other hand, though most frequently the symbol of the god Hermes or Thoth, was also the symbol of the goddess Isis, the queen of heaven. The learned Bunsen seems to dispute this; but his own admissions show that he does so without reason. And Jeremiah 44:17 seems decisive on the subject. The entrance of Osiris into the moon, then, was just the sun’s being conceived by Isis, the queen of heaven, that, like the Indian Surya, he might in due time be born as the grand deliverer. Hence the very name Osiris; for, as Isis is the Greek form of H’isha, ”the woman,” so Osiris, as read at this day on the Egyptian monuments, is He-siri, ”the seed.” It is no objection to this to say that Osiris is commonly represented as the husband of Isis; for, as we have seen already, Osiris is at once the son and husband of his mother. Now, this festival took place in Egypt generally in March, just as Lady-day, or the first great festival of Cybele, was held in the same month in Pagan Rome. We have seen that the common title of Cybele at Rome was Domina, or ”the lady” (OVID, Fasti), as in Babylon it was Beltis (EUSEB. Praep. Evang.), and from this, no doubt, comes the name ”Lady-day” as it has descended to us.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate relation to one another. Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December there are exactly nine months. If, then, the false Messiah was conceived in March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe that the conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronised, not only to the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and Christmas-day, then, are purely Babylonian.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />Section II<br />Easter</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, aas found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, ”the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind. From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. ”The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in ”Notes and Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, ”told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: ”Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one knows that the name ”Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ”It ought to be known,” said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, ”that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ”in the spring of the year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: ”Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for ”forty nights” the ”wailing for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called ”Castus” or the ”sacred” fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her ”excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne, Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the ”month of Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated during the ”sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, ”went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to ”revive” it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn. That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to Paschal observances, says: ”In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: ”The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal processes.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are these: ”Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once. About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something ”untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints. If a heathen could say, ”Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity. Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed, would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, ”clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The ”buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ”One species of sacred bread,” says Bryant, ”which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, ”He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says, ”The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the word ”bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, ”bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: ”An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated, is well known as the ”mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Genesis 11:1, ”The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The common word ”Beth,” ”house,” in the Bible without the points, is ”Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is ”Baith-el.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world. Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: ”Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish Guardian, April, 1844). Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or ”pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. ”Idaia Mater,” then, signifies ”the Mother of Knowledge”–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the ”knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the mother of mankind. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect32.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended hand, inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the ”Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Tree, whose mortal taste.<br />Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base. Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised: ”Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount to this: ”Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered from them.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s ”dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the ”golden fruit” on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in that garden of delight in the ”islands of the blest,” to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil, the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred orange of Easter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That Semiramis, under the name of Astarte, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but as the mother of mankind, we have very clear and satisfactory evidence. There is no doubt that ”the Syrian goddess” was Astarte (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains). Now, the Assyrian goddess, or Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio), and by Lucian (De Dea Syria). These testimonies in regard to Astarte, or the Syrian goddess, being, in one aspect, Semiramis, are quite decisive. 1. The name Astarte, as applied to her, has reference to her as being Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, the first as Ovid says (Opera), that ”made (towers) in cities”; for we find from Layard that in the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, ”she [Dea Syria or Astarte] was represented standing on a lion crowned with towers.” Now, no name could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of Babylon, than the name of ”Ash-tart,” for that just means ”The woman that made towers.” It is admitted on all hands that the last syllable ”tart” comes from the Hebrew verb ”Tr.” It has been always taken for granted, however, that ”Tr” signifies only ”to go round.” But we have evidence that, in nouns derived from it, it also signifies ”to be round,” ”to surround,” or ”encompass.” In the masculine, we find ”Tor” used for ”a border or row of jewels round the head” (see PARKHURST and also GESENIUS). And in the feminine, as given in Hesychius (Lexicon), we find the meaning much more decisively brought out. Turis is just the Greek form of Turit, the final t, according to the genius of the Greek language, being converted into s. Ash-turit, then, which is obviously the same as the Hebrew ”Ashtoreth,” is just ”The woman that made the encompassing wall.” Considering how commonly the glory of that achievement, as regards Babylon, was given to Semiramis, not only by Ovid, but by Justin, Dionysius, Afer, and others, both the name and mural crown on the head of that goddess were surely very appropriate. In confirmation of this interpretation of the meaning of the name Astarte, I may adduce an epithet applied to the Greek Diana, who at Ephesus bore a turreted crown on her head, and was identified with Semiramis, which is not a little striking. It is contained in the following extract from Livy: ”When the news of the battle [near Pydna] reached Amphipolis, the matrons ran together to the temple of Diana, whom they style Tauropolos, to implore her aid.” Tauropolos, from Tor, ”a tower,” or ”surrounding fortification,” and Pol, ”to make,” plainly means the ”tower-maker,” or ”maker of surrounding fortifications”; and P53 to her as the goddess of fortifications, they would naturally apply when they dreaded an attack upon their city.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of the Messiah was the Lamb. Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom, natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS). Hence, also, the character attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the ”goddess of wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies also the ”Maker of investigations”; and in this respect was applicable to Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove. That this is one of the meanings of the name Astarte may be seen from comparing it with the cognate names Asterie and Astraea (in Greek Astraia), which are formed by taking the last member of the compound word in the masculine, instead of the feminine, Teri, or Tri (the latter being pronounced Trai or Trae), being the same in sense as Tart. Now, Asterie was the wife of Perseus, the Assyrian (HERODOTUS), and who was the founder of Mysteries (BRYANT). As Asterie was further represented as the daughter of Bel, this implies a position similar to that of Semiramis. Astraea, again, was the goddess of justice, who is identified with the heavenly virgin Themis, the name Themis signifying ”the perfect one,” who gave oracles (OVID, Metam.), and who, having lived on earth before the Flood, forsook it just before that catastrophe came on. Themis and Astraea are sometimes distinguished and sometimes identified; but both have the same character as goddesses of justice. The explanation of the discrepancy obviously is, that the Spirit has sometimes been viewed as incarnate and sometimes not. When incarnate, Astraea is daughter of Themis. What name could more exactly agree with the character of a goddess of justice, than Ash-trai-a, ”The maker of investigations,” and what name could more appropriately shadow forth one of the characters of that Divine Spirit, who ”searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God”? As Astraea, or Themis, was ”Fatidica Themis,” ”Themis the prophetic,” this also was another characteristic of the Spirit; for whence can any true oracle, or prophetic inspiration, come, but from the inspiring Spirit of God? Then, lastly, what can more exactly agree with the Divine statement in Genesis in regard to the Spirit of God, than the statement of Ovid, that Astraea was the last of the celestials who remained on earth, and that her forsaking it was the signal for the downpouring of the destroying deluge? The announcement of the coming Flood is in Scripture ushered in with these words (Gen 6:3): ”And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” All these 120 years, the Spirit was striving; when they came to an end, the Spirit strove no longer, forsook the earth, and left the world to its fate. But though the Spirit of God forsook the earth, it did not forsake the family of righteous Noah. It entered with the patriarch into the ark; and when that patriarch came forth from his long imprisonment, it came forth along with him. Thus the Pagans had an historical foundation for their myth of the dove resting on the symbol of the ark in the Babylonian waters, and the Syrian goddess, or Astarte–the same as Astraea–coming forth from it. Semiramis, then, as Astarte, worshipped as the dove, was regarded as the incarnation of the Spirit of God. 3. As Baal, Lord of Heaven, had his visible emblem, the sun, so she, as Beltis, Queen of Heaven, must have hers also–the moon, which in another sense was Asht-tart-e, ”The maker of revolutions”; for there is no doubt that Tart very commonly signifies ”going round.” But, 4th, the whole system must be dovetailed together. As the mother of the gods was equally the mother of mankind, Semiramis, or Astarte, must also be identified with Eve; and the name Rhea, which, according to the Paschal Chronicle was given to her, sufficiently proves her identification with Eve. As applied to the common mother of the human race, the name Astarte is singularly appropriate; for, as she was Idaia mater, ”The mother of knowledge,” the question is, ”How did she come by that knowledge?” To this the answer can only be: ”by the fatal investigations she made.” It was a tremendous experiment she made, when, in opposition to the Divine command, and in spite of the threatened penalty, she ventured to ”search” into that forbidden knowledge which her Maker in his goodness had kept from her. Thus she took the lead in that unhappy course of which the Scripture speaks–”God made man upright, but they have SOUGHT out many inventions” (Eccl7:29). Now Semiramis, deified as the Dove, was Astarte in the most gracious and benignant form. Lucius Ampelius calls her ”the goddess benignant and merciful to me” (bringing them) ”to a good and happy life.” In reference to this benignity of her character, both the titles, Aphrodite and Mylitta, are evidently attributed to her. The first I have elsewhere explained as ”The wrath-subduer,” and the second is in exact accordance with it. Mylitta, or, as it is in Greek, Mulitta, signifies ”The Mediatrix.” The Hebrew Melitz, which in Chaldee becomes Melitt, is evidently used in Job 33:23, in the sense of a Mediator; ”the messenger, the interpreter” (Melitz), who is ”gracious” to a man, and saith, ”Deliver from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” being really ”The Messenger, the MEDIATOR.” Parkhurst takes the word in this sense, and derives it from ”Mltz,” ”to be sweet.” Now, the feminine of Melitz is Melitza, from which comes Melissa, a ”bee” (the sweetener, or producer of sweetness), and Melissa, a common name of the priestesses of Cybele, and as we may infer of Cybele, as Astarte, or Queen of Heaven, herself; for, after Porphyry, has stated that ”the ancients called the priestesses of Demeter, Melissae,” he adds, that they also ”called the Moon Melissa.” We have evidence, further, that goes far to identify this title as a title of Semiramis. Melissa or Melitta (APPOLODORUS)–for the name is given in both ways–is said to have been the mother of Phoroneus, the first that reigned, in whose days the dispersion of mankind occurred, divisions having come in among them, whereas before, all had been in harmony and spoke one language (Hyginus). There is no other to whom this can be applied but Nimrod; and as Nimrod came to be worshipped as Nin, the son of his own wife, the identification is exact. Melitta, then, the mother of Phoroneus, is the same as Mylitta, the well known name of the Babylonian Venus; and the name, as being the feminine of Melitz, the Mediator, consequently signifies the Mediatrix. Another name also given to the mother of Phoroneus, ”the first that reigned,” is Archia (LEMPRIERE; SMITH). Now Archia signifies ”Spiritual” (from ”Rkh,” Heb. ”Spirit,” which in Egyptian also is ”Rkh” [BUNSEN]; and in Chaldee, with the prosthetic a prefixed becomes Arkh). * From the same root also evidently comes the epithet Architis, as applied to the Venus that wept for Adonis. Venus Architis is the spiritual Venus. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Hebrew Dem, blood, in Chaldee becomes Adem; and, in like manner, Rkh becomes Arkh.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From OUVAROFF we learn that the mother of the third Bacchus was Aura, and Phaethon is said by Orpheus to have been the son of the ”wide extended air” (LACTANTIUS). The connection in the sacred language between the wind, the air, and the spirit, sufficiently accounts for these statements, and shows their real meaning.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, the mother-wife of the first king that reigned was known as Archia and Melitta, in other words, as the woman in whom the ”Spirit of God” was incarnate; and thus appeared as the ”Dea Benigna,” ”The Mediatrix” for sinful mortals. The first form of Astarte, as Eve, brought sin into the world; the second form before the Flood, was avenging as the goddess of justice. This form was ”Benignant and Merciful.” Thus, also, Semiramis, or Astarte, as Venus the goddess of love and beauty, became ”The HOPE of the whole world,” and men gladly had recourse to the ”mediation” of one so tolerant of sin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />Section III<br />The Nativity of St. John</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Feast of the Nativity of St. John is set down in the Papal calendar for the 24th of June, or Midsummer-day. The very same period was equally memorable in the Babylonian calendar as that of one of its most celebrated festivals. It was at Midsummer, or the summer solstice, that the month called in Chaldea, Syria, and Phoenicia by the name of ”Tammuz” began; and on the first day–that is, on or about the 24th of June–one of the grand original festivals of Tammuz was celebrated. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* STANLEY’S Saboean Philosophy. In Egypt the month corresponding to Tammuz–viz., Epep–began June 25 (WILKINSON)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">For different reasons, in different countries, other periods had been devoted to commemorate the death and reviving of the Babylonian god; but this, as may be inferred from the name of the month, appears to have been the real time when his festival was primitively observed in the land where idolatry had its birth. And so strong was the hold that this festival, with its peculiar rites, had taken of the minds of men, that even when other days were devoted to the great events connected with the Babylonian Messiah, as was the case in some parts of our own land, this sacred season could not be allowed to pass without the due observance of some, at least, of its peculiar rites. When the Papacy sent its emissaries over Europe, towards the end of the sixth century, to gather in the Pagans into its fold, this festival was found in high favour in many countries. What was to be done with it? Were they to wage war with it? No. This would have been contrary to the famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that, by all means they should meet the Pagans half-way, and so bring them into the Roman Church. The Gregorian policy was carefully observed; and so Midsummer-day, that had been hallowed by Paganism to the worship of Tammuz, was incorporated as a sacred Christian festival in the Roman calendar.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But still a question was to be determined, What was to be the name of this Pagan festival, when it was baptised, and admitted into the ritual of Roman Christianity? To call it by its old name of Bel or Tammuz, at the early period when it seems to have been adopted, would have been too bold. To call it by the name of Christ was difficult, inasmuch as there was nothing special in His history at that period to commemorate. But the subtlety of the agents of the Mystery of Iniquity was not to be baffled. If the name of Christ could not be conveniently tacked to it, what should hinder its being called by the name of His forerunner, John the Baptist? John the Baptist was born six months before our Lord. When, therefore, the Pagan festival of the winter solstice had once been consecrated as the birthday of the Saviour, it followed, as a matter of course, that if His forerunner was to have a festival at all, his festival must be at this very season; for between the 24th of June and the 25th of December–that is, between the summer and the winter solstice–there are just six months. Now, for the purposes of the Papacy, nothing could be more opportune than this. One of the many sacred names by which Tammuz or Nimrod was called, when he reappeared in the Mysteries, after being slain, was Oannes. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* BEROSUS, BUNSEN’S Egypt. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4, section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes as a Fish-god. Now, Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), ”the fish of sorrow,” which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the ”Lamented one”; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that some called Bacchus Ichthys, or ”The fish.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The name of John the Baptist, on the other hand, in the sacred language adopted by the Roman Church, was Joannes. To make the festival of the 24th of June, then, suit Christians and Pagans alike, all that was needful was just to call it the festival of Joannes; and thus the Christians would suppose that they were honouring John the Baptist, while the Pagans were still worshipping their old god Oannes, or Tammuz. Thus, the very period at which the great summer festival of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon, is at this very hour observed in the Papal Church as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John. And the fete of St. John begins exactly as the festal day began in Chaldea. It is well known that, in the East, the day began in the evening. So, though the 24th be set down as the nativity, yet it is on St. John’s EVE–that is, on the evening of the 23rd–that the festivities and solemnities of that period begin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if we examine the festivities themselves, we shall see how purely Pagan they are, and how decisively they prove their real descent. The grand distinguishing solemnities of St. John’s Eve are the Midsummer fires. These are lighted in France, in Switzerland, in Roman Catholic Ireland, and in some of the Scottish isles of the West, where Popery still lingers. They are kindled throughout all the grounds of the adherents of Rome, and flaming brands are carried about their corn-fields. Thus does Bell, in his Wayside Pictures, describe the St. John’s fires of Brittany, in France: ”Every fete is marked by distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is perhaps, on the whole, the most striking. Throughout the day the poor children go about begging contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean, and towards evening one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four; then a thousand gleam out from the hill-tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration. Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market place; and sometimes it is lighted by an angel, who is made to descend by a mechanical device from the top of the church, with a flambeau in her hand, setting the pile in a blaze, and flying back again. The young people dance with a bewildering activity about the fires; for there is a superstition among them that, if they dance round nine fires before midnight, they will be married in the ensuing year. Seats are placed close to the flaming piles for the dead, whose spirits are supposed to come there for the melancholy pleasure of listening once more to their native songs, and contemplating the lively measures of their youth. Fragments of the torches on those occasions are preserved as spells against thunder and nervous diseases; and the crown of flowers which surmounted the principal fire is in such request as to produce tumultuous jealousy for its possession.” Thus is it in France. Turn now to Ireland. ”On that great festival of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,” says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a particular festival which she had witnessed, ”it is the custom, at sunset on that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome, intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair, with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ Here,” adds the authoress, ”was the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the festival of St. John’s Eve, as celebrated at this day in France and in Popish Ireland. Such is the way in which the votaries of Rome pretend to commemorate the birth of him who came to prepare the way of the Lord, by turning away His ancient people from all their refuges of lies, and shutting them up to the necessity of embracing that kingdom of God that consists not in any mere external thing, but in ”righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” We have seen that the very sight of the rites with which that festival is celebrated, led the authoress just quoted at once to the conclusion that what she saw before her was truly a relic of the Pagan worship of Baal. The history of the festival, and the way in which it is observed, reflect mutual light upon each other. Before Christianity entered the British Isles, the Pagan festival of the 24th of June was celebrated among the Druids by blazing fires in honour of their great divinity, who, as we have already seen, was Baal. ”These Midsummer fires and sacrifices,” says Toland, in his Account of the Druids, ”were [intended] to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May, that they might prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a thanksgiving for finishing the harvest.” Again, speaking of the Druidical fires at Midsummer, he thus proceeds: ”To return to our carn-fires, it was customary for the lord of the place, or his son, or some other person of distinction, to take the entrails of the sacrificed animals in his hands, and, walking barefoot over the coals thrice after the flames had ceased, to carry them straight to the Druid, who waited in a whole skin at the altar. If the nobleman escaped harmless, it was reckoned a good omen, welcomed with loud acclamations; but if he received any hurt, it was deemed unlucky both to the community and himself.” ”Thus, I have seen,” adds Toland, ”the people running and leaping through the St. John’s fires in Ireland; and not only proud of passing unsinged, but, as if it were some kind of lustration, thinking themselves in an especial manner blest by the ceremony, of whose original, nevertheless, they were wholly ignorant, in their imperfect imitation of it.” We have seen reason already to conclude that Phoroneus, ”the first of mortals that reigned”–i.e., Nimrod and the Roman goddess Feronia–bore a relation to one another. In connection with the firs of ”St. John,” that relation is still further established by what has been handed down from antiquity in regard to these two divinities; and, at the same time, the origin of these fires is elucidated. Phoroneus is described in such a way as shows that he was known as having been connected with the origin of fire-worship. Thus does Pausanias refer to him: ”Near this image [the image of Biton] they [the Argives] enkindle a fire, for they do not admit that fire was given by Prometheus, to men, but ascribe the invention of it to Phoroneus.” There must have been something tragic about the death of this fire-inventing Phoroneus, who ”first gathered mankind into communities”; for, after describing the position of his sepulchre, Pausanias adds: ”Indeed, even at present they perform funeral obsequies to Phoroneus”; language which shows that his death must have been celebrated in some such way as that of Bacchus. Then the character of the worship of Feronia, as coincident with fire-worship, is evident from the rites practised by the priests at the city lying at the foot of Mount Socracte, called by her name. ”The priests,” says Bryant, referring both to Pliny and Strabo as his authorities, ”with their feet naked, walked over a large quantity of live coals and cinders.” To this same practice we find Aruns in Virgil referring, when addressing Apollo, the sun-god, who had his shrine at Soracte, where Feronia was worshipped, and who therefore must have been the same as Jupiter Anxur, her contemplar divinity, who was regarded as a ”youthful Jupiter,” even as Apollo was often called the ”young Apollo”:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”O patron of Soracte’s high abodes,<br />Phoebus, the ruling power among the gods,<br />Whom first we serve; whole woods of unctuous pine<br />Are felled for thee, and to thy glory shine.<br />By thee protected, with our naked soles,<br />Through flames unsinged we march and tread the kindled coals.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DRYDEN’S Virgil Aeneid. ”The young Apollo,” when ”born to introduce law and order among the Greeks,” was said to have made his appearance at Delphi ”exactly in the middle of summer.” (MULLER’S Dorians)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus the St. John’s fires, over whose cinders old and young are made to pass, are traced up to ”the first of mortals that reigned.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is remarkable, that a festival attended with all the essential rites of the fire-worship of Baal, is found among Pagan nations, in regions most remote from one another, about the very period of the month of Tammuz, when the Babylonian god was anciently celebrated. Among the Turks, the fast of Ramazan, which, says Hurd, begins on the 12th of June, is attended by an illumination of burning lamps. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies. The time here given by Hurd would not in itself be decisive as a proof of agreement with the period of the original festival of Tammuz; for a friend who has lived for three years in Constantinople informs me that, in consequence of the disagreement between the Turkish and the solar year, the fast of Ramazan ranges in succession through all the different months in the year. The fact of a yearly illumination in connection with religious observances, however, is undoubted.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In China where the Dragon-boat festival is celebrated in such a way as vividly to recall to those who have witnessed it, the weeping for Adonis, the solemnity begins at Midsummer. In Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the feast of Raymi, the most magnificent feast of the Peruvians, when the sacred fire every year used to be kindled anew from the sun, by means of a concave mirror of polished metal, took place at the very same period. Regularly as Midsummer came round, there was first, in token of mourning, ”for three days, a general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in their dwellings,” and then, on the fourth day, the mourning was turned into joy, when the Inca, and his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. ”Eagerly,” says Prescott, ”they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east, shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the sun. In Egypt, the festival of the burning lamps, in which many have already been constrained to see the counterpart of the festival of St. John, was avowedly connected with the mourning and rejoicing for Osiris. ”At Sais,” says Herodotus, ”they show the sepulchre of him whom I do not think it right to mention on this occasion.” This is the invariable way in which the historian refers to Osiris, into whose mysteries he had been initiated, when giving accounts of any of the rites of his worship. ”It is in the sacred enclosure behind the temple of Minerva, and close to the wall of this temple, whose whole length it occupies. They also meet at Sais, to offer sacrifice during a certain night, when every one lights, in the open air, a number of lamps around his house. The lamps consist of small cups filled with salt and oil, having a wick floating in it which burns all night. This festival is called the festival of burning lamps. The Egyptians who are unable to attend also observe the sacrifice, and burn lamps at home, so that not only at Sais, but throughout Egypt, the same illumination takes place. They assign a sacred reason for the festival celebrated on this night, and for the respect they have for it.” Wilkinson, in quoting this passage of Herodotus, expressly identifies this festival with the lamentation for Osiris, and assures us that ”it was considered of the greatest consequence to do honour to the deity by the proper performance of this rite.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Among the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers of Modern Chaldea, the same festival is celebrated at this day, with rites probably almost the same, so far as circumstances will allow, as thousands of years ago, when in the same regions the worship of Tammuz was in all its glory. Thus graphically does Mr. Layard describe a festival of this kind at which he himself had been present: ”As the twilight faded, the Fakirs, or lower orders of priests, dressed in brown garments of coarse cloth, closely fitting to their bodies, and wearing black turbans on their heads, issued from the tomb, each bearing a light in one hand, and a pot of oil, with a bundle of cotton wick in the other. They filled and trimmed lamps placed in niches in the walls of the courtyard and scattered over the buildings on the sides of the valley, and even on isolated rocks, and in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumerable stars appeared to glitter on the black sides of the mountain and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the priests made their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women passed their right hands through the flame; and after rubbing the right eyebrow with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly carried it to their lips. Some who bore children in their arms anointed them in like manner, whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who, less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame…As night advanced, those who had assembled–they must now have amounted to nearly five thousand persons–lighted torches, which they carried with them as they wandered through the forest. The effect was magical: the varied groups could be faintly distinguished through the darkness–men hurrying to and fro–women with their children seated on the house-tops–and crowds gathering round the pedlars, who exposed their wares for sale in the courtyard. Thousands of lights were reflected in the fountains and streams, glimmered amongst the foliage of the trees, and danced in the distance. As I was gazing on this extraordinary scene, the hum of human voices was suddenly hushed, and a strain, solemn and melancholy, arose from the valley. It resembled some majestic chant which years before I had listened to in the cathedral of a distant land. Music so pathetic and so sweet I never before heard in the East. The voices of men and women were blended in harmony with the soft notes of many flutes. At measured intervals the song was broken by the loud clash of cymbals and tambourines; and those who were within the precincts of the tomb then joined in the melody…The tambourines, which were struck simultaneously, only interrupted at intervals the song of the priests. As the time quickened they broke in more frequently. The chant gradually gave way to a lively melody, which, increasing in measure, was finally lost in a confusion of sounds. The tambourines were beaten with extraordinary energy–the flutes poured forth a rapid flood of notes–the voices were raised to the highest pitch–the men outside joined in the cry–whilst the women made the rocks resound with the shrilltahlehl.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The musicians, giving way to the excitement, threw their instruments into the air, and strained their limbs into every contortion, until they fell exhausted to the ground. I never heard a more frightful yell than that which rose in the valley. It was midnight. I gazed with wonder upon the extraordinary scene around me. Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove.” Layard does not state at what period of the year this festival occurred; but his language leaves little doubt that he regarded it as a festival of Bacchus; in other words, of the Babylonian Messiah, whose tragic death, and subsequent restoration to life and glory, formed the cornerstone of ancient Paganism. The festival was avowedly held in honour at once of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun, and of the Sheik Adi, or ”Prince of Eternity,” around whose tomb nevertheless the solemnity took place, just as the lamp festival in Egypt, in honour of the sun-god Osiris, was celebrated in the precincts of the tomb of that god at Sais.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the reader cannot fail to have observed that in this Yezidi festival, men, women, and children were ”PURIFIED” by coming in contact with ”the sacred element” of fire. In the rites of Zoroaster, the great Chaldean god, fire occupied precisely the same place. It was laid down as an essential principle in his system, that ”he who approached to fire would receive a light from divinity,” (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus) and that ”through divine fire all the stains produced by generation would be purged away” (PROCLUS, Timaeo). Therefore it was that ”children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch” (Jer 32:35), to purge them from original sin, and through this purgation many a helpless babe became a victim to the bloody divinity. Among the Pagan Romans, this purifying by passing through the fire was equally observed; ”for,” says Ovid, enforcing the practice, ”Fire purifies both the shepherd and the sheep.” Among the Hindoos, from time immemorial, fire has been worshipped for its purifying efficacy. Thus a worshipper is represented by Colebrooke, according to the sacred books, as addressing the fire: ”Salutation to thee [O fire!], who dost seize oblations, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost scintillate, may thy auspicious flame burn our foes; mayest thou, the PURIFIER, be auspicious unto us.” There are some who maintain a ”perpetual fire,” and perform daily devotions to it, and in ”concluding the sacraments of the gods,” thus every day present their supplications to it: ”Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the gods; may this oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against man; thou dost expiate a sin against the manes [departed spirits]; thou dost expiate a sin against my own soul; thou dost expiate repeated sins; thou dost expiate every sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; may this oblation be efficacious.” Among the Druids, also, fire was celebrated as the purifier. Thus, in a Druidic song, we read, ”They celebrated the praise of the holy ones in the presence of the purifying fire, which was made to ascend on high” (DAVIES’S Druids, ”Song to the Sun”). If, indeed, a blessing was expected in Druidical times from lighting the carn-fires, and making either young or old, either human beings or cattle, pass through the fire, it was simply in consequence of the purgation from sin that attached to human beings and all things connected with them, that was believed to be derived from this passing through the fire. It is evident that this very same belief about the ”purifying” efficacy of fire is held by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, when they are so zealous to pass both themselves and their children through the fires of St. John. * Toland testifies that it is as a ”lustration” that these fires are kindled; and all who have carefully examined the subject must come to the same conclusion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”I have seen parents,” said the late Lord J. Scott in a letter to me, ”force their children to go through the Baal-fires.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if Tammuz was, as we have seen,the same as Zoroaster, the god of the ancient ”fire-worshippers,” and if his festival in Babylon so exactly synchronised with the feast of the Nativity of St. John, what wonder that that feast is still celebrated by the blazing ”Baal-fires,” and that it presents so faithful a copy of what was condemned by Jehovah of old in His ancient people when they ”made their children pass through the fire to Moloch”? But who that knows anything of the Gospel would call such a festival as this a Christian festival? The Popish priests, if they do not openly teach, at least allow their deluded votaries to believe, as firmly s ever ancient fire worshipper did, that material fire can purge away the guilt and stain of sin. How that tends to rivet upon the minds of their benighted vassals one of the most monstrous but profitable fables of their system, will come to be afterwards considered.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The name Oannes could be known only to the initiated as the name of the Pagan Messiah; and at first, some measure of circumspection was necessary in introducing Paganism into the Church. But, as time went on, as the Gospel became obscured, and the darkness became more intense, the same caution was by no means so necessary. Accordingly, we find that, in the dark ages, the Pagan Messiah has not been brought into the Church in a mere clandestine manner. Openly and avowedly under his well known classic names of Bacchus and Dionysus, has he been canonised, and set up for the worship of the ”faithful.” Yes, Rome, that professes to be pre-eminently the Bride of Christ, the only Church in which salvation is to be found, has had the unblushing effrontery to give the grand Pagan adversary of the Son of God, UNDER HIS OWN PROPER NAME, a place in her calendar. The reader has only to turn to the Roman calendar, and he will find that this is a literal fact; he will find that October the 7th is set apart to be observed in honour of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr.” Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a ”martyr”; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this ”St. Bacchus the Martyr” was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the ”Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival of ”St Bacchus the Martyr” occur.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names; and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece. That ”rustic” festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing its object more fully, the name became ”Festum Dionysi Eleutherei rusticum”–i.e., the ”rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus.” (BEGG’S Handbook of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship, has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the innocent epithet ”Rusticum,” which, even among the heathen, had no pretension to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: ”The festival of St. Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case of the Romish saint.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the place of burial. In commemoration of so stupendous a miracle, a hymn was duly chanted for many a century in the Cathedral of St. Denys, at Paris, containing the following verse:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The corpse immediately arose;<br />The trunk bore away the dissevered head,<br />Guided on its way by a legion of angels.”<br />(SALVERTE, Des Sciences Occultes</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">At last, even Papists began to be ashamed of such an absurdity being celebrated in the name of religion; and in 1789, ”the office of St. Denys” was abolished. Behold, however, the march of events. The world has for some time past been progressing back again to the dark ages. The Romish Breviary, which had been given up in France, has, within the last six years, been reimposed by Papal authority on the Gallican Church, with all its lying legends, and this among the rest of them; the Cathedral of St. Denys is again being rebuilt, and the old worship bids fair to be restored in all its grossness. Now, how could it ever enter the minds of men to invent so monstrous a fable? The origin of it is not far to seek. The Church of Rome represented her canonised saints, who were said to have suffered martyrdom by the sword, as headless images or statues with the severed head borne in the hand. ”I have seen,” says Eusebe Salverte, ”in a church of Normandy, St. Clair; St. Mithra, at Arles, in Switzerland, all the soldiers of the Theban legion represented with their heads in their hands. St. Valerius is thus figured at Limoges, on the gates of the cathedral, and other monuments. The grand seal of the canton of Zurich represents, in the same attitude, St. Felix, St. Regula, and St. Exsuperantius. There certainly is the origin of the pious fable which is told of these martyrs, such as St. Denys and many others besides.” This was the immediate origin of the story of the dead saint rising up and marching away with his head in his hand. But it turns out that this very mode of representation was borrowed from Paganism, and borrowed in such a way as identifies the Papal St. Denys of Paris with the Pagan Dionysus, not only of Rome but of Babylon. Dionysus or Bacchus, in one of his transformations, was represented as Capricorn, the ”goat-horned fish”; and there is reason to believe that it was in this very form that he had the name of Oannes. In this form in India, under the name ”Souro,” that is evidently ”the seed,” he is said to have done many marvellous things. (For Oannes and Souro, see note </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">below) Now, in the Persian Sphere he was not only represented mystically as Capricorn, but also in the human shape; and then exactly as St. Denys is represented by the Papacy. The words of the ancient writer who describes this figure in the Persian Sphere are these: ”Capricorn, the third Decan. The half of the figure without a head, because its head is in its hand.” Nimrod had his head cut off; and in commemoration of that fact, which his worshippers so piteously bewailed, his image in the Sphere was so represetned. That dissevered head, in some of the versions of his story, was fabled to have done as marvellous things as any that were done by the lifeless trunk of St. Denys. Bryant has proved, in this story of Orpheus, that it is just a slighty-coloured variety of the story of Osiris. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* BRYANT. The very name Orpheus is just a synonym for Bel, the name of the great Babylonian god, which, while originally given to Cush, became hereditary in the line of his deified descendants. Bel signifies ”to mix,” as well as ”to confound,” and ”Orv” in Hebrew, which in Chaldee becomes Orph, signifies also ”to mix.” But ”Orv,” or ”Orph,” signifies besides ”a willow-tree”; and therefore, in exact accordance with the mystic system, we find the symbol of Orpheus among the Greeks to have been a willow-tree. Thus, Pausanias, after referring to a representation of Actaeon, says, ”If again you look to the lower parts of the picture, you will see after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on a hill, with a harp in his left hand, and in his right hand the leaves of a willow-tree”; and again, a little furthe on, he says: ”He is represented leaning on the trunk of this tree.” The willow-leaves in the right hand of Orpheus, and the willow-tree on which he leans, sufficiently show the meaning of his name.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Osiris was cut in pieces in Egypt, so Orpheus was torn in pieces in Thrace. Now, when the mangled limbs of the latter had been strewn about the field, his head, floating on the Hebrus, gave proof of the miraculous character of him that owned it. ”Then,” says Virgil:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Then, when his head from his fair shoulders torn,<br />Washed by the waters, was on Hebrus borne,<br />Even then his trembling voice invoked his bride,<br />With his last voice, ‘Eurydice,’ he creid;<br />‘Eurydice,’ the rockes and river banks replied.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is diversity here, but amidst that diversity there is an obvious unity. In both cases, thehead dissevered from the lifeless body occupies the foreground of the picture; in both cases, the miracle is in connection with a river. Now, when the festivals of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr,” and of ”St. Dionysius and Eleuther,” so remarkably agree with the time when the festivals of the Pagan god of wine were celbrated, whether by the name of Bacchus, or Dionysus, or Eleuthereus, and when the mode of representing the modern Dionysius and the ancient Dionysus are evidently the very same, while the legends of both so strikiingly harmonise, who can doubt the real character of those Romish festivals? They are not Christina. They are Pagan; they are unequivocally Babylonian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reason for believing that Oannes, that was said to have been the first of the fabulous creatures that came up out of the sea and instructed the Babylonians, was represented as the goat-horned fish, is as follows: First, the name Oannes, as elsewhere shown, is just the Greek form of He-annesh, or ”The man,” which is a synonym for the name of our first parent, Adam. Now, Adam can be proved to be the original of Pan, who was also called Inuus, which is just another pronunciation of Anosh without the article, which, in our translation of Genesis 5:7, is made Enos. This name, as universally admitted, is the generic name for man after the Fall, as weak and diseased. The o in Enos is what is called the vau, which sometimes is pronounced o, sometimes u, and sometimes v or w. A legitimate pronunciation of Enos, therefore, is just Enus or Enws, the same in sound as Inuus, the Ancient Roman name of Pan. The name Pan itself signifies ”He who turned aside.” As the Hebrew word for ”uprightness” signifies ”walking straight in the way,” so every deviation from the straight line of duty was Sin; Hata, the word for sin, signifying generically ”to go aside from the straight line.” Pan, it is admitted, was the Head of the Satyrs–that is, ”the first of the Hidden Ones,” for Satyr and Satur, ”the Hidden One,” are evidently just the same word; and Adam was the first of mankind that hid himself. Pan is said to have loved a nymph called Pitho, or, as it is given in another form, Pitys (SMITH, ”Pan”); and what is Pitho or Pitys but just the name of the beguiling woman, who, having been beguiled herself, acted the part of a beguiler of her husband, and induced him to take the step, in consequence of which he earned the name Pan, ”The man that turned aside.” Pitho or Pitys evidently come from Peth or Pet, ”to beguile,” from which verb also the famous serpent Python derived its name. This conclusion in regard to the personal identity of Pan and Pitho is greatly confirmed by the titles given to the wife of Faunus. Faunus, says Smith, is ”merely another name for Pan.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In Chaldee the same letter that is pronounced P is also pronounced Ph, that is F, therefore Pan is just Faun.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the wife of Faunus was called Oma, Fauna, and Fatua, which names plainly mean ”The mother that turned aside, being beguiled.” This beguiled mother is also called indifferently ”the sister, wife, or daughter” of her husband; and how this agrees with the relations of Eve to Adam, the reader does not need to be told.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, a title of Pan was Capricornus, or ”The goat-horned” (DYMOCK, ”Pan”), and the origin of this title must be traced to what took place when our first parent became the Head of the Satyrs–the ”first of the Hidden ones.” He fled to hide himself; and Berkha, ”a fugitive,” signifies also ”a he-goat.” Hence the origin of the epithet Capricornus, or ”goat-horned,” as applied to Pan. But as Capricornus in the sphere is generally represented as the ”Goat-fish,” if Capricornus represents Pan, or Adam, or Oannes, that shows that it must be Adam, after, through virtue of the metempsychosis, he had passed through the waters of the deluge: the goat, as the symbol of Pan, representing Adam, the first father of mankind, combined with the fish, the symbol of Noah, the second father of the human race; of both whom Nimrod, as at once Kronos, ”the father of the gods,” and Souro, ”the seed,” was a new incarnation. Among the idols of Babylon, as represented in KITTO’S Illust. Commentary, we find a representation of this very Capricornus, or goat-horned fish; and Berosus tells us that the well known representations of Pan, of which Capricornus is a modification, were found in Babylon in the most ancient times. A great deal more of evidence might be adduced on this subject; but I submit to the reader if the above statement does not sufficiently account for the origin of the remarkable figure in the Zodiac, ”The goat-horned fish.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />Section IV<br />The Feast of the Assumption</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If what has been already said shows the carnal policy of Rome at the expense of truth, the circumstances attending the festival of the Assumption show the daring wickedness and blasphemy of that Church still more; considering that the doctrine in regard to this festival, so far as the Papacy is concerned, was not established in the dark ages, but three centuries after the Reformation, amid all the boasted light of the nineteenth century. The doctrine on which the festival of the Assumption is founded, is this: that the Virgin Mary saw no corruption, that in body and in soul she was carried up to heaven, and now is invested with all power in heaven and in earth. This doctrine has been unblushingly avowed in the face of the British public, in a recent pastoral of the Popish Archbishop of Dublin. This doctrine has now received the stamp of Papal Infallibility, having been embodied in the late blasphemous decree that proclaims the ”Immaculate Conception.” Now, it is impossible for the priests of Rome to find one shred of countenance for such a doctrine in Scripture. But, in the Babylonian system, the fable was ready made to their hand. There it was taught that Bacchus went down to hell, rescued his mother from the infernal powers, and carried her with him in triumph to heaven. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* APOLLODORUS. We have seen that the great goddess, who was worshipped in Babylon as ”The Mother,” was in reality the wife of Ninus, the great god, the prototype of Bacchus. In conformity with this, we find a somewhat similar story told of Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, as is fabled of Semele his mother. ”The garment of Thetis,” says Bryant, ”contained a description of some notable achievements in the first ages; and a particular account of the apotheosis, of Ariadne, who is described, whatever may be the meaning of it, as carried by Bacchus to heaven.” A similar story is told of Alcmene, the mother of the Grecian Hercules, who was quite distinct, as we have seen, from the primitive Hercules, and was just one of the forms of Bacchus, for he was a ”great tippler”; and the ”Herculean goblets” are proverbial. (MULLER’S Dorians) Now the mother of this Hercules is said to have had a resurrection. ”Jupiter” [the father of Hercules], says Muller, ”raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the islands of the blest, as the wife of Rhadamanthus.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This fable spread wherever the Babylonian system spread; and, accordingly, at this day, the Chinese celebrate, as they have done from time immemorial, a festival in honour of a Mother, who by her son was rescued from the power of death and the grave. The festival of the Assumption in the Romish Church is held on the 15th of August. The Chinese festival, founded on a similar legend, and celebrated with lanterns and chandeliers, as shown by Sir J. F. Davis in his able and graphic account of China, is equally celebrated in the month of August. Now, when the mother of the Pagan Messiah came to be celebrated as having been thus ”Assumed,” then it was that, under the name of the ”Dove,” she was worshipped as the Incarnation of the Spirit of God, with whom she was identified. As such as she was regarded as the source of all holiness, and the grand ”PURIFIER,” and, of course, was known herself as the ”Virgin” mother, ”PURE AND UNDEFILED.” (PROCLUS, in TAYLOR’S Note upon Jamblichus) Under the name of Proserpine (with whom, though the Babylonian goddess was originally distinct, she was identified), while celebrated, as the mother of the first Bacchus, and known as ”Pluto’s honoured wife,” she is also addressed, in the ”Orphic Hymns,” as</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Associate of the seasons, essence bright,<br />All-ruling VIRGIN, bearing heavenly light.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Whoever wrote these hymns, the more they are examined the more does it become evident, when they are compared with the most ancient doctrine of Classic Greece, that their authors understood and thoroughly adhered to the genuine theology of Paganism. To the fact that Proserpine was currently worshipped in Pagan Greece, though well known to be the wife of Pluto, the god of hell, under the name of ”The Holy Virgin,” we find Pausanias, while describing the grove Carnasius, thus bearing testimony: ”This grove contains a statue of Apollo Carneus, of Mercury carrying a ram, and of Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, who is called ‘The HOLY VIRGIN.’” The purity of this ”Holy Virgin” did not consist merely in freedom from actual sin, but she was especially distinguished for her ”immaculate conception”; for Proclus says, ”She is called Core, through the purity of her essence, and her UNDEFILED transcendency in her GENERATIONS.” Do men stand amazed at the recent decree? There is no real reason to wonder. It was only in following out the Pagan doctrine previously adopted and interwoven with the whole system of Rome to its logical consequences, that that decree has been issued, and that the Madonna of Rome has been formally pronounced at last, in every sense of the term, absolutely ”IMMACULATE.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, after all this, is it possible to doubt that the Madonna of Rome, with the child in her arms, and the Madonna of Babylon, are one and the same goddess? It is notorious that the Roman Madonna is worshipped as a goddess, yea, is the supreme object of worship. Will not, then, the Christians of Britain revolt at the idea of longer supporting this monstrous Babylonian Paganism? What Christian constituency could tolerate that its representative should vote away the money of this Protestant nation for the support of such blasphemous idolatry? *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It is to be lamented that Christians in general seem to have so little sense either of the gravity of the present crisis of the Church and the world, or of the duty lying upon them as Christ’s witnesses, to testify, and that practically, against the public sins of the nation. If they would wish to be stimulated to a more vigorous discharge of duty in this respect, let them read an excellent and well-timed little work recently issued from the press, entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse, where the Apocalyptic statements in regard to the character, life, death, and resurrection of the Two Witnesses, are briefly but forcibly handled.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Were not the minds of men judicially blinded, they would tremble at the very thought of incurring the guilt that this land, by upholding the corruption and wickedness of Rome, has for years past been contracting. Has not the Word of God, in the most energetic and awful terms, doomed the New Testament Babylon? And has it not equally declared, that those who share in Babylon’s sins, shall share in Babylon’s plagues? (Rev 18:4)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The guilt of idolatry is by many regarded as comparatively slight and insignificant guilt. But not so does the God of heaven regard it. Which is the commandment of all the ten that is fenced about with the most solemn and awful sanctions? It is the second: ”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” These words were spoken by God’s own lips, they were written by God’s own finger on the tables of stone: not for the instruction of the seed of Abraham only, but of all the tribes and generations of mankind. No other commandment has such a threatening attached to it as this. Now, if God has threatened to visit the SIN OF IDOLATRY ABOVE ALL OTHER SINS, and if we find the heavy judgments of God pressing upon us as a nation, while this very sin is crying to heaven against us, ought it not to be a matter of earnest inquiry, if among all our other national sins, which are both many and great, this may not form ”the very head and front of our offending”? What though we do not ourselves bow down to stocks and stones? Yet if we, making a profession the very opposite, encourage, and foster, and maintain that very idolatry which God has so fearfully threatened with His wrath, our guilt, instead of being the less, is only so much the greater, for it is a sin against the light. Now, the facts are manifest to all men. It is notorious, that in 1845 anti-Christian idolatry was incorporated in the British Constitution, in a way in which for a century and a half it had not been incorporated before. It is equally notorious, that ever since, the nation has been visited with one succession of judgments after another. Ought we then to regard this coincidence as merely accidental? Ought we not rather to see in it the fulfilment of the threatening pronounced by God in the Apocalypse? This is at this moment an intensely practical subject. If our sin in this matter is not nationally recognised, if it is not penitently confessed, if it is not put away from us; if, on the contrary, we go on increasing it, if now for the first time since the Revolution, while so manifestly dependent on the God of battles for the success of our arms, we affront Him to His face by sending idol priests into our camp, then, though we have national fasts, and days of humiliation without number, they cannot be accepted; they may procure us a temporary respite, but we may be certain that ”the Lord’s anger will not be turned away, His hand will be stretched out still.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The above paragraph first appeared in the spring of 1855, when the empire had for months been looking on in amazement at the ”horrible and heart-rending” disasters in the Crimea, caused simply by the fact, that official men in that distant region ”could not find their hands,” and when at last a day of humiliation had been appointed. The reader can judge whether or not the events that have since occurred have made the above reasoning out of date. The few years of impunity that have elapsed since the Indian Mutiny, with all its horrors, was suppressed, show the long-suffering of God. But if that long-suffering is despised (which it manifestly is, while the guilt is daily increasing), the ultimate issue must just be so much the more terrible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">See Chapter V, Section IV regarding Cupid (St. Valentine’s Day)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />Doctrine and Discipline</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When Linacer, a distinguished physician, but bigoted Romanist, in the reign of Henry VIII first fell in with the New Testament, after reading it for a while, he tossed it from him with impatience and a great oath, exclaiming, ”Either this book is not true, or we are not Christians.” He saw at once that the system of Rome and the system of the New Testament were directly opposed to one another; and no one who impartially compares the two systems can come to any other conclusion. In passing from the Bible to the Breviary, it is like passing from light to darkness. While the one breathes glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men, the other inculcates all that is dishonouring to the Most High, and ruinous to the moral and spiritual welfare of mankind. How came it that such pernicious doctrines and practices were embraced by the Papacy? Was the Bible so obscure or ambiguous that men naturally fell into the mistake of supposing that it required them to believe and practise the very opposite of what it did? No; the doctrine and discipline of the Papacy were never derived from the Bible. The fact that wherever it has the power, it lays the reading of the Bible under its ban, and either consigns that choicest gift of heavenly love to the flames, or shuts it up under lock and key, proves this of itself. But it can be still more conclusively established. A glance at the main pillars of the Papal system will sufficiently prove that its doctrine and discipline, in all essential respects, have been derived from Babylon. Let the reader now scan the evidence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Section I<br />Baptismal Regeneration</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is well known that regeneration by baptism is a fundamental article of Rome, yea, that it stands at the very threshold of the Roman system. So important, according to Rome, is baptism for this purpose, that, on the one hand, it is pronounced of ”absolute necessity for salvation,” * insomuch that infants dying without it cannot be admitted to glory; and on the other, its virtues are so great, that it is declared in all cases infallibly to ”regenerate us by a new spiritual birth, making us children of God”:–it is pronounced to be ”the first door by which we enter into the fold of Jesus Christ, the first means by which we receive the grace of reconciliation with God; therefore the merits of His death are by baptism applied to our souls in so superabundant a manner, as fully to satisfy Divine justice for all demands against us, whether for original or actual sin.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop HAY’S Sincere Christian. There are two exceptions to this statement; the case of an infidel converted in a heathen land, where it is impossible to get baptism, and the case of a martyr ”baptised,” as it is called, ”in his own blood”; but in all other cases, whether of young or old, the necessity is ”absolute.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in both respects this doctrine is absolutely anti-Scriptural; in both it is purely Pagan. It is anti-Scriptural, for the Lord Jesus Christ has expressly declared that infants, without the slightest respect to baptism or any external ordinance whatever, are capable of admission into all the glory of the heavenly world: ”Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” John the Baptist, while yet in his mother’s womb was so filled with joy at the advent of the Saviour, that, as soon as Mary’s salutation sounded in the ears of his own mother, the unborn babe ”leaped in the womb for joy.” Had that child died at the birth, what could have excluded it from ”the inheritance of the saints in light” for which it was so certainly ”made meet”? Yet the Roman Catholic Bishop Hay, in defiance of very principle of God’s Word, does not hesitate to pen the following: ”Question: What becomes of young children who die without baptism? Answer: If a young child were put to death for the sake of Christ, this would be to it the baptism of blood, and carry it to heaven; but except in this case, as such infants are incapable of having the desire of baptism, with the other necessary dispositions, if they are not actually baptised with water, THEY CANNOT GO TO HEAVEN.” As this doctrine never came from the Bible, whence came it? It came from heathenism. The classic reader cannot fail to remember where, and in what melancholy plight, Aeneas, when he visited the infernal regions, found the souls of unhappy infants who had died before receiving, so to speak, ”the rites of the Church”:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Before the gates the cries of babes new-born,<br />Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,<br />Assault his ears.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">These wretched babes, to glorify the virtue and efficacy of the mystic rites of Paganism, are excluded from the Elysian Fields, the paradise of the heathen, and have among their nearest associates no better company than that of guilty suicides:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The next in place and punishment are they<br />Who prodigally threw their souls away,<br />Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,<br />And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Virgil, DRYDEN’S translation. Between the infants and the suicides one other class is interposed, that is, those who on earth have been unjustly condemned to die. Hope is held out for these, but no hope is held out for the babes.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">So much for the lack of baptism. Then as to its positive efficacy when obtained, the Papal doctrine is equally anti-Scriptural. There are professed Protestants who hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; but the Word of God knows nothing of it. The Scriptural account of baptism is, not that it communicates the new birth, but that it is the appointed means of signifying and sealing that new birth where it already exists. In this respect baptism stands on the very same ground as circumcision. Now, what says God’s Word of the efficacy of circumcision? This it says, speaking of Abraham: ”He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised” (Rom 4:11). Circumcision was not intended to make Abraham righteous; he was righteous already before he was circumcised. But it was intended to declare him righteous, to give him the more abundant evidence in his own consciousness of his being so. Had Abraham not been righteous before his circumcision, his circumcision could not have been a seal, could not have given confirmation to that which did not exist. So with baptism, it is ”a seal of the righteousness of the faith” which the man ”has before he is baptised”; for it is said, ”He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). Where faith exists, if it be genuine, it is the evidence of a new heart, of a regenerated nature; and it is only on the profession of that faith and regeneration in the case of an adult, that he is admitted to baptism. Even in the case of infants, who can make no profession of faith or holiness, the administration of baptism is not for the purpose of regenerating them, or making them holy, but of declaring them ”holy,” in the sense of being fit for being consecrated, even in infancy, to the service of Christ, just as the whole nation of Israel, in consequence of their relation to Abraham, according to the flesh, were ”holy unto the Lord.” If they were not, in that figurative sense, ”holy,” they would not be fit subjects for baptism, which is the ”seal” of a holy state. But the Bible pronounces them, in consequence of their descent from believing parents, to be ”holy,” and that even where only one of the parents is a believer: ”The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now they are HOLY” (1 Cor 7:14). It is in consequence of, and solemnly to declare, that ”holiness,” with all the responsibilities attaching to it, that they are baptised. That ”holiness,” however, is very different from the ”holiness” of the new nature; and although the very fact of baptism, if Scripturally viewed and duly improved, is, in the hand of the good Spirit of God, an important means of making that ”holiness” a glorious reality, in the highest sense of the term, yet it does not in all cases necessarily secure their spiritual regeneration. God may, or may not, as He sees fit, give the new heart, before, or at, or after baptism; but manifest it is, that thousands who have been duly baptised are still unregenerate, are still in precisely the same position as Simon Magus, who, after being canonically baptised by Philip, was declared to be ”in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts 7:23). The doctrine of Rome, however, is, that all who are canonically baptised, however ignorant, however immoral, if they only give implicit faith to the Church, and surrender their consciences to the priests, are as much regenerated as ever they can be, and that children coming from the waters of baptism are entirely purged from the stain of original sin. Hence we find the Jesuit missionaries in India boasting of making converts by thousands, by the mere fact of baptising them, without the least previous instruction, in the most complete ignorance of the truths of Christianity, on their mere profession of submission to Rome. This doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration also is essentially Babylonian. Some may perhaps stumble at the idea of regeneration at all having been known in the Pagan world; but if they only go to India, they will find at this day, the bigoted Hindoos, who have never opened their ears to Christian instruction, as familiar with the term and the idea as ourselves. The Brahmins make it their distinguishing boast that they are ”twice-born” men, and that, as such, they are sure of eternal happiness. Now, the same was the case in Babylon, and there the new birth was conferred by baptism. In the Chaldean mysteries, before any instruction could be received, it was required first of all, that the person to be initiated submit to baptism in token of blind and implicit obedience. We find different ancient authors bearing direct testimony both to the fact of this baptism and the intention of it. ”In certain sacred rites of the heathen,” says Tertullian, especially referring to the worship of Isis and Mithra, ”the mode of initiation is by baptism.” The term ”initiation” clearly shows that it was to the Mysteries of these divinities he referred. This baptism was by immersion, and seems to have been rather a rough and formidable process; for we find that he who passed through the purifying waters, and other necessary penances, ”if he survived, was then admitted to the knowledge of the Mysteries.” (Elliae Comment. in S. GREG. NAZ.) To face this ordeal required no little courage on the part of those who were initiated. There was this grand inducement, however, to submit, that they who were thus baptised were, as Tertullian assures us, promised, as the consequence, ”REGENERATION, and the pardon of all their perjuries.” Our own Pagan ancestors, the worshippers of Odin, are known to have practised baptismal rites, which, taken in connection with their avowed object in practising them, show that, originally, at least, they must have believed that the natural guilt and corruption of their new-born children could be washed away by sprinkling them with water, or by plunging them, as soon as born, into lakes or rivers. Yea, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Mexico, the same doctrine of baptismal regeneration was found in full vigour among the natives, when Cortez and his warriors landed on their shores. The ceremony of Mexican baptism, which was beheld with astonishment by the Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries, is thus strikingly described in Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico: ”When everything necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism, * was summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the courtyard of the house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about her placed the ornaments, which had been prepared for baptism, in the midst of the court. To perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face toward the west, and immediately began to go through certain ceremonies…After this she sprinkled water on the head of the infant, saying, ‘O my child, take and receive the water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, which is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given you before the beginning of the world, since all of us are under its power’…She then washed the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner: ‘Whencesoever thou comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for he now liveth anew, and is BORN ANEW; now he is purified and cleansed afresh, and our mother Chalchivitylcue [the goddess of water] bringeth him into the world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and, lifting him towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration, for thou art the Great God, and with thee is the great goddess.’”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* As baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, Rome also authorises midwives to administer baptism. In Mexico the midwife seems to have been a ”priestess.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here is the opus operatum without mistake. Here is baptismal regeneration and exorcism too, * as thorough and complete as any Romish priest or lover of Tractarianism could desire.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Romish ceremony of baptism, the first thing the priest does is to exorcise the devil out of the child to be baptised in these words, ”Depart from him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter.” (Sincere Christian) In the New Testament there is not the slightest hint of any such exorcism accompanying Christian Baptism. It is purely Pagan.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Does the reader ask what evidence is there that Mexico had derived this doctrine from Chaldea? The evidence is decisive. From the researches of Humboldt we find that the Mexicans celebrated Wodan as the founder of their race, just as our own ancestors did. The Wodan or Odin of Scandinavia can be proved to be the Adon of Babylon. (see note</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below) The Wodan of Mexico, from the following quotation, will be seen to be the very same: ”According to the ancient traditions collected by the Bishop Francis Nunez de la Vega,” says Humboldt, ”the Wodan of the Chiapanese [of Mexico] was grandson of that illustrious old man, who at the time of the great deluge, in which the greater part of the human race perished, was saved on a raft, together with his family. Wodan co-operated in the construction of the great edifice which had been undertaken by men to reach the skies; the execution of this rash project was interrupted; each family received from that time a different language; and the great spirit Teotl ordered Wodan to go and people the country of Anahuac.” This surely proves to demonstration whence originally came the Mexican mythology and whence also that doctrine of baptismal regeneration which the Mexicans held in common with Egyptian and Persian worshippers of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven. Prestcott, indeed, has cast doubts on the genuiness of this tradition, as being too exactly coincident with the Scriptural history to be easily believed. But the distinguished Humboldt, who had carefully examined the matter, and who had no prejudice to warp him, expresses his full belief in its correctness; and even from Prestcott’s own interesting pages, it may be proved in every essential particular, with the single exception of the name of Wodan, to which he makes no reference. But, happily, the fact that that name had been borne by some illustrious hero among the supposed ancestors of the Mexican race, is put beyond all doubt by the singular circumstance that the Mexicans had one of their days called Wodansday, exactly as we ourselves have. This, taken in connection with all the circumstances, is a very striking proof, at once of the unity of the human race, and of the wide-spread diffusion of the system that began at Babel.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the question arise, How came it that the Bayblonians themselves adopted such a doctrine as regeneration by baptism, we have light also on that. In the Babylonian Mysteries, the commemoration of the flood, of the ark, and the grand events in the life of Noah, was mingled with the worship of the Queen of Heaven and her son. Noah, as having lived in two worlds, both before the flood and after it, was called ”Dipheus,” or ”twice-born,” and was represented as a god with two heads looking in opposite directions, the one old, and the other young. Though we have seen that the two-headed Janus in one aspect had reference to Cush and his son, Nimrod, viewed as one god, in a two-fold capacity, as the Supreme, and Father of all the deified ”mighty ones,” yet, in order to gain for him the very authority and respect essential to constitute him properly the head of the great system of idolatry that the apostates inaugurated, it was necessary to represent him as in some way or other identified with the great patriarch, who was the Father of all, and who had so miraculous a history. Therefore in the legends of Janus, we find mixed up with other things derived from an entirely different source, statements not only in regard to his being the ”Father of the world,” but also his being ”the inventor of ships,” which plainly have been borrowed from the history of Noah; and therefore, the remarkable way in which he is represented in the figure here presented to the reader may confidently be concluded to have been primarily suggested by the history of the great Diluvian patriarch, whose integrity in his two-fold life is so particularly referred to in the Scripture, where it is said (Gen 6:9), ”Noah was just a man, and perfect in his generations,” that is, in his life before the flood, and in his life after it. The whole mythology of Greece and Rome, as well as Asia, is full of the history and deeds of Noah, which it is impossible to misunderstand. In India, the god Vishnu, ”the Preserver,” who is celebrated as having miraculously preserved one righteous family at the time when the world was drowned, not only has the story of Noah wrought up with his legend, but is called by his very name. Vishnu is just the Sanscrit form of the Chaldee ”Ish-nuh,” ”the man Noah,” or the ”Man of rest.” In the case of Indra, the ”king of the gods,” and god of rain, which is evidently only another form of the same god, the name is found in the precise form of Ishnu. Now, the very legend of Vishnu, that pretends to make him no mere creature, but the supreme and ”eternal god,” shows that this interpretation of the name is no mere unfounded imagination. Thus is he celebrated in the ”Matsya Puran”: ”The sun, the wind, the ether, all things incorporeal, were absorbed into his Divine essence; and the universe being consumed, the eternal and omnipotent god, having assumed an ancient form, REPOSED mysteriously upon the surface of that (universal) ocean. But no one is capable of knowing whether that being was then visible or invisible, or what the holy name of that person was, or what the cause of his mysterious SLUMBER. Nor can any one tell how long he thus REPOSED until he conceived the thought of acting; for no one saw him, no one approached him, and none can penetrate the mystery of his real essence.” (Col. KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology) In conformity with this ancient legend, Vishnu is still represented as sleeping four months every year. Now, connect this story with the name of Noah, the man of ”Rest,” and with his personal history during the period of the flood, when the world was destroyed, when for forty days and forty nights all was chaos, when neither sun nor moon nor twinkling star appeared, when sea and sky were mingled, and all was one wide universal ”ocean,” on the bosom of which the patriarch floated, when there was no human being to ”approach” him but those who were with him in the ark, and ”the mystery of his real essence is penetrated” at once, ”the holy name of that person” is ascertained, and his ”mysterious slumber” fully accounted for. Now, wherever Noah is celebrated, whether by the name of Saturn, ”the hidden one,”–for that name was applied to him as well as to Nimrod, on account of his having been ”hidden” in the ark, in the ”day of the Lord’s fierce anger,”–or, ”Oannes,” or ”Janus,” the ”Man of the Sea,” he is generally described in such a way as shows that he was looked upon as Diphues, ”twice-born,” or ”regenerate.” The ”twice-born” Brahmins, who are all so many gods upon earth, by the very title they take to themselves, show that the god whom they represent, and to whose prerogatives they lay claim, had been known as the ”twice-born” god. The connection of ”regeneration” with the history of Noah, comes out with special evidence in the accounts handed down to us of the Mysteries as celebrated in Egypt. The most learned explorers of Egyptian antiquities, including Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, admit that the story of Noah was mixed up with the story of Osiris. The ship of Isis, and the coffin of Osiris, floating on the waters, point distinctly to that remarkable event. There were different periods, in different places in Egypt, when the fate of Osiris was lamented; and at one time there was more special reference to the personal history of ”the mighty hunter before the Lord,” and at another to the awful catastrophe through which Noah passed. In the great and solemn festival called ”The Disappearance of Osiris,” it is evident that it is Noah himself who was then supposed to have been lost. The time when Osiris was ”shut up in his coffin,” and when that coffin was set afloat on the waters, as stated by Plutarch, agrees exactly with the period when Noah entered the ark. That time was ”the 17th day of the month Athyr, when the overflowing of the Nile had ceased, when the nights were growing long and the days decreasing.” The month Athyr was the second month after the autumnal equinox, at which time the civil year of the Jews and the patriarchs began. According to this statement, then, Osiris was ”shut up in his coffin” on the 17th day of the second month of the patriarchal year. Compare this with the Scriptural account of Noah’s entering into the ark, and it will be seen how remarkably they agree (Gen 7:11), ”In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the SECOND MONTH, in the SEVENTEENTH DAY of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up; in the self-same day entered Noah into the ark.” The period, too, that Osiris (otherwise Adonis) was believed to have been shut up in his coffin, was precisely the same as Noah was confined in the ark, a whole year. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* APOLLODORUS. THEOCRITUS, Idyll. Theocritus is speaking of Adonis as delivered by Venus from Acheron, or the infernal regions, after being there for a year; but as the scene is laid in Egypt, it is evident that it is Osiris he refers to, as he was the Adonis of the Egyptians.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the statements of Plutarch demonstrate that, as Osiris at this festival was looked upon as dead and buried when put into his ark or coffin, and committed to the deep, so, when at length he came out of it again, that new state was regarded as a state of ”new life,” or ”REGENERATION.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride. It was in the character of Pthah-Sokari-Osiris that he was represented as having been thus ”buried” in the waters. In his own character, simply as Osiris, he had another burial altogether.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There seems every reason to believe that by the ark and the flood God actually gave to the patriarchal saints, and especially to righteous Noah, a vivid typical representation of the power of the blood and Spirit of Christ, at once in saving from wrath, and cleansing from all sin–a representation which was a most cheering ”seal” and confirmation to the faith of those who really believed. To this Peter seems distinctly to allude, when he says, speaking of this very event, ”The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us.” Whatever primitive truth the Chaldean priests held, they utterly perverted and corrupted it. They willingly overlooked the fact, that it was ”the righteousness of the faith” which Noah ”had before” the flood, that carried him safely through the avenging waters of that dread catastrophe, and ushered him, as it were, from the womb of the ark, by a new birth, into a new world, when on the ark resting on Mount Ararat, he was released from his long confinement. They led their votaries to believe that, if they only passed through the baptismal waters, and the penances therewith connected, that of itself would make them like the second father of mankind, ”Diphueis,” ”twice-born,” or ”regenerate,” would entitle them to all the privileges of ”righteous” Noah, and give them that ”new birth” (palingenesia) which their consciences told them they so much needed. The Papacy acts on precisely the same principle; and from this very source has its doctrine of baptismal regeneration been derived, about which so much has been written and so many controversies been waged. Let men contend as they may, this, and this only, will be found to be the real origin of the anti-Scriptural dogma. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* There have been considerable speculations about the meaning of the name Shinar, as applied to the region of which Babylon was the capital. Do not the facts above stated cast light on it? What so likely a derivation of this name as to derive it from ”shene,” ”to repeat,” and ”naar,” ”childhood.” The land of ”Shinar,” then, according to this view, is just the land of the ”Regenerator.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reader has seen already how faithfully Rome has copied the Pagan exorcism in connection with baptism. All the other peculiarities attending the Romish baptism, such as the use of salt, spittle, chrism, or anointing with oil, and marking the forehead with the sign of the cross, are equally Pagan. Some of the continental advocates of Rome have admitted that some of these at least have not been derived from Scripture. Thus Jodocus Tiletanus of Louvaine, defending the doctrine of ”Unwritten Tradition,” does not hesitate to say, ”We are not satisfied with that which the apostles or the Gospel do declare, but we say that, as well before as after, there are divers matters of importance and weight accepted and received out of a doctrine which is nowhere set forth in writing. For we do blesse the water wherewith we baptize, and the oyle wherewith we annoynt; yea, and besides that, him that is christened. And (I pray you) out of what Scripture have we learned the same? Have we it not of a secret and unwritten ordinance? And further, what Scripture hath taught us to grease with oyle? Yea, I pray you, whence cometh it, that we do dype the childe three times in the water? Doth it not come out of this hidden and undisclosed doctrine, which our forefathers have received closely without any curiosity, and do observe it still.” This learned divine of Louvaine, of course, maintains that ”the hidden and undisclosed doctrine” of which he speaks, was the ”unwritten word” handed down through the channel of infallibility, from the Apostles of Christ to his own time. But, after what we have already seen, the reader will probably entertain a different opinion of the source from which the hidden and undisclosed doctrine must have come. And, indeed, Father Newman himself admits, in regard to ”holy water” (that is, water impregnated with ”salt,” and consecrated), and many other things that were, as he says, ”the very instruments and appendages of demon-worship”–that they were all of ”Pagan” origin, and ”sanctified by adoption into the Church.” What plea, then, what palliation can he offer, for so extraordinary an adoption? Why, this: that the Church had ”confidence in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil,” and to transmute them to ”an evangelical use.” What right had the Church to entertain any such ”confidence”? What fellowship could light have with darkness? what concord between Christ and Belial? Let the history of the Church bear testimony to the vanity, yea, impiety of such a hope. Let the progress of our inquiries shed light upon the same. At the present stage, there is only one of the concomitant rites of baptism to which I will refer–viz., the use of ”spittle” in that ordinance; and an examination of the very words of the Roman ritual, in applying it, will prove that its use in baptism must have come from the Mysteries. The following is the account of its application, as given by Bishop Hay: ”The priest recites another exorcism, and at the end of it touches the ear and nostrils of the person to be baptised with a little spittle, saying, ‘Ephpheta, that is, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness; but be thou put to flight, O Devil, for the judgment of God will be at hand.’” Now, surely the reader will at once ask, what possible, what conceivable connection can there be between spittle, and an ”odour of sweetness”? If the secret doctrine of the Chaldean mysteries be set side by side with this statement, it will be seen that, absurd and nonsensical as this collocation of terms may appear, it was not at random that ”spittle” and an ”odour of sweetness” were brought together. We have seen already how thoroughly Paganism was acquainted with the attributes and work of the promised Messiah, though all that acquaintance with these grand themes was used for the purpose of corrupting the minds of mankind, and keeping them in spiritual bondage. We have now to see that, as they were well aware of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so, intellectually, they were just as well acquainted with His work, though their knowledge on that subject was equally debased and degraded. Servius, in his comments upon Virgil’s First Georgic, after quoting the well known expression, ”Mystica vannus Iacchi,” ”the mystic fan of Bacchus,” says that that ”mystic fan” symbolised the ”purifying of souls.” Now, how could the fan be a symbol of the purification of souls? The answer is, The fan is an instrument for producing ”wind”; * and in Chaldee, as has been already observed, it is one and the same word which signifies ”wind” and the ”Holy Spirit.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* There is an evident allusion to the ”mystic fan” of the Babylonian god, in the doom of Babylon, as pronounced by Jeremiah 51:1, 2: ”Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; and will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There can be no doubt, that, from the very beginning, the ”wind” was one of the Divine patriarchal emblems by which the power of the Holy Ghost was shadowed forth, even as our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, ”The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Hence, when Bacchus was represented with ”the mystic fan,” that was to declare him to be the mighty One with whom was ”the residue of the Spirit.” Hence came the idea of purifying the soul by means of the wind, according to the description of Virgil, who represents the stain and pollution of sin as being removed in this very way:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”For this are various penances enjoined,<br />And some are hung to bleach upon the WIND.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Hence the priests of Jupiter (who was originally just another form of Bacchus), were called Flamens, * — that is Breathers, or bestowers of the Holy Ghost, by breathing upon their votaries.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From ”Flo,” ”I breathe.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in the Mysteries, the ”spittle” was just another symbol for the same thing. In Egypt, through which the Babylonian system passed to Western Europe, the name of the ”Pure or Purifying Spirit” was ”Rekh” (BUNSEN). But ”Rekh” also signified ”spittle” (PARKHURST’S Lexicon); so that to anoint the nose and ears of the initiated with ”spittle,” according to the mystic system, was held to be anointing them with the ”Purifying Spirit.” That Rome in adopting the ”spittle” actually copied from some Chaldean ritual in which ”spittle” was the appointed emblem of the ”Spirit,” is plain from the account which she gives in her own recognised formularies of the reason for anointing the ears with it. The reason for anointing the ears with ”spittle” says Bishop Hay, is because ”by the grace of baptism, the ears of our soul are opened to hear the Word of God, and the inspirations of His Holy Spirit.” But what, it may be asked, has the ”spittle” to do with the ”odour of sweetness”? I answer, The very word ”Rekh,” which signified the ”Holy Spirit,” and was visibly represented by the ”spittle,” was intimately connected with ”Rikh,” which signifies a ”fragrant smell,” or ”odour of sweetness.” Thus, a knowledge of the Mysteries gives sense and a consistent meaning to the cabalistic saying addressed by the Papal baptiser to the person about to be baptised, when the ”spittle” is daubed on his nose and ears, which otherwise would have no meaning at all–”Ephpheta, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness.” While this was the primitive truth concealed under the ”spittle,” yet the whole spirit of Paganism was so opposed to the spirituality of the patriarchal religion, and indeed intended to make it void, and to draw men utterly away from it, while pretending to do homage to it, that among the multitude in general the magic use of ”spittle” became the symbol of the grossest superstition. Theocritus shows with what debasing rites it was mixed up in Sicily and Greece; and Persius thus holds up to scorn the people of Rome in his day for their reliance on it to avert the influence of the ”evil eye”:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Our superstitions with our life begin;<br />The obscene old grandam, or the next of kin,<br />The new-born infant from the cradle takes,<br />And first of spittle a lustration makes;<br />Then in the spawl her middle finger dips,<br />Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips,<br />Pretending force of magic to prevent<br />By virtue of her nasty excrement.”–DRYDEN</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While thus far we have seen how the Papal baptism is just a reproduction of the Chaldean, there is still one other point to be noticed, which makes the demonstration complete. That point is contained in the following tremendous curse fulminated against a man who committed the unpardonable offence of leaving the Church of Rome, and published grave and weighty reasons for so doing: ”May the Father, who creates man, curse him! May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost who suffered for us in baptism, curse him!” I do not stop to show how absolutely and utterly opposed such a curse as this is to the whole spirit of the Gospel. But what I call the reader’s attention to is the astounding statement that ”the Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism.” Where in the whole compass of Scripture could warrant be found for such an assertion as this, or anything that could even suggest it? But let the reader revert to the Babylonian account of the personality of the Holy Ghost, and the amount of blasphemy contained in this language will be apparent. According to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Nimrod, when exalted to divinity under the name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the ”Dove”–in other words, the Holy Spirit incarnate. Now, when her husband, for his blasphemous rebellion against the majesty of heaven, was cut off, for a season it was a time of tribulation also for her. The fragments of ancient history that have come down to us give an account of her trepidation and flight, to save herself from her adversaries. In the fables of the mythology, this flight was mystically represented in accordance with what was attributed to her husband. The bards of Greece represented Bacchus, when overcome by his enemies, as taking refuge in the depths of the ocean. Thus, Homer:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”In a mad mood, while Bacchus blindly raged,<br />Lycurgus drove his trembling bands, confused,<br />O’er the vast plains of Nusa. They in haste<br />Threw down their sacred implements, and fled<br />In fearful dissipation. Bacchus saw<br />Rout upon rout, and, lost in wild dismay,<br />Plunged in the deep. Here Thetis in her arms<br />Received him shuddering at the dire event.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, as identified with Noah, was represented, when overcome by his grand enemy Typhon, or the ”Evil One,” as passing through the waters. The poets represented Semiramis as sharing in his distress, and likewise seeking safety in the same way. We have seen already, that, under the name of Astarte, she was said to have come forth from the wondrous egg that was found floating on the waters of the Euphrates. Now Manilius tells, in his Astronomical Poetics, what induced her to take refuge in these waters. ”Venus plunged into the Babylonia waters,” says he, ”to shun the fury of the snake-footed Typhon.” When Venus Urania, or Dione, the ”Heavenly Dove,” plunged in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, be it observed what, according to the Chaldean doctrine, this amounted to. It was neither more nor less than saying that the Holy Ghost incarnate in deep tribulation entered these waters, and that on purpose that these waters might be fit, not only by the temporary abode of the Messiah in the midst of them, but by the Spirit’s efficacy thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regeneration, by baptism, to the worshippers of the Chaldean Madonna. We have evidence that the purifying virtue of the waters, which in Pagan esteem had such efficacy in cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the passing of the Mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had sprung up from that persuasion. So far as heathenism is concerned, the following extracts from Potter and Athenaeus speak distinctly enough: ”Every person,” says the former, ”who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the Greeks] was purified by water. To which end, at the entrance of the temples there was commonly placed a vessel full of holy water.” How did this water get its holiness? This water ”was consecrated,” says Athenaeus, ”by putting into it a BURNING TORCH taken from the altar.” The burning torch was the express symbol of the god of fire; and by the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating ”the holy water,” we may easily see whence came one great part of the purifying virtue of ”the water of the loud resounding sea,” which was held to be so efficacious in purging away the guilt and stain of sin, *–even from the sun-god having taken refuge in its waters.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”All human ills,” says Euripides, in a well known passage, ”are washed away by the sea.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now this very same method is used in the Romish Church for consecrating the water for baptism. The unsuspicious testimony of Bishop Hay leaves no doubt on this point: ”It” [the water kept in the baptismal font], says he, ”is blessed on the eve of Pentecost, because it is the Holy Ghost who gives to the waters of baptism the power and efficacy of sanctifying our souls, and because the baptism of Christ is ‘with the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ (Matt 3:11). In blessing the waters a LIGHTED TORCH is put into the font.” Here, then, it is manifest that the baptismal regenerating water of Rome is consecrated just as the regenerating and purifying water of the Pagans was. Of what avail is it for Bishop Hay to say, with the view of sanctifying superstition and ”making apostacy plausible,” that this is done ”to represent the fire of Divine love, which is communicated to the soul by baptism, and the light of good example, which all who are baptised ought to give.” This is the fair face put on the matter; but the fact still remains that while the Romish doctrine in regard to baptism is purely Pagan, in the ceremonies connected with the Papal baptism one of the essential rites of the ancient fire-worship is still practised at this day, just as it was practised by the worshippers of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah. As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the fire-god passing through the waters and giving virtue to them, so when it speaks of the ”Holy Ghost suffering for us in baptism,” it in like manner commemorates the part which Paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when she plunged into the waters. The sorrows of Nimrod, or Bacchus, when in the waters were meritorious sorrows. The sorrows of his wife, in whom the Holy Ghost miraculously dwelt, were the same. The sorrows of the Madonna, then, when in these waters, fleeing from Typhon’s rage, were the birth-throes by which children were born to God. And thus, even in the Far West, Chalchivitlycue, the Mexican ”goddess of the waters,” and ”mother” of all the regenerate, was represented as purging the new-born infant from original sin, and ”bringing it anew into the world.” Now, the Holy Ghost was idolatrously worshipped in Babylon under the form of a ”Dove.” Under the same form, and with equal idolatry, the Holy Ghost is worshipped in Rome. When, therefore, we read, in opposition to every Scripture principle, that ”the Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism,” surely it must now be manifest who is that Holy Ghost that is really intended. It is no other than Semiramis, the very incarnation of lust and all uncleanness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect41.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Identity of the Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon, was the great war-god. Odin, as is well known, was the same. 2 Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was regarded as the god of wine; Odin is represented as taking no food but wine. For thus we read in the Edda: ”As to himself he [Odin] stands in no need of food; wine is to him instead of every other aliment, according to what is said in these verses: The illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens his two wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no other nourishment to himself than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of wine” (MALLET, 20th Fable). 3. The name of one of Odin’s sons indicates the meaning of Odin’s own name. Balder, for whose death such lamentations were made, seems evidently just the Chaldee form of Baal-zer, ”The seed of Baal”; for the Hebrew z, as is well known, frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and Adon both alike signify ”Lord”; and, therefore, if Balder be admitted to be the seed or son of Baal, that is as much as to say that he is the son of Adon; and, consequently, Adon and Odin must be the same. This, of course, puts Odin a step back; makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself; but the same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the child was sometimes represented as torn in pieces, as Osiris had been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio), ”they 03 lament an infant torn in pieces by the Titans.” The lamentations for Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the lamentations for Adonis; and, of course, if Balder was, as the lamentations prove him to have been, the favourite form of the Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or ”Lord,” as well as his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name of the other son of Odin, the mighty and warlike Thor, strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas, the son of Ninus or Nimrod, on his father’s death, when idolatry rose again, was, of course, from the nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, ”the Lord.” Now, as Odin had a son called Thor, so the second Assyrian Adon had a son called Thouros. The name Thouros seems just to be another form of Zoro, or Doro, ”the seed”; for Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified ”Seed.” The D is often pronounced as Th,–Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced Athon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />Section II<br />Justification by Works</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as regenerated and purged from sin by baptism, which baptism received its virtue from the sufferings of these two great Babylonian divinities. But yet in regard to justification, the Chaldean doctrine was that it was by works and merits of men themselves that they must be justified and accepted of God. The following remarks of Christie in his observations appended to Ouvaroff’s <i>Eleusinian Mysteries</i>, show that such was the case: ”Mr. Ouvaroff has suggested that one of the great objects of the Mysteries was the presenting to fallen man the means of his return to God. These means were the cathartic virtues–(i.e., the virtues by which sin is removed), by the exercise of which a corporeal life was to be vanquished. Accordingly the Mysteries were termed Teletae, ‘perfections,’ because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of life. Those who were purified by them were styled Teloumenoi and Tetelesmenoi, that is, ‘brought…to perfection,’ which depended on the exertions of the individual.” In the <i>Metamorphosis</i> of Apuleius, who was himself initiated in the mysteries of Isis, we find this same doctrine of human merits distinctly set forth. Thus the goddess is herself represented as addressing the hero of his tale: ”If you shall be found to DESERVE the protection of my divinity by <i>sedulous obedience, religious devotion</i> and <i>inviolable chastity</i>, you shall be sensible that it is possible for me, and me alone, to extend your life beyond the limits that have been appointed to it by your destiny.” When the same individual has received a proof of the supposed favour of the divinity, thus do the onlookers express their congratulations: ”Happy, by Hercules! and thrice blessed he to have MERITED, by the innocence and probity of his past life, such special patronage of heaven.” Thus was it in life. At death, also, the grand passport into the unseen world was still through the merits of men themselves, although the name of Osiris was, as we shall by-and-by see, given to those who departed in the faith. ”When the bodies of persons of distinction” [in Egypt], says Wilkinson, quoting Porphyry, ”were embalmed, they took out the intestines and put them into a vessel, over which (after some other rites had been performed for the dead) one of the embalmers pronounced an invocation to the sun in behalf of the deceased.” The formula, according to Euphantus, who translated it from the original into Greek, was as follows: ”O thou Sun, our sovereign lord! and all ye Deities who have given life to man, receive me, and grant me an abode with the eternal gods. During the whole course of my life I have scrupulously worshipped the gods my father taught me to adore; I have ever honoured my parents, who begat this body; I have killed no one; I have not defrauded any, nor have I done any injury to any man.” Thus the merits, the obedience, or the innocence of man was the grand plea. The doctrine of Rome in regard to the vital article of a sinner’s justification is the very same. Of course this of itself would prove little in regard to the affiliation of the two systems, the Babylonian and the Roman; for, from the days of Cain downward, the doctrine of human merit and of self-justification has everywhere been indigenous in the heart of depraved humanity. But, what is worthy of notice in regard to this subject is, that in the two systems, it was <i>symbolised</i> in precisely the same way. In the Papal legends it is taught that St. Michael the Archangel has committed to him the balance of God’s justice, and that in the two opposite scales of that balance the merits and the demerits of the departed are put that they may be fairly weighed, the one over against the other, and that as the scale turns to the favourable or unfavourable side they may be justified or condemned as the case may be. Now, the Chaldean doctrine of justification, as we get light on it from the monuments of Egypt, is symbolised in precisely the same way, except that in the land of Ham the scales of justice were committed to the charge of the god Anubis instead of St. Michael the Archangel, and that the good deeds and the bad seem to have been weighed separately, and a distinct record made of each, so that when both were summed up and the balance struck, judgment was pronounced accordingly. Wilkinson states that Anubis and his scales are often represented; and that in some cases there is some difference in the <i>details</i>. But it is evident from his statements, that the<i>principle</i> in all is the same. The following is the account which he gives of one of these judgment scenes, previous to the admission of the dead to Paradise: ”Cerberus is present as the guardian of the gates, near which the scales of justice are erected; and Anubis, the director of the weight, having placed a vase representing the good actions of the deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other, proceeds to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he is found wanting, he is rejected, and Osiris, the judge of the dead, inclining his sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon him, and condemns his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or some unclean animal…But if, when the SUM of his deeds are recorded by Thoth [who stands by to mark the results of the different weighings of Anubis], his virtues so far PREDOMINATE as to entitle him to admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in his palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded flowers the four Genii of Amenti.” The same mode of symbolising the justification by works had evidently been in use in Babylon itself; and, therefore, there was great force in the Divine handwriting on the wall, when the doom of Belshazzar went forth: ”Tekel,” ”Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” In the Parsee system, which has largely borrowed from Chaldea, the principle of weighing the good deeds over against the bad deeds is fully developed. ”For three days after dissolution,” says Vaux, in his <i>Nineveh and Persepolis</i>, giving an account of Parsee doctrines in regard to the dead, ”the soul is supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on the fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of Chinevad. On this structure, which they assert connects heaven and earth, sits the Angel of Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when the good deeds prevail, the soul is met on the bridge by a dazzling figure, which says, ‘I am thy good angel, I was pure originally, but thy good deeds have rendered me purer’; and passing his hand over the neck of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities preponderate, the soul is meet by a hideous spectre, which howls out, ‘I am thy evil genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me fouler; through thee we shall remain miserable until the resurrection’; the sinning soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to taunt it with its crimes.” Such is the doctrine of Parseeism. The same is the case in China, where Bishop Hurd, giving an account of the Chinese descriptions of the infernal regions, and of the figures that refer to them, says, ”One of them always represents a sinner in a pair of scales, with his iniquities in the one, and his good works in another.” ”We meet with several such representations,” he adds, ”in the Grecian mythology.” Thus does Sir J. F. Davis describe the operation of the principle in China: ”In a work of some note on morals, called <i>Merits and Demerits Examined</i>, a man is directed to keep a debtor and creditor account with himself of the acts of each day, and at the end of the year to wind it up. If the balance is in his favour, it serves as the foundation of a stock of merits for the ensuing year: and if against him, it must be liquidated by future good deeds. Various lists and comparative tables are given of both good and bad actions in the several relations of life; and benevolence is strongly inculcated in regard first to man, and, secondly, to the brute creation. To cause another’s death is reckoned at one hundred on the side of demerit; while a single act of charitable relief counts as one on the other side…To save a person’s life ranks in the above work as an exact set-off to the opposite act of taking it away; and it is said that this deed of merit will prolong a person’s life twelve years.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While such a mode of justification is, on the one hand, in the very nature of the case, utterly demoralising, there never could by means of it, on the other, be in the bosom of any man whose conscience is aroused, any solid feeling of comfort, or assurance as to his prospects in the eternal world. Who could ever tell, however good he might suppose himself to be, whether the ”<i>sum</i>of his good actions” would or would not counterbalance the amount of sins and transgressions that his conscience might charge against him. How very different the Scriptural, the god-like plan of ”justification by faith,” and ”faith alone, without the deeds of the law,” absolutely irrespective of human merits, simply and solely through the ”righteousness of Christ, that is unto all and upon all them that believe,” that delivers at once and for ever ”from all condemnation,” those who accept of the offered Saviour, and by faith are vitally united to Him. It is not the will of our Father in heaven, that His children in this world should be ever in doubt and darkness as to the vital point of their eternal salvation. Even a genuine saint, no doubt, may for a season, if need be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations, but such is not the natural, the normal state of a healthful Christian, of one who knows the fulness and the freeness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace. God has laid the most solid foundation for all His people to say, with John, ”We have KNOWN and believed the love which God hath to us” (1 John 4:16); or with Paul, ”I am PERSUADED that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:38,39). But this no man can every say, who ”goes about to establish his own righteousness” (Rom 10:3), who seeks, in any shape, to be justified by works. Such assurance, such comfort, can come only from a simple and believing reliance on the free, unmerited grace of God, given <i>in and along</i> with Christ, the unspeakable gift of the Father’s love. It was this that made Luther’s spirit to be, as he himself declared, ”as free as a flower of the field,” when, single and alone, he went up to the Diet of Worms, to confront all the prelates and potentates there convened to condemn the doctrine which he held. It was this that in every age made the martyrs go with such sublime heroism not only to prison but to death. It is this that emancipates the soul, restores the true dignity of humanity, and cuts up by the roots all the imposing pretensions of priestcraft. It is this only that can produce a life of loving, filial, hearty obedience to the law and commandments of God; and that, when nature fails, and when the king of terrors is at hand, can enable poor, guilty sons of men, with the deepest sense of unworthiness, yet to say, ”O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor 15:55,57).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, to all such confidence in God, such assurance of salvation, spiritual despotism in every age, both Pagan and Papal, has ever shown itself unfriendly. Its grand object has always been to keep the souls of its votaries away from direct and immediate intercourse with a living and merciful Saviour, and consequently from assurance of His favour, to inspire a sense of the necessity of human mediation, and so to establish itself on the ruins of the hopes and the happiness of the world. Considering the pretensions which the Papacy makes to absolute infallibility, and the supernatural powers which it attributes to the functions of its priests, in regard to regeneration and the forgiveness of sins, it might have been supposed, as a matter of course, that all its adherents would have been encouraged to rejoice in the continual assurance of their personal salvation. But the very contrary is the fact. After all its boastings and high pretensions, perpetual doubt on the subject of a man’s salvation, to his life’s end, is inculcated as a duty; it being peremptorily decreed as an article of faith by the Council of Trent, ”That <i>no man</i> can know with infallible assurance of faith that he HAS OBTAINED the grace of God.” This very decree of Rome, while directly opposed to the Word of God, stamps its own lofty claims with the brand of imposture; for if no man who has been regenerated by its baptism, and who has received its absolution from sin, can yet have any <i>certain assurance</i> after all that ”the grace of God” has been<i>conferred</i> upon him, what can be the worth of its <i>opus operatum</i>? Yet, in seeking to keep its devotees in continual doubt and uncertainty as to their final state, it is ”wise after its generation.” In the Pagan system, it was the priest alone who could at all pretend to anticipate the operation of the scales of Anubis; and, in the confessional, there was from time to time, after a sort, a mimic rehearsal of the dread weighing that was to take place at last in the judgment scene before the tribunal of Osiris. There the priest sat in judgment on the good deeds and bad deeds of his penitents; and, as his power and influence were founded to a large extent on the mere principle of slavish dread, he took care that the scale should generally turn in the wrong direction, that they might be more subservient to his will in casting in a due amount of good works into the opposite scale. As he was the grand judge of what these works should be, it was his interest to appoint what should be most for the selfish aggrandisement of himself, or the glory of his order; and yet so to weigh and counterweigh merits and demerits, that there should always be left a large balance to be settled, not only by the man himself, but by his heirs. If any man had been allowed to believe himself beforehand absolutely sure of glory, the priests might have been in danger of being robbed of their dues after death–an issue by all means to be guarded against. Now, the priests of Rome have in every respect copied after the priests of Anubis, the god of the scales. In the confessional, when they have an object to gain, they make the sins and transgressions good weight; and then, when they have a man of influence, or power, or wealth to deal with, they will not give him the slightest hope till round sums of money, or the founding of an abbey, or some other object on which they have set their heart, be cast into the other scale. In the famous letter of Pere La Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV of France, giving an account of the method which he adopted to gain the consent of that licentious monarch to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by which such cruelties were inflicted on his innocent Huguenot subjects, we see how the fear of the scales of St. Michael operated in bringing about the desired result: ”Many a time since,” says the accomplished Jesuit, referring to an atrocious sin of which the king had been guilty, ”many a time since, when I have had him at confession, <i>I have shook hell about his ears, and made him sigh, fear and tremble</i>, before I would give him absolution. By this I saw that he had still an inclination to me, and was willing to be under my government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling the whole story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be forgiven till he had done some good action to BALANCE that, and expiate the crime. Whereupon he at last asked me what he must do. I told him that he must root out all heretics from his kingdom.” This was the ”good action” to be cast into the <i>scale</i> of St. Michael the Archangel, to ”BALANCE” his crime. The king, wicked as he was–sore against his will-consented; the ”good action” was cast in, the ”heretics” were extirpated; and the king was absolved. But yet the absolution was not such but that, when he went the way of all the earth, there was still much to be cast in before the scales could be fairly adjusted. Thus Paganism and Popery alike ”make merchandise of the souls of men” (Rev 18:13). Thus the one with the scales of Anubis, the other with the scales of St. Michael, exactly answer to the Divine description of Ephraim in his apostacy: ”Ephraim is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand” (Hosea 12:7). The Anubis of the Egyptians was precisely the same as the Mercury of the Greeks–the ”god of thieves.” St. Michael, in the hands of Rome, answers exactly to the same character. By means of him and his scales, and their doctrine of human merits, they have made what they call the house of God to be nothing else than a ”den of thieves.” To rob men of their money is bad, but infinitely worse to cheat them also of their souls.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Into the scales of Anubis, the ancient Pagans, by way of securing their justification, were required to put not merely good deeds, properly so called, but deeds of austerity and self-mortification inflicted on their own persons, for averting the wrath of the gods. The scales of St. Michael inflexibly required to be balanced in the very same way. The priests of Rome teach that when sin is forgiven, the <i>punishment</i> is not thereby fully taken away. However perfect may be the pardon that God, through the priests, may bestow, yet punishment, greater or less, still remains behind, which men must endure, and that to ”<i>satisfy the justice of God</i>.” Again and again has it been shown that man cannot do anything to satisfy the justice of God, that to that justice he is hopelessly indebted, that he ”has” absolutely ”nothing to pay”; and more than that, that there is no need that he should attempt to pay one farthing; for that, in behalf of all who believe, Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and made <i>all</i> the satisfaction to the broken law that that law could possibly demand. Still Rome insists that every man must be punished for his own sins, and that God <i>cannot be satisfied</i> * without groans and sighs, lacerations of the flesh, tortures of the body, and penances without number, on the part of the offender, however broken in heart, however contrite that offender may be.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop HAY’S <i>Sincere Christian</i>. The words of Bishop Hay are: ”But He absolutely demands that, by penitential works, we PUNISH ourselves for our shocking ingratitude, and satisfy the Divine justice for the abuse of His mercy.” The established modes of ”punishment,” as is well known, are just such as are described in the text.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, looking simply at the Scripture, this perverse demand for self-torture on the part of those for whom Christ has made a <i>complete</i> and <i>perfect</i> atonement, might seem exceedingly strange; but, looking at the real character of the god whom the Papacy has set up for the worship of its deluded devotees, there is nothing in the least strange about it. That god is Moloch, the god of barbarity and blood. Moloch signifies ”king”; and Nimrod was the first after the flood that violated the patriarchal system, and set up as ”king” over his fellows. At first he was worshipped as the ”revealer of goodness and truth,” but by-and-by his worship was made to correspond with his dark and forbidding countenance and complexion. The name Moloch originally suggested nothing of cruelty or terror; but now the well known rites associated with that name have made it for ages a synonym for all that is most revolting to the heart of humanity, and amply justify the description of Milton (<i>Paradise Lost</i>):</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood<br />Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,<br />Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,<br />Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire<br />To his grim idol.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In almost every land the bloody worship prevailed; ”horrid cruelty,” hand in hand with abject superstition, filled not only ”the dark places of the earth,” but also regions that boasted of their enlightenment. Greece, Rome, Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, and our own land under the savage Druids, at one period or other in their history, worshipped the same god and in the same way. Human victims were his most acceptable offerings; human groans and wailings were the sweetest music in his ears; human tortures were believed to delight his heart. His image bore, as the symbol of ”majesty,” a <i>whip</i>, and with whips his worshippers, at some of his festivals, were required unmercifully to scourge themselves. ”After the ceremonies of sacrifice,” says Herodotus, speaking of the feast of Isis at Busiris, ”the whole assembly, to the amount of many thousands, scourge themselves; but in whose honour they do this I am not at liberty to disclose.” This reserve Herodotus generally uses, out of respect to his oath as an initiated man; but subsequent researches leave no doubt as to the god ”in whose honour” the scourgings took place. In Pagan Rome the worshippers of Isis observed the same practice in honour of Osiris. In Greece, Apollo, the Delian god, who was identical with Osiris, * was propitiated with similar penances by the sailors who visited his shrine, as we learn from the following lines of Callimachus in his hymn to Delos:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Soon as they reach thy soundings, down at once<br />They drop slack sails and all the naval gear.<br />The ship is moored; nor do the crew presume<br />To quit thy sacred limits, till they’ve passed<br />A fearful penance; with the galling whip<br />Lashed thrice around thine altar.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* We have seen already, that the Egyptian Horus was just a new incarnation of Osiris or Nimrod. Now, Herodotus calls Horus by the name of Apollo. Diodorus Siculus, also, says that ”Horus, the son of Isis, is interpreted to be Apollo.” Wilkinson seems, on one occasion, to call this identity of Horus and Apollo in question; but he elsewhere admits that the story of Apollo’s ”combat with the serpent Pytho is evidently derived from the Egyptian mythology,” where the allusion is to the representation of Horus piercing the snake with a spear. From divers considerations, it may be shown that this conclusion is correct: 1. Horus, or Osiris, was the sun-god, so was Apollo. 2. Osiris, whom Horus represented, was the great Revealer; the Pythian Apollo was the god of oracles. 3. Osiris, in the character of Horus, was born when his mother was said to be persecuted by the malice of her enemies. Latona, the mother of Apollo, was a fugitive for a similar reason when Apollo was born. 4. Horus, according to one version of the myth, was said, like Osiris, to have been cut in pieces (PLUTARCH, <i>De Iside</i>). In the classic story of Greece, this part of the myth of Apollo was generally kept in the background; and he was represented as victor in the conflict with the serpent; but even there it was sometimes admitted that he had suffered a violent death, for by Porphyry he is said to have been slain by the serpent, and Pythagoras affirmed that he had seen his tomb at Tripos in Delphi (BRYANT). 5. Horus was the war-god. Apollo was represented in the same way as the great god represented in Layard, with the bow and arrow, who was evidently the Babylonian war-god, Apollo’s well known title of ”Arcitenens,”–”the bearer of the bow,” having evidently been borrowed from that source. Fuss tells us that Apollo was regarded as the inventor of the art of shooting with the bow, which identifies him with Sagittarius, whose origin we have already seen. 6. Lastly, from Ovid (<i>Metam</i>.) we learn that, before engaging with Python, Apollo had used his arrows only on fallow-deer, stags, &c. All which sufficiently proves his substantial identification with the mighty <i>Hunter of Babel</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Over and above the scourgings, there were also slashings and cuttings of the flesh required as propitiatory rites on the part of his worshippers. ”In the solemn celebration of the Mysteries,” says Julius Firmicus, ”all things in order had to be done, which the youth either did or <i>suffered</i> at his death.” Osiris was cut in pieces; therefore, to imitate his fate, so far as living men might do so, they were required to cut and wound their own bodies. Therefore, when the priests of Baal contended with Elijah, to gain the favour of their god, and induce him to work the desired miracle in their behalf, ”they cried aloud and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and with lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:28). In Egypt, the natives in general, though liberal in the use of the whip, seem to have been sparing of the knife; but even there, there were men also who mimicked on their own persons the dismemberment of Osiris. ”The Carians of Egypt,” says Herodotus, in the place already quoted, ”treat themselves at this solemnity with still more severity, for they cut themselves in the face with swords” (HERODOTUS). To this practice, there can be no doubt, there is a direct allusion in the command in the Mosaic law, ”Ye shall make no cuttings in your flesh for the dead” (Lev 19:28). * These cuttings in the flesh are largely practised in the worship of the Hindoo divinities, as propitiatory rites or meritorious penances. They are well known to have been practised in the rites of Bellona, ** the ”sister” or ”wife of the Roman war-god Mars,” whose name, ”The lamenter of Bel,” clearly proves the original of her husband to whom the Romans were so fond of tracing back their pedigree.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Every person who died in the faith was believed to be identified with Osiris, and called by his name. (WILKINSON)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** ”The priests of Bellona,” says Lactantius, ”sacrificed not with any other men’s blood but their own, their shoulders being lanced, and with both hands brandishing naked swords, they ran and leaped up and down like mad men.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">They were practised also in the most savage form in the gladiatorial shows, in which the Roman people, with all their boasted civilisation, so much delighted. The miserable men who were doomed to engage in these bloody exhibitions did not do so generally of their own free will. But yet, the principle on which these shows were conducted was the very same as that which influenced the priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory sacrifices. From Fuss we learn that ”gladiatorial shows were sacred” to Saturn; and in Ausonius we read that ”the amphitheatre claims its gladiators for itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE with their blood the sickle-bearing Son of Heaven.” On this passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it, thus comments: ”Where you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators fought on the Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and PROPITIATING Saturn.” ”The reason of this,” he adds, ”I should suppose to be, that Saturn is not among the celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his book of ‘Summaries,’ says that ‘the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean and infernal God.’” There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for the name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, ”The Hidden One.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name Pluto is evidently from ”Lut,” to hide, which with the Egyptian definite article prefixed, becomes ”P’Lut.” The Greek ”wealth,” ”the <i>hidden</i> thing,” is obviously formed in the same way. Hades is just another synonym of the same name.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But yet, in the light of the real history of the historical Saturn, we find a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous custom that so much disgraced the escutcheon of Rome in all its glory, when mistress of the world, when such multitudes of men were</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When it is remembered that Saturn himself was cut in pieces, it is easy to see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to him by setting men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way of propitiating his favour.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The practice of such penances, then, on the part of those of the Pagans who cut and slashed themselves, was intended to propitiate and please their god, and so to lay up a stock of merit that might tell in their behalf in the scales of Anubis. In the Papacy, the penances are not only intended to answer the same end, but, to a large extent,they are identical. I do not know, indeed, that they use the <i>knife</i> as the priests of Baal did; but it is certain that they look upon the shedding of their own <i>blood</i> as a most meritorious penance, that gains them high favour with God, and wipes away many sins. Let the reader look at the pilgrims at Lough Dergh, in Ireland, crawling on their bare knees over the sharp rocks, and leaving the bloody tracks behind them, and say what substantial difference there is between that and cutting themselves with knives. In the matter of scourging themselves, however, the adherents of the Papacy have literally borrowed the lash of Osiris. Everyone has heard of the Flagellants, who publicly scourge themselves on the festivals of the Roman Church, and who are regarded as saints of the first water. In the early ages of Christianity such flagellations were regarded as purely and entirely Pagan. Athenagoras, one of the early Christian Apologists, holds up the Pagans to ridicule for thinking that sin could be atoned for, or God propitiated, by any such means. But now, in the high places of the Papal Church, such practices are regarded as the grand means of gaining the favour of God. On Good Friday, at Rome and Madrid, and other chief seats of Roman idolatry, multitudes flock together to witness the performances of the saintly whippers, who lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams from every part of their body. They pretend to do this in honour of Christ, on the festival set apart professedly to commemorate His death, just as the worshippers of Osiris did the same on the festival when they lamented for his loss. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The priests of Cybele at Rome observed the same practice.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But can any man of the least Christian enlightenment believe that the exalted Saviour can look on such rites as doing honour to Him, which pour contempt on His all-perfect atonement, and represent His most ”precious blood” as needing to have its virtue <i>supplemented</i> by that of blood drawn from the backs of wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were altogether fit for the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of being fit for the service of Christ.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is not in one point only, but in manifold respects, that the ceremonies of ”Holy Week” at Rome, as it is termed, recall to memory the rites of the great Babylonian god. The more we look at these rites, the more we shall be struck with the wonderful resemblance that subsists between them and those observed at the Egyptian festival of burning lamps and the other ceremonies of the fire-worshippers in different countries. In Egypt the <i>grand illumination</i> took place beside the sepulchre of Osiris at Sais. In Rome in ”Holy Week,” a sepulchre of Christ also figures in connection with a brilliant illumination of burning tapers. In Crete, where the tomb of Jupiter was exhibited, that tomb was an object of worship to the Cretans. In Rome, if the devotees do not worship the so-called sepulchre of Christ, they worship what is entombed within it. As there is reason to believe that the Pagan festival of burning lamps was observed in commemoration of the ancient fire-worship, so there is a ceremony at Rome in the Easter week, which is an unmistakable act of fire-worship, when a <i>cross of fire</i> is the grand object of worship. This ceremony is thus graphically described by the authoress of <i>Rome in the 19th Century</i>: ”The effect of the blazing cross of fire suspended from the dome above the confession or tomb of St. Peter’s, was strikingly brilliant at night. It is covered with innumerable lamps, which have the effect of one blaze of fire…The whole church was thronged with a vast multitude of all classes and countries, from royalty to the meanest beggar, all gazing upon this one object. In a few minutes the Pope and all his Cardinals descended into St. Peter’s, and room being kept for them by the Swiss guards, the aged Pontiff…prostrated himself in silent adoration before the CROSS OF FIRE. A long train of Cardinals knelt before him, whose splendid robes and attendant train-bearers, formed a striking contrast to the humility of their attitude.” What could be a more clear and unequivocal act of fire-worship than this? Now, view this in connection with the fact stated in the following extract from the same work, and how does the one cast light on the other: ”With Holy Thursday our miseries began [that is, from crowding]. On this disastrous day we went before nine to the Sistine chapel…and beheld a procession led by the inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals in superb dresses, bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the Pope himself, who walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head uncovered, bearing the Host in a box; and this being, as you know, the real flesh and blood of Christ, was carried from the Sistine chapel through the intermediate hall to the Paulina chapel, where it was deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the altar…I never could learn why Christ was to be buried before He was dead, for, as the crucifixion did not take place till Good Friday, it seems odd to inter Him on Thursday. His body, however, is laid in the sepulchre, in all the churches of Rome, where this rite is practised, on Thursday forenoon, and it remains there till Saturday at mid-day, when, for some reason best known to themselves, He is supposed to rise from the grave amidst the firing of cannon, and blowing of trumpets, and jingling of bells, which have been carefully tied up ever since the dawn of Holy Thursday, lest the devil should get into them.” The worship of the cross of fire on Good Friday explains at once the anomaly otherwise so perplexing, that Christ should be buried on Thursday, and rise from the dead on Saturday. If the festival of Holy Week be really, as its rites declare, one of the old festivals of Saturn, the Babylonian fire-god, who, though an infernal god, was yet Phoroneus, the great ”Deliverer,” it is altogether natural that the god of the Papal idolatry, though called by Christ’s <i>name</i>, should rise from the dead on his <i>own</i> day–the <i>Dies Saturni</i>, or ”Saturn’s day.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The above account referred to the ceremonies as witnessed by the authoress in 1817 and 1818. It would seem that some change has taken place since then, caused probably by the very attention called by her to the gross anomaly mentioned above; for Count Vlodaisky, formerly a Roman Catholic priest, who visited Rome in 1845, has informed me that in that year the resurrection took place, not at mid-day, but at nine o’clock on the evening of Saturday. This may have been intended to make the inconsistency between Roman practice and Scriptural fact appear somewhat less glaring. Still the fact remains, that the resurrection of Christ, as celebrated at Rome, takes place, not on His own day–”The Lord’s day”–but–on the day of Saturn, the god of fire!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">On the day before the <i>Miserere</i> is sung with such overwhelming pathos, that few can listen to it unmoved, and many even swoon with the emotions that are excited. What if this be at bottom only the old song of Linus, of whose very touching and melancholy character Herodotus speaks so strikingly? Certain it is, that much of the pathos of that <i>Miserere</i> depends on the part borne in singing it by the <i>sopranos</i>; and equally certain it is that Semiramis, the wife of him who, historically, was the original of that god whose tragic death was so pathetically celebrated in many countries, enjoys the fame, such as it is, of having been the inventress of the practice from which <i>soprano singing</i> took its rise.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the flagellations which form an important part of the penances that take place at Rome on the evening of Good Friday, formed an equally important part in the rites of that fire-god, from which, as we have seen, the Papacy has borrowed so much. These flagellations, then, of ”Passion Week,” taken in connection with the other ceremonies of that period, bear their additional testimony to the real character of that god whose death and resurrection Rome then celebrates. Wonderful it is to consider that, in the very high place of what is called Catholic Christendom, the essential rites at this day are seen to be the very rites of the old Chaldean fire-worshippers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />Section III<br />The Sacrifice of the Mass</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If baptismal regeneration, the initiating ordinance of Rome, and justification by works, be both Chaldean, the principle embodied in the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass is not less so. We have evidence that goes to show the Babylonian origin of the idea of that ”unbloody sacrifice” very distinctly. From Tacitus we learn that no blood was allowed to be offered on the altars of Paphian Venus. Victims were used for the purposes of the Haruspex, that presages of the issues of events might be drawn from the inspection of the entrails of these victims; but the altars of the Paphian goddess were required to be kept pure from blood. Tacitus shows that the Haruspex of the temple of the Paphian Venus was brought from <i>Cilicia</i>, for his knowledge of her rites, that they might be duly performed according to the supposed will of the goddess, the Cilicians having peculiar knowledge of her rites. Now, Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was built by Sennacerib, the Assyrian king, in express imitation of Babylon. Its religion would naturally correspond; and when we find ”unbloody sacrifice” in Cyprus, whose priest came from Cilicia, that, in the circumstances, is itself a strong presumption that the ”unbloody sacrifice” came to it through Cilicia from Babylon. This presumption is greatly strengthened when we find from Herodotus that the peculiar and abominable institution of Babylon in prostituting virgins in honour of Mylitta, was observed also in Cyprus in honour of Venus. But the positive testimony of Pausanias brings this presumption to a certainty. ”Near this,” says that historian, speaking of the temple of Vulcan at Athens, ”is the temple of Celestial Venus, who was first worshipped by the Assyrians, and after these by the Paphians in Cyprus, and the Phoenicians who inhabited the city of Ascalon in Palestine. But the Cythereans venerated this goddess in consequence of learning her sacred rites from the Phoenicians.” The Assyrian Venus, then–that is, the great goddess of Babylon–and the Cyprian Venus were one and the same, and consequently the ”bloodless” altars of the Paphian goddess show the character of the worship peculiar to the Babylonian goddess, from whom she was derived. In this respect the goddess-queen of Chaldea differed from her son, who was worshipped in her arms. <i>He</i> was, as we have seen, represented as delighting in blood. But <i>she</i>, as the mother of grace and mercy, as the celestial ”Dove,” as ”the hope of the whole world,” (BRYANT) was averse to blood, and was represented in a benign and gentle character. Accordingly, in Babylon she bore the name of Mylitta–that is, ”The Mediatrix.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Mylitta is the same as Melitta, the feminine of Melitz, ”a mediator,” which in Chaldee becomes Melitt. Melitz is the word used in Job 33:23, 24: ”If there be a messenger with him, an <i>interpreter</i> (Heb. Melitz, ”<i>a mediator</i>”), one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Every one who reads the Bible, and sees how expressly it declares that, as there is only ”one God,” so there is only ”one Mediator between God and man” (1 Tim 2:5), must marvel how it could ever have entered the mind of any one to bestow on Mary, as is done by the Church of Rome, the character of the ”Mediatrix.” But the character ascribed to the Babylonian goddess as Mylitta sufficiently accounts for this. In accordance with this character of Mediatrix, she was called Aphrodite–that is, ”the wrath-subduer” *–who by her charms could soothe the breast of angry Jove, and soften the most rugged spirits of gods or mortal-men. In Athens she was called Amarusia (PAUSANIAS)–that is, ”The Mother of gracious acceptance.” **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Chaldee ”aph,” ”wrath,” and ”radah,” ”to subdue”; ”radite” is the feminine emphatic.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From ”Ama,” ”mother,” and ”Retza,” ”to accept graciously,” which in the participle active is ”Rutza.” Pausanias expresses his perplexity as to the meaning of the name Amarusia as applied to Diana, saying, ”Concerning which appellation I never could find any one able to give a satisfactory account.” The sacred tongue plainly shows the meaning of it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Rome she was called ”Bona Dea,” ”the good goddess,” the mysteries of this goddess being celebrated by women with peculiar secrecy. In India the goddess Lakshmi, ”the Mother of the Universe,” the consort of Vishnu, is represented also as possessing the most gracious and genial disposition; and that disposition is indicated in the same way as in the case of the Babylonian goddess. ”In the festivals of Lakshmi,” says Coleman, ”no <i>sanguinary sacrifices are offered</i>.” In China, the great gods, on whom the final destinies of mankind depend, are held up to the popular mind as objects of dread; but the goddess Kuanyin, ”the goddess of mercy,” whom the Chinese of Canton recognise as bearing an analogy to the Virgin or Rome, is described as looking with an eye of compassion on the guilty, and interposing to save miserable souls even from torments to which in the world of spirits they have been doomed. Therefore she is regarded with peculiar favour by the Chinese. This character of the goddess-mother has evidently radiated in all directions from Chaldea. Now, thus we see how it comes that Rome represents Christ, the ”Lamb of God,” meek and lowly in heart, who never brake the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax–who spake words of sweetest encouragement to every mourning penitent–who wept over Jerusalem–who prayed for His murderers–as a stern and inexorable judge, before whom the sinner ”might grovel in the dust, and still never be sure that his prayers would be heard,” while Mary is set off in the most winning and engaging light, as the hope of the guilty, as the grand refuge of sinners; how it is that the former is said to have ”reserved justice and judgment to Himself,” but to have committed the exercise of all mercy to His Mother! The most standard devotional works of Rome are pervaded by this very principle, exalting the compassion and gentleness of the mother at the expense of the loving character of the Son. Thus, St. Alphonsus Liguori tells his readers that the sinner that ventures to come directly to Christ may come with dread and apprehension of His wrath; but let him only employ the mediation of the Virgin with her Son, and she has only to ”<i>show</i>” that Son ”<i>the breasts that gave him suck</i>,” (<i>Catholic Layman</i>, July, 1856) and His wrath will immediately be appeased. But where in the Word of God could such an idea have been found? Not surely in the answer of the Lord Jesus to the woman who exclaimed, ”Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked!” Jesus answered and said unto her, ”<i>Yea, rather</i>, blessed are they that hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27,28). There cannot be a doubt that this answer was given by the prescient Saviour, to check in the very bud every idea akin to that expressed by Liguori. Yet this idea, which is not to be found in Scripture, which the Scripture expressly repudiates, was widely diffused in the realms of Paganism. Thus we find an exactly parallel representation in the Hindoo mythology in regard to the god Siva and his wife Kali, when that god appeared as a little child. ”Siva,” says the Lainga Puran, ”appeared as an infant in a cemetery, surrounded by ghosts, and on beholding him, Kali (his wife) took him up, and, <i>caressing him, gave him her breast</i>. He sucked the nectareous fluid; but becoming ANGRY, in order to divert and PACIFY him, Kali <i>clasping him to her bosom</i>, danced with her attendant goblins and demons amongst the dead, until he was <i>pleased and delighted</i>; while Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and all the gods, bowing themselves, praised with laudatory strains the god of gods, Kal and Parvati.” Kali, in India, is the goddess of destruction; but even into the myth that concerns this goddess of destruction, the power of the goddess <i>mother</i>, in appeasing an offended god, by means only suited to PACIFY a peevish child, has found an introduction. If the Hindoo story exhibits its ”god of gods” in such a degrading light, how much more honouring is the Papal story to the Son of the Blessed, when it represents Him as needing to be <i>pacified</i> by His mother exposing to Him ”the breasts that He has sucked.” All this is done only to exalt the Mother, as <i>more</i> gracious and <i>more</i> compassionate than her glorious Son. Now, this was the very case in Babylon: and to this character of the goddess queen her favourite offerings exactly corresponded. Therefore, we find the women of Judah represented as simply ”burning incense, pouring out drink-offerings, and offering <i>cakes</i> to the queen of heaven” (Jer 44:19). The cakes were ”the unbloody sacrifice” she required. That ”unbloody sacrifice” her votaries not only offered, but when admitted to the higher mysteries, they partook of, swearing anew fidelity to her. In the fourth century, when the queen of heaven, under the name of Mary, was beginning to be worshipped in the Christian Church, this ”unbloody sacrifice” also was brought in. Epiphanius states that the practice of offering and eating it began among the women of Arabia; and at that time it was well known to have been adopted from the Pagans. The very shape of the unbloody sacrifice of Rome may indicate whence it came. It is a small thin, <i>round</i> wafer; and on its <i>roundness</i> the Church of Rome lays so much stress, to use the pithy language of John Knox in regard to the wafer-god, ”If, in making the <i>roundness</i> the ring be broken, then must another of his fellow-cakes receive that honour to be made a god, and the crazed or cracked miserable cake, that once was in hope to be made a god, must be given to a baby to play withal.” What could have induced the Papacy to insist so much on the ”<i>roundness</i>” of its ”unbloody sacrifice”? Clearly not any reference to the Divine institution of the Supper of our Lord; for in all the accounts that are given of it, no reference whatever is made to the <i>form</i> of the bread which our Lord took, when He blessed and break it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ”Take, eat; this is My body: this do in remembrance of Me.” As little can it be taken from any regard to injunctions about the form of the Jewish Paschal bread; for no injunctions on that subject are given in the books of Moses. The importance, however, which Rome attaches to the <i>roundness</i> of the wafer, must have a reason; and that reason will be found, if we look at the altars of Egypt. ”The thin, <i>round</i> cake,” says Wilkinson, ”occurs on all altars.” Almost every jot or tittle in the Egyptian worship had a symbolical meaning. The <i>round disk</i>, so frequent in the sacred emblems of Egypt, symbolised the <i>sun</i>. Now, when Osiris, the sun-divinity, became incarnate, and was born, it was not merely that he should give his life as a <i>sacrifice</i> for men, but that he might also be the life and <i>nourishment</i> of the souls of men. It is universally admitted that Isis was the original of the Greek and Roman Ceres. But Ceres, be it observed, was worshipped not simply as the <i>discoverer</i> of corn; she was worshipped as ”the MOTHER of Corn.” The child she brought forth was He-Siri, ”the Seed,” or, as he was most frequently called in Assyria, ”Bar,” which signifies at once ”the <i>Son</i>” and ”the <i>Corn</i>.” The uninitiated might reverence Ceres for the gift of material corn to nourish their <i>bodies</i>, but the initiated adored her for a higher gift–for food to nourish their souls–for giving them that bread of God that cometh down from heaven–for the life of the world, of which, ”if a man eat, he shall never die.” Does any one imagine that it is a mere <i>New Testament</i> doctrine, that Christ is the ”bread of life”? There never <i>was</i>, there never <i>could</i> be, spiritual life in any soul, since the world began, at least since the expulsion from Eden, that was not nourished and supported by a continual feeding by faith on the Son of God, ”in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell” (Col 1:19), ”that out of His fulness we might receive, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). Paul tells us that the manna of which the Israelites ate in the wilderness was to them a type and lively symbol of ”the bread of life”; (1 Cor 10:3), ”They did all eat the same <i>spiritual</i> meat”–i.e., meat which was intended not only to support their natural lives, but to point them to Him who was the life of their souls. Now, Clement of Alexandria, to whom we are largely indebted for all the discoveries that, in modern times, have been made in Egypt, expressly assures us that, ”in their <i>hidden character</i>, the enigmas of the Egyptians were VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE JEWS.” That the initiated Pagans actually believed that the ”Corn” which Ceres bestowed on the world was not the ”Corn” of this earth, but the Divine ”Son,” through whom alone spiritual and eternal life could be enjoyed, we have clear and decisive proof. The Druids were devoted worshippers of Ceres, and as such they were celebrated in their mystic poems as ”bearers of the ears of corn.” Now, the following is the account which the Druids give of their great divinity, under the form of ”<i>Corn</i>.” That divinity was represented as having, in the first instance, incurred, for some reason or other, the displeasure of Ceres, and was fleeing in terror from her. In his terror, ”he took the form of a bird, and mounted into the air. That element afforded him no refuge: for <i>The Lady</i>, in the form of a sparrow-hawk, was gaining upon him–she was just in the act of pouncing upon him. Shuddering with dread, he perceived a heap of clean wheat upon a floor, dropped into the midst of it, and assumed the form of a <i>single grain</i>. Ceridwen [i.e., the British Ceres] took the form of a black high-crested hen, descended into the wheat, scratched him out, distinguished, and swallowed him. And, as the history relates, she was pregnant of him nine months, and when delivered of him, she found him <i>so lovely a babe</i>, that she had not resolution to put him to death” (”Song of Taliesin,” DAVIES’S <i>British Druids</i>). Here it is evident that the <i>grain of corn</i>, is expressly identified with ”<i>the lovely babe</i>”; from which it is still further evident that Ceres, who, to the profane vulgar was known only as the Mother of ”Bar,” ”the Corn,” was known to the initiated as the Mother of ”Bar,” ”the Son.” And now, the reader will be prepared to understand the full significance of the representation in the Celestial sphere of ”the Virgin with the ear of wheat in her hand.” That <i>ear of wheat</i> in the Virgin’s <i>hand</i> is just another symbol for the <i>child</i> in the <i>arms</i>of the Virgin Mother.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this Son, who was symbolised as ”Corn,” was the SUN-divinity incarnate, according to the sacred oracle of the great goddess of Egypt: ”No mortal hath lifted my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the SUN” (BUNSEN’S <i>Egypt</i>). What more natural then, if this incarnate divinity is symbolised as the ”<i>bread</i> of God,” than that he should be represented as a ”<i>round</i>wafer,” to identify him with the Sun? Is this a mere fancy? Let the reader peruse the following extract from Hurd, in which he describes the embellishments of the Romish altar, on which the sacrament or consecrated wafer is deposited, and then he will be able to judge: ”A plate of silver, in the form of a SUN, is fixed opposite to the SACRAMENT on the altar; which, with the light of the tapers, makes a most brilliant appearance.” What has that ”brilliant” ”<i>Sun</i>” to do there, on the altar, over against the ”<i>sacrament</i>,” or <i>round</i> wafer? In Egypt, the <i>disk</i> of the Sun was represented in the temples, and the sovereign and his wife and children were represented as adoring it. Near the small town of Babin, in Upper Egypt, there still exists in a grotto, a representation of a sacrifice to the sun, where two priests are seen worshipping the sun’s image. In the great temple of Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the Babylonians. In the temple of Cuzco, in Peru, the disk of the sun was fixed up in flaming gold upon the wall, that all who entered might bow down before it. The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers; and in their worship they adored an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole. In the worship of Baal, as practised by the idolatrous Israelites in the days of their apostacy, the worship of the sun’s image was equally observed; and it is striking to find that the image of the sun, which apostate Israel worshipped, was erected <i>above the altar</i>. When the good king Josiah set about the work of reformation, we read that his servants in carrying out the work, proceeded thus (2 Chron 34:4): ”And they brake down the <i>altars</i> of Baalim in his presence, and the images (margin, SUN-IMAGES) that were on high above them, he cut down.” Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives a striking account of sun-worship even in comparatively modern times, as subsisting among the Cushites of the East, from which we find that the image of the sun was, even in his day, worshipped on the altar. ”There is a temple,” says he, ”of the posterity of Chus, addicted to the contemplation of the stars. They worship the sun as a god, and the whole country, for half-a-mile round their town, is filled with great altars dedicated to him. By the dawn of morn they get up and run out of town, to wait the rising sun, to whom, <i>on every altar</i>, there is a <i>consecrated image</i>, not in the likeness of a man, but <i>of the solar orb</i>, framed by magic art. These orbs, as soon as the sun rises, take fire, and resound with a great noise, while everybody there, men and women, hold censers in their hands, and all burn incense to the sun.” From all this, it is manifest that the image of the sun above, or on the altar, was one of the recognised symbols of those who worshipped Baal or the sun. And here, in a so-called Christian Church, a brilliant plate of silver, ”in the form of a SUN,” is so placed on the altar, that every one who adores at that altar must bow down in lowly reverence before that image of the ”<i>Sun</i>.” Whence, I ask, could that have come, but from the ancient sun-worship, or the worship of Baal? And when the wafer is so placed that the silver ”SUN” is fronting the ”<i>round</i>” wafer, whose ”<i>roundness</i>” is so important an element in the Romish Mystery, what can be the meaning of it, but just to show to those who have eyes to see, that the ”Wafer” itself is only another symbol of Baal, or the Sun. If the sun-divinity was worshipped in Egypt as ”the Seed,” or in Babylon as the ”Corn,” precisely so is the wafer adored in Rome. ”Bread-<i>corn</i> of the elect, have mercy upon us,” is one of the appointed prayers of the Roman Litany, addressed to the wafer, in the celebration of the mass. And one at least of the imperative requirements as to the way in which that wafer is to be partaken of, is the very same as was enforced in the old worship of the Babylonian divinity. Those who partake of it are required to partake absolutely fasting. This is very stringently laid down. Bishop Hay, laying down the law on the subject, says that it is indispensable, ”that we be fasting from midnight, so as to have taken nothing into our stomach from twelve o’clock at night before we receive, neither food, nor drink, nor medicine.” Considering that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Communion immediately after His disciples had partaken of the paschal feast, such a strict requirement of fasting might seem very unaccountable. But look at this provision in regard to the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass in the light of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is accounted for at once; for there the first question put to those who sought initiation was, ”Are you fasting?” (POTTER, <i>Eleusiania</i>) and unless that question was answered in the affirmative, no initiation could take place. There is no question that fasting is in certain circumstances a Christian duty; but while neither the letter nor the spirit of the Divine institution requires any such stringent regulation as the above, the regulations in regard to the Babylonian Mysteries make it evident whence this requirement has really come.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Although the god whom Isis or Ceres brought forth, and who was offered to her under the symbol of the wafer or thin round cake, as ”the bread of life,” was in reality the fierce, scorching Sun, or terrible Moloch, yet in that offering all his terror was veiled, and everything repulsive was cast into the shade. In the appointed symbol he is offered up to the benignant Mother, who tempers judgment with mercy, and to whom all spiritual blessings are ultimately referred; and blessed by that mother, he is given back to be feasted upon, as the staff of life, as the nourishment of her worshippers’ souls. Thus the Mother was held up as the favourite divinity. And thus, also, and for an entirely similar reason, does the Madonna of Rome entirely eclipse her son as the ”Mother of grace and mercy.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In regard to the Pagan character of the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass, we have seen not little already. But there is something yet to be considered, in which the working of the mystery of iniquity will still further appear. There are letters on the wafer that are worth reading. These letters are I. H. S. What mean these mystical letters? To a Christian these letters are represented as signifying, ”<i>Iesus Hominum Salvator</i>,” ”Jesus the Saviour of men.” But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them, and how will he read them? He will read them, of course, according to his own well known system of idolatry: ”<i>Isis, Horus, Seb</i>,” that is, ”The Mother, the Child, and the Father of the gods,”–in other words, ”The Egyptian Trinity.” Can the reader imagine that this double sense is accidental? Surely not. The very same spirit that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast of the Christian Joannes, retaining at the same time all its ancient Paganism, has skilfully planned the initials I. H. S. to pay the <i>semblance</i> of a tribute to Christianity, while Paganism in reality has all the <i>substance</i> of the homage bestowed upon it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the ”unbloody sacrifice,” all genuine Christians saw at once the real character of their sacrifice. They were treated as heretics, and branded with the name of Collyridians, from the Greek name for the cake which they employed. But Rome saw that the heresy might be turned to account; and therefore, though condemned by the sound portion of the Church, the practice of offering and eating this ”unbloody sacrifice” was patronised by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole bounds of the Romish communion, it has superseded the simple but most precious sacrament of the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Intimately connected with the sacrifice of the mass is the subject of transubstantiation; but the consideration of it will come more conveniently at a subsequent stage of this inquiry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />Section IV<br />Extreme Unction</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The last office which Popery performs for living men is to give them ”extreme unction,” to anoint them in the name of the Lord, after they have been shriven and absolved, and thus to prepare them for their last and unseen journey. The pretence for this ”unction” of dying men is professedly taken from a command of James in regard to the visitation of the sick; but when the passage in question is fairly quoted it will be seen that such a practice could never have arisen from the apostolic direction–that it must have come from an entirely different source. ”Is any sick among you?” says James (v 14,15), ”let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall RAISE HIM UP.” Now, it is evident that this prayer and anointing were intended for the recovery of the sick. Apostolic men, for the laying of the foundations of the Christian Church, were, by their great King and Head, invested with miraculous powers–powers which were intended only for a time, and were destined, as the apostles themselves declared, while exercising them, to ”vanish away” (1 Cor 13:8). These powers were every day exercised by the ”elders of the Church,” when James wrote his epistle, and that for healing the bodies of men, even as our Lord Himself did. The ”extreme unction” of Rome, as the very expression itself declares, is not intended for any such purpose. It is not intended for healing the sick, or ”raising them up”; for it is not on any account to be administered till all hope of recovery is gone, and death is visibly at the very doors. As the object of this anointing is the very opposite of the Scriptural anointing, it must have come from a quite different quarter. That quarter is the very same from which the Papacy has imported so much heathenism, as we have seen already, into its own foul bosom. From the Chaldean Mysteries, extreme unction has obviously come. Among the many names of the Babylonian god was the name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” which is the name of the sun, but also of course of the sun-god. But Beel-samen also properly signifies ”Lord of Oil,” and was evidently intended as a synonym of the Divine name, ”The Messiah.” In Herodotus we find a statement made which this name alone can fully explain. There an individual is represented as having dreamt that the sun had anointed her father. That the sun should anoint any one is certainly not an idea that could naturally have presented itself; but when the name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” is seen also to signify ”Lord of Oil,” it is easy to see how that idea would be suggested. This also accounts for the fact that the body of the Babylonian Belus was represented as having been preserved in his sepulchre in Babylon till the time of Xerxes, floating in oil (CLERICUS, Philosoph. Orient.). And for the same reason, no doubt, it was that at Rome the ”statue of Saturn” was ”made hollow, and filled with oil” (SMITH’S Classical Dictionary).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The olive branch, which we have already seen to have been one of the symbols of the Chaldean god, had evidently the same hieroglyphical meaning; for, as the olive was the oil-tree, so an olive branch emblematically signified a ”son of oil,” or an ”anointed one” (Zech 4:12-14). Hence the reason that the Greeks, in coming before their gods in the attitude of suppliants deprecating their wrath and entreating their favour, came to the temple on many occasions bearing an olive branch in their hands. As the olive branch was one of the recognised symbols of their Messiah, whose great mission it was to make peace between God and man, so, in bearing this branch of the anointed one, they thereby testified that in the name of that anointed one they came seeking peace. Now, the worshippers of this Beel-samen, ”Lord of Heaven,” and ”Lord of Oil,” were anointed in the name of their god. It was not enough that they were anointed with ”spittle”; they were also anointed with ”magical ointments” of the most powerful kind; and these ointments were the means of introducing into their bodily systems such drugs as tended to excite their imaginations and add to the power of the magical drinks they received, that they might be prepared for the visions and revelations that were to be made to them in the Mysteries. These ”unctions,” says Salverte, ”were exceedingly frequent in the ancient ceremonies…Before consulting the oracle of Trophonius, they were rubbed with oil over the whole body. This preparation certainly concurred to produce the desired vision. Before being admitted to the Mysteries of the Indian sages, Apollonius and his companion were rubbed with an oil so powerful that they felt as if bathed with fire.” This was professedly an unction in the name of the ”Lord of Heaven,” to fit and prepare them for being admitted in vision into his awful presence. The very same reason that suggested such an unction before initiation on this present scene of things, would naturally plead more powerfully still for a special ”unction” when the individual was called, not in vision, but in reality, to face the ”Mystery of mysteries,” his personal introduction into the world unseen and eternal. Thus the Pagan system naturally developed itself into ”extreme unction” (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, January, 1853). Its votaries were anointed for their last journey, that by the double influence of superstition and powerful stimulants introduced into the frame by the only way in which it might then be possible, their minds might be fortified at once against the sense of guilt and the assaults of the king of terrors. From this source, and this alone, there can be no doubt came the ”extreme unction” of the Papacy, which was entirely unknown among Christians till corruption was far advanced in the Church. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop GIBSON says that it was not known in the Church for a thousand years. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">(Preservative against Popery)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />Section V<br />Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Extreme unction,” however, to a burdened soul, was but a miserable resource, after all, in the prospect of death. No wonder, therefore, that something else was found to be needed by those who had received all that priestly assumption could pretend to confer, to comfort them in the prospect of eternity. In every system, therefore, except that of the Bible, the doctrine of a purgatory after death, and prayers for the dead, has always been found to occupy a place. Go wherever we may, in ancient or modern times, we shall find that Paganism leaves hope after death for sinners, who, at the time of their departure, were consciously unfit for the abodes of the blest. For this purpose a middle state has been feigned, in which, by means of purgatorial pains, guilt unremoved in time may in a future world be purged away, and the soul be made meet for final beatitude. In Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was inculcated by the very chief of the philosophers. Thus Plato, speaking of the future judgment of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but maintains that, of ”those who are judged,” ”some” must first ”proceed to a subterranean place of judgment, where they shall sustain the punishment they have deserved”; while others, in consequence of a favourable judgment, being elevated at once into a certain celestial place, ”shall pass their time in a manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape.” In Pagan Rome, purgatory was equally held up before the minds of men; but there, there seems to have been no hope held out to any of exemption from its pains. Therefore, Virgil, describing its different tortures, thus speaks:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Nor can the grovelling mind,<br />In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,<br />Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind.<br />Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;<br />But long-contracted filth, even in the soul, remains<br />The relics of inveterate vice they wear,<br />And spots of sin obscene in every face appear.<br />For this are various penances enjoined;<br />And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,<br />Some plunged in water, others purged in fires,<br />Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.<br />All have their Manes, and those Manes bear.<br />The few so cleansed to these abodes repair,<br />And breathe in ample fields the soft Elysian air,<br />Then are they happy, when by length of time<br />The scurf is worn away of each committed crime.<br />No speck is left of their habitual stains,<br />But the pure ether of the soul remains.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was inculcated. But when once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then the door was opened for all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead ever go hand in hand with purgatory; but no prayers can be completely efficacious without the interposition of the priests; and no priestly functions can be rendered unless there be special pay for them. Therefore, in every land we find the Pagan priesthood ”devouring widows’ houses,” and making merchandise of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives, sensitively alive to the immortal happiness of the beloved dead. From all quarters there is one universal testimony as to the burdensome character and the expense of these posthumous devotions. One of the oppressions under which the poor Romanists in Ireland groan, is the periodical special devotions, for which they are required to pay, when death has carried away one of the inmates of their dwelling. Not only are there funeral services and funeral dues for the repose of the departed, at the time of burial, but the priest pays repeated visits to the family for the same purpose, which entail heavy expense, beginning with what is called ”the month’s mind,” that is, a service in behalf of the deceased when a month after death has elapsed. Something entirely similar to this had evidently been the case in ancient Greece; for, says Muller in his History of the Dorians, ”the Argives sacrificed on the thirtieth day [after death] to Mercury as the conductor of the dead.” In India many and burdensome are the services of the Sradd’ha, or funeral obsequies for the repose of the dead; and for securing the due efficacy of these, it is inculcated that ”donations of cattle, land, gold, silver, and other things,” should be made by the man himself at the approach of death; or, ”if he be too weak, by another in his name” (Asiatic Researches). Wherever we look, the case is nearly the same. In Tartary, ”The Gurjumi, or prayers for the dead,” says the Asiatic Journal, ”are very expensive.” In Greece, says Suidas, ”the greatest and most expensive sacrifice was the mysterious sacrifice called the Telete,” a sacrifice which, according to Plato, ”was offered for the living and the dead, and was supposed to free them from all the evils to which the wicked are liable when they have left this world.” In Egypt the exactions of the priests for funeral dues and masses for the dead were far from being trifling. ”The priests,” says Wilkinson, ”induced the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and many who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life were anxious to save something for the expenses of their death. For, beside the embalming process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about 250 pounds English money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of prayer and other services for the soul.” ”The ceremonies,” we find him elsewhere saying, ”consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osisris, Anubis, and others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners. They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the minor priests to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals, as long as the family paid for their performance.” Such was the operation of the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and acknowledged Pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome? There are the same extortions in the one as there were in the other. The doctrine of purgatory is purely Pagan, and cannot for a moment stand in the light of Scripture. For those who die in Christ no purgatory is, or can be, needed; for ”the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from ALL sin.” If this be true, where can there be the need for any other cleansing? On the other hand, for those who die without personal union to Christ, and consequently unwashed, unjustified, unsaved, there can be no other cleansing; for, while ”he that hath the son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life,” and never can have it. Search the Scripture through, and it will be found that, in regard to all who ”die in their sins,” the decree of God is irreversible: ”Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and let him that is filthy be filthy still.” Thus the whole doctrine of purgatory is a system of pure bare-faced Pagan imposture, dishonouring to God, deluding men who live in sin with the hope of atoning for it after death, and cheating them at once out of their property and their salvation. In the Pagan purgatory, fire, water, wind, were represented (as may be seen from the lines of Virgil) as combining to purge away the stain of sin. In the purgatory of the Papacy, ever since the days of Pope Gregory, FIRE itself has been the grand means of purgation (Catechismus Romanus). Thus, while the purgatorial fires of the future world are just the carrying out of the principle embodied in the blazing and purifying Baal-fires of the eve of St. John, they form another link in identifying the system of Rome with the system of Tammuz or Zoroaster, the great God of the ancient fire-worshippers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now, if baptismal regeneration, justification by works, penance as a satisfaction to God’s justice, the unbloody sacrifice of the mass, extreme unction, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, were all derived from Babylon, how justly may the general system of Rome be styled Babylonian?</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> And if the account already given be true, what thanks ought we to render to God, that, from a system such as this, we were set free at the blessed Reformation! How great a boon is it to be delivered from trusting in such refuges of lies as could no more take away sin than the blood of bulls or of goats! How blessed to feel that the blood of the Lamb, applied by the Spirit of God to the most defiled conscience, completely purges it from dead works and from sin! How fervent ought our gratitude to be, when we know that, in all our trials and distresses, we may come boldly unto the throne of grace, in the name of no creature, but of God’s eternal and well-beloved Son; and that that Son is exhibited as a most tender and compassionate high priest, who is TOUCHED with a feeling of our infirmities, having been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Surely the thought of all this, while inspiring tender compassion for the deluded slaves of Papal tyranny, ought to make us ourselves stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and quit ourselves like men, that neither we nor our children may ever again be entangled in the yoke of bondage.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter 5<br />Rites and Ceremonies<br />Section I<br />Idol Processions</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Those who have read the account of the last idol procession in the capital of Scotland, in John Knox’s <i>History of the Reformation</i>, cannot easily have forgot the tragi-comedy with which it ended. The light of the Gospel had widely spread, the Popish idols had lost their fascination, and popular antipathy was everywhere rising against them. ”The images,” says the historian, ”were stolen away in all parts of the country; and in Edinburgh was that great idol called Sanct Geyle [the patron saint of the capital], first drowned in the North Loch, after burnt, which raised no small trouble in the town.” The bishops demanded of the Town Council either ”to get them again the old Sanct Geyle, or else, upon their (own) expenses, to make a new image.” The Town Council <i>could</i> not do the one, and the other they absolutely <i>refused</i> to do; for they were now convinced of the sin of idolatry. The bishops and priests, however, were still made upon their idols; and, as the anniversary of the feast of St. Giles was approaching, when the saint used to be carried in procession through the town, they determined to do their best, that the accustomed procession should take place with as much pomp as possible. For this purpose, ”a marmouset idole” was borrowed from the Grey friars, which the people, in derision, called ”Young Sanct Geyle,” and which was made to do service instead of the old one. On the appointed day, says Know, ”there assembled priests, friars, canons…with taborns and trumpets, banners, and bagpipes; and who was there to lead the ring but the Queen Regent herself, with all her shavelings, for honour of that feast. West about goes it, and comes down the High Street, and down to the Canno Cross.” As long as the Queen was present, all went to the heart’s content of the priests and their partisans. But no sooner had majesty retired to dine, than some in the crowd, who had viewed the whole concern with an evil eye, ”drew nigh to the idol, as willing to help to bear him, and getting the fertour (or barrow) on their shoulders, began to shudder, thinking that thereby the idol should have fallen. But that was provided and prevented by the iron nails [with which it was fastened to the fertour]; and so began one to cry, ‘Down with the idol, down with it’; and so without delay it was pulled down. Some brag made the priests’ patrons at the first; but when they saw the feebleness of their god, for one took him by the heels, and dadding [knocking] his head to the calsay [pavement], left Dagon without head or hands, and said, ‘Fye upon thee, thou young Sanct Geyle, thy father would have tarried [withstood] four such [blows]‘; this considered, we say, the priests and friars fled faster than they did at Pinkey Cleuch. There might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen amongst that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the crosses, off goes the surplice, round caps corner with the crowns. The Grey friars gaped, the Black friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first gat the house; for such ane sudden fray came never amongst the generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such an idol procession among a people who had begun to study and relish the Word of God, elicited nothing but indignation and scorn. But in Popish lands, among a people studiously kept in the dark, such processions are among the favourite means which the Romish Church employs to bind its votaries to itself. The long processions with images borne on men’s shoulders, with the gorgeous dresses of the priests, and the various habits of different orders of monks and nuns, with the aids of flying banners and the thrilling strains of instrumental music, if not too closely scanned, are well fitted ”plausibly to amuse” the worldly mind, to gratify the love for the picturesque, and when the emotions thereby called forth are dignified with the names of piety and religion, to minister to the purposes of spiritual despotism. Accordingly, Popery has ever largely availed itself of such pageants. On joyous occasions, it has sought to consecrate the hilarity and excitement created by such processions to the service of its idols; and in seasons of sorrow, it has made use of the same means to draw forth the deeper wail of distress from the multitudes that throng the procession, as if the mere loudness of the cry would avert the displeasure of a justly offended God. Gregory, commonly called the Great, seems to have been the first who, on a <i>large</i> scale, introduced those religious processions into the Roman Church. In 590, when Rome was suffering under the heavy hand of God from the pestilence, he exhorted the people to unite publicly in supplication to God, appointing that they should meet at daybreak in SEVEN DIFFERENT COMPANIES, according to their respective ages, SEXES, and stations, and walk in seven different processions, reciting litanies or supplications, till they all met at one place. They did so, and proceeded singing and uttering the words, ”Lord, have mercy upon us,” carrying along with them, as Baronius relates, by Gregory’s express command, an image of the Virgin. The very idea of such processions was an affront to the majesty of heaven; it implied that God who is a Spirit ”saw with eyes of flesh,” and might be moved by the imposing picturesqueness of such a spectacle, just as sensuous mortals might. As an experiment it had but slender success. In the space of one hour, while thus engaged, eighty persons fell to the ground, and breathed their last. Yet this is now held up to Britons as ”the more excellent way” for deprecating the wrath of God in a season of national distress. ”Had this calamity,” says Dr. Wiseman, referring to the Indian disasters, ”had this calamity fallen upon our forefathers in Catholic days, one would have seen the streets of this city [London] trodden in every direction by penitential processions, crying out, like David, when pestilence had struck the people.” If this allusion to David has any pertinence or meaning, it must imply that David, in the time of pestilence, headed some such ”penitential procession.” But Dr. Wiseman knows, or ought to know, that David did nothing of the sort, that his penitence was expressed in no such way as by processions, and far less by idol processions, as ”in the Catholic days of our forefathers,” to which we are invited to turn back. This reference to David, then, is a mere blind, intended to mislead those who are not given to Bible reading, as if such ”penitential processions” had something of Scripture warrant to rest upon. The <i>Times</i>, commenting on this recommendation of the Papal dignitary, has hit the nail on the head. ”The historic idea,” says that journal, ”is simple enough, and as old as old can be. We have it in Homer–the procession of Hecuba and the ladies of Troy to the shrine of Minerva, in the Acropolis of that city.” It was a time of terror and dismay in Troy, when Diomede, with resistless might, was driving everything before him, and the overthrow of the proud city seemed at hand. To avert the apparently inevitable doom, the Trojan Queen was divinely directed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”To lead the assembled train<br />Of Troy’s chief matron’s to Minerva’s fane.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">And she did so:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Herself…the long procession leads;<br />The train majestically slow proceeds.<br />Soon as to Ilion’s topmost tower they come,<br />And awful reach the high Palladian dome,<br />Antenor’s consort, fair Theano, waits<br />As Pallas’ priestess, and unbars the gates.<br />With hands uplifted and imploring eyes,<br />They fill the dome with supplicating cries.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here is a precedent for ”penitential processions” in connection with idolatry entirely to the point, such as will be sought for in vain in the history of David, or any of the Old Testament saints. Religious processions, and especially processions with images, whether of a jubilant or sorrowful description, are purely Pagan. In the Word of God we find two instances in which there were processions practised with Divine sanction; but when the object of these processions is compared with the avowed object and character of Romish processions, it will be seen that there is no analogy between them and the processions of Rome. The two cases to which I refer are the seven days’ encompassing of Jericho, and the procession at the bringing up of the ark of God from Kirjath-jearim to the city of David. The processions, in the first case, though attended with the symbols of Divine worship, were not intended as acts of religious worship, but were a miraculous mode of conducting war, when a signal interposition of Divine power was to be vouchsafed. In the other, there was simply the removing of the ark, the symbol of Jehovah’s presence, from the place where, for a long period, it had been allowed to lie in obscurity, to the place which the Lord Himself had chosen for its abode; and on such an occasion it was entirely fitting and proper that the transference should be made with all religious solemnity. But these were simply occasional things, and have nothing at all in common with Romish processions, which form a regular part of the Papal ceremonial. But, though Scripture speaks nothing of religious processions in the approved worship of God, it refers once and again to Pagan processions, and these, too, accompanied with images; and it vividly exposes the folly of those who can expect any good from gods that cannot move from one place to another, unless they are carried. Speaking of the gods of Babylon, thus saith the prophet Isaiah (46:6), ”They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea, they worship. <i>They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him</i>, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place he shall not remove.” In the sculptures of Nineveh these processions of idols, borne on men’s shoulders, are forcibly represented, and form at once a striking illustration of the prophetic language, and of the real <i>origin</i> of the Popish processions. In Egypt, the same practice was observed. In ”the procession of shrines,” says Wilkinson, ”it was usual to carry the statue of the principal deity, in whose honour the procession took place, together with that of the king, and the figures of his ancestors, borne in the same manner, on men’s shoulders.” But not only are the processions in general identified with the Babylonian system. We have evidence that these processions trace their origin to that very disastrous event in the history of Nimrod, which has already occupied so much of our attention. Wilkinson says ”that Diodorus speaks of an Ethiopian festival of Jupiter, when his statue was carried in procession, probably to commemorate the supposed refuge of the gods in that country, which,” says he, ”may have been a memorial of the flight of the Egyptians with their gods.” The passage of Diodorus, to which Wilkinson refers, is not very decisive as to the object for which the statues of Jupiter and Juno (for Diodorus mentions the shrine of Juno as well as of Jupiter) were annually carried into the land of Ethiopia, and then, after a certain period of sojourn there, were brought back to Egypt again. But, on comparing it with other passages of antiquity, its object very clearly appears. Eustathius says, that at the festival in question, ”according to some, the <i>Ethiopians</i> used to fetch the images of Zeus, and other gods from the great temple of Zeus at Thebes. With these images they went about at a certain period in Libya, and celebrated a splendid festival for twelve gods.” As the festival was called an Ethiopian festival; and as it was Ethiopians that both carried away the idols and brought them back again, this indicates that the idols must have been Ethiopian idols; and as we have seen that Egypt was under the power of Nimrod, and consequently of the Cushites or Ethiopians, when idolatry was for a time put down in Egypt, what would this carrying of the idols into Ethiopia, the land of the Cushites, that was solemnly commemorated every year, be, but just the natural result of the temporary suppression of the idol-worship inaugurated by Nimrod. In Mexico, we have an account of an exact counterpart of this Ethiopian festival. There, at a certain period, the images of the gods were carried out of the country in a mourning procession, as if taking their leave of it, and then, after a time, they were brought back to it again with every demonstration of joy. In Greece, we find a festival of an entirely similar kind, which, while it connects itself with the Ethiopian festival of Egypt on the one hand, brings that festival, on the other, into the closest relation to the penitential procession of Pope Gregory. Thus we find Potter referring first to a ”Delphian festival in memory of a JOURNEY of Apollo”; and then under the head of the festival called Apollonia, we thus read: ”To Apollo, at Aegialea on this account: Apollo having obtained a victory over Python, went to Aegialea, accompanied with his sister Diana; but, <i>being frightened from thence, fled into Crete</i>. After this, the Aegialeans were infected with an epidemical distemper; and, being advised by the prophets to appease the two offended deities, sent SEVEN boys and as many virgins to entreat them to return. [Here is the typical germ of 'The Sevenfold Litany' of Pope Gregory.] Apollo and Diana accepted their piety,…and it became a <i>custom</i> to appoint chosen boys and virgins, to make a solemn procession, in show, as if they designed to bring back Apollo and Diana, which continued till Pausanias’ time.” The contest between Python and Apollo, in Greece, is just the counterpart of that between Typho and Osiris in Egypt; in other words, between Shem and Nimrod. Thus we see the real meaning and origin of the Ethiopian festival, when the Ethiopians carried away the gods from the Egyptian temples. That festival evidently goes back to the time when Nimrod being cut off, idolatry durst not show itself except among the devoted adherents of the ”Mighty hunter” (who were found in his own family–the family of Cush), when, with great weepings and lamentations, the idolaters fled with their gods on their shoulders, to hide themselves where they might. In commemoration of the suppression of idolatry, and the unhappy consequences that were supposed to flow from that suppression, the first part of the festival, as we get light upon it both from Mexico and Greece, had consisted of a procession of mourners; and then the mourning was turned into joy, in memory of the happy return of these banished gods to their former exaltation. Truly a worthy origin for Pope Gregory’s ”Sevenfold Litany” and the Popish processions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />Section II<br />Relic Worship</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nothing is more characteristic of Rome than the worship of relics. Wherever a chapel is opened, or a temple consecrated, it cannot be thoroughly complete without some relic or other of he-saint or she-saint to give sanctity to it. The relics of the saints and rotten bones of the martyrs form a great part of the wealth of the Church. The grossest impostures have been practised in regard to such relics; and the most drivelling tales have been told of their wonder-working powers, and that too by Fathers of high name in the records of Christendom. Even Augustine, with all his philosophical acuteness and zeal against some forms of false doctrine, was deeply infected with the grovelling spirit that led to relic worship. Let any one read the stuff with which he concludes his famous ”City of God,” and he will in no wise wonder that Rome has made a saint of him, and set him up for the worship of her devotees. Take only a specimen or two of the stories with which he bolsters up the prevalent delusions of his day: ”When the Bishop Projectius brought the relics of St. Stephen to the town called Aquae Tibiltinae, the people came in great crowds to honour them. Amongst these was a blind woman, who entreated the people to lead her to the bishop who had the HOLY RELICS. They did so, and the bishop gave her some flowers which he had in his hand. She took them, and put them to her eyes, and immediately her sight was restored, so that she passed speedily on before all the others, no longer requiring to be guided.” In Augustine’s day, the formal ”worship” of the relics was not yet established; but the martyrs to whom they were supposed to have belonged were already invoked with prayers and supplications, and that with the high approval of the Bishop of Hippo, as the following story will abundantly show: Here, in Hippo, says he, there was a poor and holy old man, by name Florentius, who obtained a living by tailoring. This man once lost his coat, and not being able to purchase another to replace it, he came to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, in this city, and prayed aloud to them, beseeching that they would enable him to get another garment. A crowd of silly boys who overheard him, followed him at his departure, scoffing at him, and asking him whether he had begged fifty pence from the martyrs to buy a coat. The poor man went silently on towards home, and as he passed near the sea, he saw a large fish which had been cast up on the sand, and was still panting. The other persons who were present allowed him to take up this fish, which he brought to one Catosus, a cook, and a good Christian, who bought it from him for three hundred pence. With this he meant to purchase wool, which his wife might spin, and make into a garment for him. When the cook cut up the fish, he found within its belly a ring of gold, which his conscience persuaded him to give to the poor man from whom he bought the fish. He did so, saying, at the same time, ”Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed you!” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* De Civitate. The story of the fish and the ring is an old Egyptian story. (WILKINSON) Catosus, ”the good Christian,” was evidently a tool of the priests, who could afford to give him a ring to put into the fish’s belly. The miracle would draw worshippers to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, and thus bring grist to their mill, and amply repay them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus did the great Augustine inculcate the worship of dead men, and the honouring of their wonder-working relics. The ”silly children” who ”scoffed” at the tailor’s prayer seem to have had more sense than either the ”holy old tailor” or the bishop. Now, if men professing Christianity were thus, in the fifth century, paving the way for the worship of all manner of rags and rotten bones; in the realms of Heathendom the same worship had flourished for ages before Christian saints or martyrs had appeared in the world. In Greece, the superstitious regard to relics, and especially to the bones of the deified heroes, was a conspicuous part of the popular idolatry. The work of Pausanias, the learned Grecian antiquary, is full of reference to this superstition. Thus, of the shoulder-blade of Pelops, we read that, after passing through divers adventures, being appointed by the oracle of Delphi, as a divine means of delivering the Eleans from a pestilence under which they suffered, it ”was committed,” as a sacred relic, ”to the custody” of the man who had fished it out of the sea, and of his posterity after him. The bones of the Trojan Hector were preserved as a precious deposit at Thebes. ”They” [the Thebans], says Pausanias, ”say that his [Hector's] bones were brought hither from Troy, in consequence of the following oracle: ‘Thebans, who inhabit the city of Cadmus, if you wish to reside in your country, blest with the possession of blameless wealth, bring the bones of Hector, the son of Priam, into your dominions from Asia, and reverence the hero agreeably to the mandate of Jupiter.’” Many other similar instances from the same author might be adduced. The bones thus carefully kept and reverenced were all believed to be miracle-working bones. From the earliest periods, the system of Buddhism has been propped up by relics, that have wrought miracles at least as well vouched as those wrought by the relics of St. Stephen, or by the ”Twenty Martyrs.” In the ”Mahawanso,” one of the great standards of the Buddhist faith, reference is thus made to the enshrining of the relics of Buddha: ”The vanquisher of foes having perfected the works to be executed within the relic receptacle, convening an assembly of the priesthood, thus addressed them: ‘The works that were to be executed by me, in the relic receptacle, are completed. Tomorrow, I shall enshrine the relics. Lords, bear in mind the relics.’” Who has not heard of the Holy Coat of Treves, and its exhibition to the people? From the following, the reader will see that there was an exactly similar exhibition of the Holy Coat of Buddha: ”Thereupon (the nephew of the Naga Rajah) by his supernatural gift, springing up into the air to the height of seven palmyra trees, and stretching out his arm brought to the spot where he was poised, the Dupathupo (or shrine) in which the DRESS laid aside by Buddho, as Prince Siddhatto, on his entering the priesthood, was enshrined…and EXHIBITED IT TO THE PEOPLE.” This ”Holy Coat” of Buddha was no doubt as genuine, and as well entitled to worship, as the ”Holy Coat” of Treves. The resemblance does not stop here. It is only a year or two ago since the Pope presented to his beloved son, Francis Joseph of Austria, a ”TOOTH” of ”St. Peter,” as a mark of his special favour and regard. The teeth of Buddha are in equal request among his worshippers. ”King of Devas,” said a Buddhist missionary, who was sent to one of the principal courts of Ceylon to demand a relic or two from the Rajah, ”King of Devas, thou possessest the right canine tooth relic (of Buddha), as well as the right collar bone of the divine teacher. Lord of Devas, demur not in matter involving the salvation of the land of Lanka.” Then the miraculous efficacy of these relics is shown in the following: ”The Saviour of the world (Buddha) even after he had attained to Parinibanan or final emancipation (i.e., after his death), by means of a corporeal relic, performed infinite acts to the utmost perfection, for the spiritual comfort and mundane prosperity of mankind. While the Vanquisher (Jeyus) yet lived, what must he not have done?” Now, in the Asiatic Researches, a statement is made in regard to these relics of Buddha, which marvellously reveals to us the real origin of this Buddhist relic worship. The statement is this: ”The bones or limbs of Buddha were scattered all over the world, like those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one, with all possible marks of grief and sorrow till a priest announced that the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of the Son of the Spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese and some tribes in Tartary.” Here, then, it is evident that the worship of relics is just a part of those ceremonies instituted to commemorate the tragic death of Osiris or Nimrod, who, as the reader may remember, was divided into fourteen pieces, which were sent into so many different regions infected by his apostacy and false worship, to operate in terrorem upon all who might seek to follow his example. When the apostates regained their power, the very first thing they did was to seek for these dismembered relics of the great ringleader in idolatry, and to entomb them with every mark of devotion. Thus does Plutarch describe the search: ”Being acquainted with this even [viz., the dismemberment of Osiris], Isis set out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband’s body, using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order more easily to pass through the lower and fenny parts of the country…And one reason assigned for the different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any one of his scattered limbs was discovered she buried it on the spot; though others suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented each of those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho should overcome Horus in the approaching contest, he might be unable to find the real sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different members, with the exception of one, which had been devoured by the Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and the Oxyrhynchus, for which reason these fish are held in abhorrence by the Egyptians. To make amends, she consecrated the Phallus, and instituted a solemn festival to its memory.” Not only does this show the real origin of relic worship it shows also that the multiplication of relics can pretend to the most venerable antiquity. If, therefore, Rome can boast that she has sixteen or twenty holy coats, seven or eight arms of St. Matthew, two or three heads of St. Peter, this is nothing more than Egypt could do in regard to the relics of Osiris. Egypt was covered with sepulchres of its martyred god; and many a leg and arm and skull, all vouched to be genuine, were exhibited in the rival burying-places for the adoration of the Egyptian faithful. Nay, not only were these Egyptian relics sacred themselves, they CONSECRATED THE VERY GROUND in which they were entombed. This fact is brought out by Wilkinson, from a statement of Plutarch: ”The Temple of this deity at Abydos,” says he, ”was also particularly honoured, and so holy was the place considered by the Egyptians, that persons living at some distance from it sought, and perhaps with difficulty obtained, permission to possess a sepulchre within its Necropolis, in order that, after death, they might repose in GROUND HALLOWED BY THE TOMB of this great and mysterious deity.” If the places where the relics of Osiris were buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally this would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen. The reader does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages to the tombs of saints, and how, in the Middle Ages, one of the most favourite ways of washing away sin was to undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Jago di Compostella in Spain, or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Now, in the Scripture there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as a pilgrimage to the tomb of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle. The very way in which the Lord saw fit to dispose of the body of Moses in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so that no man should ever known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed to rebuke every such feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise. And considering whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing of his body must be apparent. In the land where Israel had so long sojourned, there were great and pompous pilgrimages at certain season of the year, and these often attended with gross excesses. Herodotus tells us, that in his time the multitude who went annually on pilgrimage to Bubastis amounted to 700,000 individuals, and that then more wine was drunk than at any other time in the year. Wilkinson thus refers to a similar pilgrimage to Philae: ”Besides the celebration of the great mysteries which took place at Philae, a grand ceremony was performed at a particular time, when the priests, in solemn procession, visited his tomb, and crowned it with flowers. Plutarch even pretends that all access to the island was forbidden at every other period, and that no bird would fly over it, or fish swim near this CONSECRATED GROUND.” This seems not to have been a procession merely of the priests in the immediate neighbourhood of the tomb, but a truly national pilgrimage; for, says Diodorus, ”the sepulchre of Osiris at Philae is revered by all the priests throughout Egypt.” We have not the same minute information about the relic worship in Assyria or Babylon; but we have enough to show that, as it was the Babylonian god that was worshipped in Egypt under the name of Osiris, so in his own country there was the same superstitious reverence paid to his relics. We have seen already, that when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given his life as a sacrifice, and to have ”charged his countrymen to preserve his remains,” assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this dying command, the fate of their empire would hinge. And, accordingly, we learn from Ovid, that the ”Busta Nini,” or ”Tomb of Ninus,” long ages thereafter, was one of the monuments of Babylon. Now, in comparing the death and fabled resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection of the true, when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is a very remarkable contrast. When the false Messiah died, limb was severed from limb, and his bones were scattered over the country. When the death of the true Messiah took place, Providence so arranged it that the body should be kept entire, and that the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled–”a bone of Him shall not be broken.” When, again, the false Messiah was pretended to have had a resurrection, that resurrection was in a new body, while the old body, with all its members, was left behind, thereby showing that the resurrection was nothing but a pretence and a sham. When, however, the true Messiah was ”declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead,” the tomb, though jealously watched by the armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be absolutely empty, and no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or even pretended to have been found. The resurrection of Christ, therefore, stands on a very different footing from the resurrection of Osiris. Of the body of Christ, of course, in the nature of the case, there could be no relics. Rome, however to carry out the Babylonian system, has supplied the deficiency by means of the relics of the saints; and now the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul, of St. Thomas A’ Beckett and St. Lawrence O’Toole, occupy the very same place in the worship of the Papacy as the relics of Osiris in Egypt, or of Zoroaster in Babylon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />Section III<br />The Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Church of Rome, the clothing and crowning of images form no insignificant part of the ceremonial. The sacred images are not represented, like ordinary statues, with the garments formed of the same material as themselves, but they have garments put on them from time to time, like ordinary mortals of living flesh and blood. Great expense is often lavished on their drapery; and those who present to them splendid robes are believed thereby to gain their signal favour, and to lay up a large stock of merit for themselves. Thus, in September, 1852, we find the duke and Duchess of Montpensier celebrated in the Tablet, not only for their charity in ”giving 3000 reals in alms to the poor,” but especially, and above all, for their piety in ”presenting the Virgin with a magnificent dress of tissue of gold, with white lace and a silver crown.” Somewhat about the same time the piety of the dissolute Queen of Spain was testified by a similar benefaction, when she deposited at the feet of the Queen of Heaven the homage of the dress and jewels she wore on a previous occasion of solemn thanksgiving, as well as the dress in which she was attired when she was stabbed by the assassin Merino. ”The mantle,” says the Spanish journal Espana, ”exhibited the marks of the wound, and its ermine lining was stained with the precious blood of Her Majesty. In the basket (that bore the dresses) were likewise the jewels which adorned Her Majesty’s head and breast. Among them was a diamond stomacher, so exquisitely wrought, and so dazzling, that it appeared to be wrought of a single stone.” This is all sufficiently childish, and presents human nature in a most humiliating aspect; but it is just copied from the old Pagan worship. The same clothing and adorning of the gods went on in Egypt, and there were sacred persons who alone could be permitted to interfere with so high a function. Thus, in the Rosetta Stone we find these sacred functionaries distinctly referred to: ”The chief priests and prophets, and those who have access to the adytum to clothe the gods,…assembled in the temple at Memphis, established the following decree.” The ”clothing of the gods” occupied an equally important place in the sacred ceremonial of ancient Greece. Thus, we find Pausanias referring to a present made to Minerva: ”In after times Laodice, the daughter of Agapenor, sent a veil to Tegea, to Minerva Alea.” The epigram [inscription] on this offering indicates, at the same time, the origin of Laodice:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Laodice, from Cyprus, the divine,<br />To her paternal wide-extended land,<br />This veil–an offering to Minerva–sent.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, also, when Hecuba, the Trojan queen, in the instance already referred to, was directed to lead the penitential procession through the streets of Troy to Minverva’s temple, she was commanded not to go empty-handed, but to carry along with her, as her most acceptable offering:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold,<br />Most prized for art, and laboured o’er with gold.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The royal lady punctually obeyed:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,<br />Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent;<br />There lay the vestures of no vulgar art;<br />Sidonian maids embroidered every part,<br />Whom from soft Sydon youthful Paris bore,<br />With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.<br />Here, as the Queen revolved with careful eyes<br />The various textures and the various dyes,<br />She chose a veil that shone superior far,<br />And glowed refulgent as the morning star.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is surely a wonderful resemblance here between the piety of the Queen of Troy and that of the Queen of Spain. Now, in ancient Paganism there was a mystery couched under the clothing of the gods. If gods and goddesses were so much pleased by being clothed, it was because there had once been a time in their history when they stood greatly in need of clothing. Yes, it can be distinctly established, as has been already hinted, that ultimately the great god and great goddess of Heathenism, while the facts of their own history were interwoven with their idolatrous system, were worshipped also as incarnations of our great progenitors, whose disastrous fall stripped them of their primeval glory, and made it needful that the hand Divine should cover their nakedness with clothing specially prepared for them. I cannot enter here into an elaborate proof of this point; but let the statement of Herodotus be pondered in regard to the annual ceremony, observed in Egypt, of slaying a ram, and clothing the FATHER OF THE GODS with its skin. Compare this statement with the Divine record in Genesis about the clothing of the ”Father of Mankind” in a coat of sheepskin; and after all that we have seen of the deification of dead men, can there be a doubt what it was that was thus annually commemorated? Nimrod himself, when he was cut in pieces, was necessarily stripped. That exposure was identified with the nakedness of Noah, and ultimately with that of Adam. His sufferings were represented as voluntarily undergone for the good of mankind. His nakedness, therefore, and the nakedness of the ”Father of the gods,” of whom he was an incarnation, was held to be a voluntary humiliation too. When, therefore, his suffering was over, and his humiliation past, the clothing in which he was invested was regarded as a meritorious clothing, available not only for himself, but for all who were initiated in his mysteries. In the sacred rites of the Babylonian god, both the exposure and the clothing that were represented as having taken place, in his own history, were repeated on all his worshippers, in accordance with the statement of Firmicus, that the initiated underwent what their god had undergone. First, after being duly prepared by magic rites and ceremonies, they were ushered, in a state of absolute nudity, into the innermost recesses of the temple. This appears from the following statement of Proclus: ”In the most holy of the mysteries, they say that the mystics at first meet with the many-shaped genera [i.e., with evil demons], which are hurled forth before the gods: but on entering the interior parts of the temple, unmoved and guarded by the mystic rites, they genuinely receive in their bosom divine illumination, and, DIVESTED OF THEIR GARMENTS, participate, as they would say, of a divine nature.” When the initiated, thus ”illuminated” and made partakers of a ”divine nature,” after being ”divested of their garments,” were clothed anew, the garments with which they were invested were looked upon as ”sacred garments,” and possessing distinguished virtues. ”The coat of skin” with which the Father of mankind was divinely invested after he was made so painfully sensible of his nakedness, was, as all intelligent theologians admit, a typical emblem of the glorious righteousness of Christ–”the garment of salvation,” which is ”unto all and upon all them that believe.” The garments put upon the initiated after their disrobing of their former clothes, were evidently intended as a counterfeit of the same. ”The garments of those initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries,” says Potter, ”were accounted sacred, and of no less efficacy to avert evils than charms and incantations. They were never cast off till completely worn out.” And of course, if possible, in these ”sacred garments” they were buried; for Herodotus, speaking of Egypt, whence these mysteries were derived, tells us that ”religion” prescribed the garments of the dead. The efficacy of ”sacred garments” as a means of salvation and delivering from evil in the unseen and eternal world, occupies a foremost place in many religions. Thus the Parsees, the fundamental elements of whose system came from the Chaldean Zoroaster, believe that ”the sadra or sacred vest” tends essentially to ”preserve the departed soul from the calamities accruing from Ahriman,” or the Devil; and they represent those who neglect the use of this ”sacred vest” as suffering in their souls, and ”uttering the most dreadful and appalling cries,” on account of the torments inflicted on them ”by all kinds of reptiles and noxious animals, who assail them with their teeth and stings, and give them not a moment’s respite.” What could have ever led mankind to attribute such virtue to a ”sacred vest”? If it be admitted that it is just a perversion of the ”sacred garment” put on our first parents, all is clear. This, too, accounts for the superstitious feeling in the Papacy, otherwise so unaccountable, that led so many in the dark ages to fortify themselves against the fears of the judgment to come, by seeking to be buried in a monk’s dress. ”To be buried in a friar’s cast-off habit, accompanied by letters enrolling the deceased in a monastic order, was accounted a sure deliverance from eternal condemnation! In ‘Piers the Ploughman’s Creed,’ a friar is described as wheedling a poor man out of his money by assuring him that, if he will only contribute to his monastery,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">‘St. Francis himself shall fold thee in his cope,<br />And present thee to the Trinity, and pray for thy sins.’”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In virtue of the same superstitious belief, King John of England was buried in a monk’s cowl; and many a royal and noble personage besides, ”before life and immortality” were anew ”brought to light” at the Reformation, could think of no better way to cover their naked and polluted souls in prospect of death, than by wrapping themselves in the garment of some monk or friar as unholy as themselves. Now, all these refuges of lies, in Popery as well as Paganism, taken in connection with the clothing of the saints of the one system, and of the gods of the other, when traced to their source, show that since sin entered the world, man has ever felt the need of a better righteousness than his own to cover him, and that the time was when all the tribes of the earth knew that the only righteousness that could avail for such a purpose was ”the righteousness of God,” and that of ”God manifest in the flesh.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Intimately connected with the ”clothing of the images of the saints” is also the ”crowning” of them. For the last two centuries, in the Popish communion, the festivals for crowning the ”sacred images” have been more and more celebrated. In Florence, a few years ago, the image of the Madonna with the child in her arms was ”crowned” with unusual pomp and solemnity. Now, this too arose out of the facts commemorated in the history of Bacchus or Osiris. As Nimrod was the first king after the Flood, so Bacchus was celebrated as the first who wore a crown. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* PLINY, Hist. Nat. Under the name of Saturn, also, the same thing was attributed to Nimrod.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When, however, he fell into the hands of his enemies, as he was stripped of all his glory and power, he was stripped also of his crown. The ”Falling of the crown from the head of Osiris” was specially commemorated in Egypt. That crown at different times was represented in different ways, but in the most famous myth of Osiris it was represented as a ”Melilot garland.” Melilot is a species of trefoil; and trefoil in the Pagan system was one of the emblems of the Trinity. Among the Tractarians at this day, trefoil is used in the same symbolical sense as it has long been in the Papacy, from which Puseyism has borrowed it. Thus, in a blasphemous Popish representation of what is called God the Father (of the fourteenth century), we find him represented as wearing a crown with three points, each of which is surmounted with a leaf of white clover. But long before Tractarianism or Romanism was known, trefoil was a sacred symbol. The clover leaf was evidently a symbol of high import among the ancient Persians; for thus we find Herodotus referring to it, in describing the rites of the Persian Magi–”If any (Persian) intends to offer to a god, he leads the animal to a consecrated spot. Then, dividing the victim into parts, he boils the flesh, and lays it upon the most tender herbs, especially TREFOIL. This done, a magus–without a magus no sacrifice can be performed–sings a sacred hymn.” In Greece, the clover, or trefoil, in some form or other, had also occupied an important place; for the rod of Mercury, the conductor of souls, to which such potency was ascribed, was called ”Rabdos Tripetelos,” or ”the three-leaved rod.” Among the British Druids the white clover leaf was held in high esteem as an emblem of their Triune God, and was borrowed from the same Babylonian source as the rest of their religion. The Melilot, or trefoil garland, then, with which the head of Osiris was bound, was the crown of the Trinity–the crown set on his head as the representative of the Eternal–”The crown of all the earth,” in accordance with the voice divine at his birth, ”The Lord of all the earth is born.” Now, as that ”Melilot garland,” that crown of universal dominion, fell ”from his head” before his death, so, when he rose to new life, the crown must be again set upon his head, and his universal dominion solemnly avouched. Hence, therefore, came the solemn crowning of the statues of the great god, and also the laying of the ”chaplet” on his altar, as a trophy of his recovered ”dominion.” But if the great god was crowned, it was needful also that the great goddess should receive a similar honour. Therefore it was fabled that when Bacchus carried his wife Ariadne to heaven, in token of the high dignity bestowed upon her, he set a crown upon her head; and the remembrance of this crowning of the wife of the Babylonian god is perpetuated to this hour by the well-known figure in the sphere called Ariadnoea corona, or ”Ariadne’s crown.” This is, beyond question, the real source of the Popish rite of crowning the image of the Virgin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From the fact that the Melilot garland occupied so conspicuous a place in the myth of Osiris, and that the ”chaplet” was laid on his altar, and his tomb was ”crowned” with flowers, arose the custom, so prevalent in heathenism, of adorning the altars of the gods with ”chaplets” of all sorts, and with a gay profusion of flowers. Side by side with this reason for decorating the altars with flowers, there was also another. When in</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”That fair field<br />Of Enna, Proserpine gathering flowers,<br />Herself, a fairer flower, by gloom Dis,<br />Was gathered;”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">and all the flowers she had stored up in her lap were lost, the loss thereby sustained by the world not only drew forth her own tears, but was lamented in the Mysteries as a loss of no ordinary kind, a loss which not only stripped her of her own spiritual glory, but blasted the fertility and beauty of the earth itself. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* OVID, Metamorphoses. Ovid speaks of the tears which Proserpine shed when, on her robe being torn from top to bottom, all the flowers which she had been gathering up in it fell to the ground, as showing only the simplicity of a girlish mind. But this is evidently only for the uninitiated. The lamentations of Ceres, which were intimately connected with the fall of these flowers, and the curse upon the ground that immediately followed, indicated something entirely different. But on that I cannot enter here.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That loss, however, the wife of Nimrod, under the name of Astarte, or Venus, was believed to have more than repaired. Therefore, while the sacred ”chaplet” of the discrowned god was placed in triumph anew on his head and on his altars, the recovered flowers which Proserpine had lost were also laid on these altars along with it, in token of gratitude to that mother of grace and goodness, for the beauty and temporal blessings that the earth owed to her interposition and love. In Pagan Rome especially this was the case. The altars were profusely adorned with flowers. From that source directly the Papacy has borrowed the custom of adorning the altar with flowers; and from the Papacy, Puseyism, in Protestant England, is labouring to introduce the custom among ourselves. But, viewing it in connection with its source, surely men with the slightest spark of Christian feeling may well blush to think of such a thing. It is not only opposed to the genius of the Gospel dispensation, which requires that they who worship God, who is a Spirit, ”worship Him in spirit and in truth”; but it is a direct symbolising with those who rejoiced in the re-establishment of Paganism in opposition to the worship of the one living and true God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />Section IV<br />The Rosary and the Worship of the Sacred Heart</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Every one knows how thoroughly Romanist is the use of the rosary; and how the devotees of Rome mechanically tell their prayers upon their beads. The rosary, however, is no invention of the Papacy. It is of the highest antiquity, and almost universally found among Pagan nations. The rosary was used as a sacred instrument among the ancient Mexicans. It is commonly employed among the Brahmins of Hindustan; and in the Hindoo sacred books reference is made to it again and again. Thus, in an account of the death of Sati, the wife of Shiva, we find the rosary introduced: ”On hearing of this event, Shiva fainted from grief; then, having recovered, he hastened to the banks of the river of heaven, where he beheld lying the body of his beloved Sati, arrayed in white garments, holding a rosary in her hand, and glowing with splendour, bright as burnished gold.” In Thibet it has been used from time immemorial, and among all the millions in the East that adhere to the Buddhist faith. The following, from Sir John F. Davis, will show how it is employed in China: ”From the Tartar religion of the Lamas, the rosary of 108 beads has become a part of the ceremonial dress attached to the nine grades of official rank. It consists of a necklace of stones and coral, nearly as large as a pigeon’s egg, descending to the waist, and distinguished by various beads, according to the quality of the wearer. There is a small rosary of eighteen beads, of inferior size, with which the bonzes count their prayers and ejaculations exactly as in the Romish ritual. The laity in China sometimes wear this at the wrist, perfumed with musk, and give it the name of Heang-choo, or fragrant beads.” In Asiatic Greece the rosary was commonly used, as may be seen from the image of the Ephesian Diana. In Pagan Rome the same appears to have been the case. The necklaces which the Roman ladies wore were not merely ornamental bands about the neck, but hung down the breast, just as the modern rosaries do; and the name by which they were called indicates the use to which they were applied. ”Monile,” the ordinary word for a necklace, can have no other meaning than that of a ”Remembrancer.” Now, whatever might be the pretence, in the first instance, for the introduction of such ”Rosaries” or ”Remembrancers,” the very idea of such a thing is thoroughly Pagan. * It supposes that a certain number of prayers must be regularly gone over; it overlooks the grand demand which God makes for the heart, and leads those who use them to believe that form and routine are everything, and that ”they must be heard for their much speaking.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”Rosary” itself seems to be from the Chaldee ”Ro,” ”thought,” and ”Shareh,” ”director.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Church of Rome a new kind of devotion has of late been largely introduced, in which the beads play an important part, and which shows what new and additional strides in the direction of the old Babylonian Paganism the Papacy every day is steadily making. I refer to the ”Rosary of the Sacred Heart.” It is not very long since the worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was first introduced; and now, everywhere it is the favourite worship. It was so in ancient Babylon, as is evident from the Babylonian system as it appeared in Egypt. There also a ”Sacred Heart” was venerated. The ”Heart” was one of the sacred symbols of Osiris when he was born again, and appeared as Harpocrates, or the infant divinity, * borne in the arms of his mother Isis.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name Harpocrates, as shown by Bunsen, signifies ”Horus, the child.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Therefore, the fruit of the Egyptian Persea was peculiarly sacred to him, from its resemblance to the ”HUMAN HEART.” Hence this infant divinity was frequently represented with a heart, or the heart-shaped fruit of the Persea, in one of his hands. The following extract, from John Bell’s criticism on the antiques in the Picture Gallery of Florence, will show that the boyish divinity had been represented elsewhere also in ancient times in the same manner. Speaking of a statue of Cupid, he says it is ”a fair, full, fleshy, round boy, in fine and sportive action, tossing back a heart.” Thus the boy-god came to be regarded as the ”god of the heart,” in other words, as Cupid, or the god of love. To identify this infant divinity, with his father ”the mighty hunter,” he was equipped with ”bow and arrows”; and in the hands of the poets, for the amusement of the profane vulgar, this sportive boy-god was celebrated as taking aim with his gold-tipped shafts at the hearts of mankind. His real character, however, as the above statement shows, and as we have seen reason already to conclude, was far higher and of a very different kind. He was the woman’s seed. Venus and her son Cupid, then, were none other than the Madonna and the child. Looking at the subject in this light, the real force and meaning of the language will appear, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Venus, when addressing the youthful Cupid:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”My son, my strength, whose mighty power alone<br />Controls the thunderer on his awful throne,<br />To thee thy much afflicted mother flies,<br />And on thy succour and thy faith relies.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From what we have seen already as to the power and glory of the Goddess Mother being entirely built on the divine character attributed to her Son, the reader must see how exactly this is brought out, when the Son is called ”THE STRENGTH” of his Mother. As the boy-god, whose symbol was the heart, was recognised as the god of childhood, this very satisfactorily accounts for one of the peculiar customs of the Romans. Kennett tells us, in his Antiquities, that the Roman youths, in their tender years, used to wear a golden ornament suspended from their necks, called bulla, which was hollow, and heart-shaped. Barker, in his work on Cilicia, while admitting that the Roman bulla was heart-shaped, further states, that ”it was usual at the birth of a child to name it after some divine personage, who was supposed to receive it under his care”; but that the ”name was not retained beyond infancy, when the bulla was given up.” Who so likely to be the god under whose guardianship the Roman children were put, as the god under one or other of his many names whose express symbol they wore, and who, while he was recognised as the great and mighty war-god, who also exhibited himself in his favourite form as a little child?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The veneration of the ”sacred heart” seems also to have extended to India, for there Vishnu, the Mediatorial god, in one of his forms, with the mark of the wound in his foot, in consequence of which he died, and for which such lamentation is annually made, is represented as wearing a heart suspended on his breast. It is asked, How came it that the ”Heart” became the recognised symbol of the Child of the great Mother? The answer is, ”The Heart” in Chaldee is ”BEL”; and as, at first, after the check given to idolatry, almost all the most important elements of the Chaldean system were introduced under a veil, so under that veil they continued to be shrouded from the gaze of the uninitiated, after the first reason–the reason of fear–had long ceased to operate. Now, the worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was just, under a symbol, the worship of the ”Sacred Bel,” that mighty one of Babylon, who had died a martyr for idolatry; for Harpocrates, or Horus, the infant god, was regarded as Bel, born again. That this was in very deed the case, the following extract from Taylor, in one of his notes to his translation of the Orphic Hymns, will show. ”While Bacchus,” says he, was ”beholding himself” with admiration ”in a mirror, he was miserably torn to pieces by the Titans, who, not content with this cruelty, first boiled his members in water, and afterwards roasted them in the fire; but while they were tasting his flesh thus dressed, Jupiter, excited by the steam, and perceiving the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunder at the Titans, but committed his members to Apollo, the brother of Bacchus, that they might be properly interred. And this being performed, Dionysius [i.e., Bacchus], (whose HEART, during his laceration, was snatched away by Minerva and preserved) by a new REGENERATION, again emerged, and he being restored to his pristine life and integrity, afterwards filled up the number of the gods.” This surely shows, in a striking light, the peculiar sacredness of the heart of Bacchus; and that the regeneration of his heart has the very meaning I have attached to it–viz., the new birth or new incarnation of Nimrod or Bel. When Bel, however was born again as a child, he was, as we have seen, represented as an incarnation of the sun. Therefore, to indicate his connection with the fiery and burning sun, the ”sacred heart” was frequently represented as a ”heart of flame.” So the ”Sacred Heart” of Rome is actually worshipped as a flaming heart, as may be seen on the rosaries devoted to that worship. Of what use, then, is it to say that the ”Sacred Heart” which Rome worships is called by the name of ”Jesus,” when not only is the devotion given to a material image borrowed from the worship of the Babylonian Antichrist, but when the attributes ascribed to that ”Jesus” are not the attributes of the living and loving Saviour, but the genuine attributes of the ancient Moloch or Bel?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />Section V<br />Lamps and Wax-Candles</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Another peculiarity of the Papal worship is the use of lamps and wax-candles. If the Madonna and child are set up in a niche, they must have a lamp to burn before them; if mass is to be celebrated, though in broad daylight, there must be wax-candles lighted on the altar; if a grand procession is to be formed, it cannot be thorough and complete without lighted tapers to grace the goodly show. The use of these lamps and tapers comes from the same source as all the rest of the Papal superstition. That which caused the ”Heart,” when it became an emblem of the incarnate Son, to be represented as a heart on fire, required also that burning lamps and lighted candles should form part of the worship of that Son; for so, according to the established rites of Zoroaster, was the sun-god worshipped. When every Egyptian on the same night was required to light a lamp before his house in the open air, this was an act of homage to the sun, that had veiled its glory by enshrouding itself in a human form. When the Yezidis of Koordistan, at this day, once a year celebrate their festival of ”burning lamps,” that, too, is to the honour of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun. Now, what on these high occasions was done on a grand scale was also done on a smaller scale, in the individual acts of worship to their god, by the lighting of lamps and tapers before the favourite divinity. In Babylon, this practice had been exceedingly prevalent, as we learn from the Apocryphal writer of the Book of Baruch. ”They (the Babylonians),” says he, ”light up lamps to their gods, and that in greater numbers, too, than they do for themselves, although the gods cannot see one of them, and are senseless as the beams of their houses.” In Pagan Rome, the same practice was observed. Thus we find Licinius, the Pagan Emperor, before joining battle with Constantine, his rival, calling a council of his friends in a thick wood, and there offering sacrifices to his gods, ”lighting up wax-tapers” before them, and at the same time, in his speech, giving his gods a hint, that if they did not give him the victory against Constantine, his enemy and theirs, he would be under the necessity of abandoning their worship, and lighting up no more ”wax-tapers to their honour.” In the Pagan processions, also, at Rome, the wax-candles largely figured. ”At these solemnities,” says Dr. Middleton, referring to Apuleius as his authority, ”at these solemnities, the chief magistrate used frequently to assist, in robes of ceremony, attended by the priests in surplices, with wax-candles in their hands, carrying upon a pageant or thensa, the images of their gods, dressed out in their best clothes; these were usually followed by the principal youth of the place, in white linen vestments or surplices, singing hymns in honour of the gods whose festivals they were celebrating, accompanied by crowds of all sorts that were initiated in the same religion, all with flambeaux or wax-candles in their hands.” Now, so thoroughly and exclusively Pagan was this custom of lighting up lamps and candles in daylight, that we find Christian writers, such as Lactantius, in the fourth century, exposing the absurdity of the practice, and deriding the Romans ”for lighting up candles to God, as if He lived in the dark.” Had such a custom at that time gained the least footing among Christians, Lactantius could never have ridiculed it as he does, as a practice peculiar to Paganism. But what was unknown to the Christian Church in the beginning of the fourth century, soon thereafter began to creep in, and now forms one of the most marked peculiarities of that community that boasts that it is the ”Mother and mistress of all Churches.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While Rome uses both lamps and wax-candles in her sacred rites, it is evident, however, that she attributes some pre-eminent virtue to the latter above all other lights. Up to the time of the Council of Trent, she thus prayed on Easter Eve, at the blessing of the Easter candles: ”Calling upon thee in thy works, this holy Eve of Easter, we offer most humbly unto thy Majesty this sacrifice; namely, a fire not defiled with the fat of flesh, nor polluted with unholy oil or ointment, nor attained with any profane fire; but we offer unto thee with obedience, proceeding from perfect devotion, a fire of wrought WAX and wick, kindled and made to burn in honour of thy name. This so great a MYSTERY therefore, and the marvellous sacrament of this holy eve, must needs be extolled with due and deserved praises.” That there was some occult ”Mystery,” as is here declared, couched under the ”wax-candles,” in the original system of idolatry, from which Rome derived its ritual, may be well believed, when it is observed with what unanimity nations the most remote have agreed to use wax-candles in their sacred rites. Among the Tungusians, near the Lake Baikal in Siberia, ”wax-tapers are placed before the Burchans,” the gods or idols of that country. In the Molucca Islands, wax-tapers are used in the worship of Nito, or Devil, whom these islanders adore. ”Twenty or thirty persons having assembled,” says Hurd, ”they summon the Nito, by beating a small consecrated drum, whilst two or more of the company light up wax-tapers, and pronounce several mysterious words, which they consider as able to conjure him up.” In the worship of Ceylon, the use of wax-candles is an indispensable requisite. ”In Ceylon,” says the same author, ”some devotees, who are not priests, erect chapels for themselves, but in each of them they are obliged to have an image of Buddha, and light up tapers or wax-candles before it, and adorn it with flowers.” A practice thus so general must have come from some primeval source, and must have originally had some mystic reason at the bottom of it. The wax-candle was, in fact, a hieroglyphic, like so many other things which we have already seen, and was intended to exhibit the Babylonian god in one of the essential characters of the Great Mediator. The classic reader may remember that one of the gods of primeval antiquity was called Ouranos, * that is, ”The Enlightener.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* For Aor or our, ”light,” and an, ”to act upon” or produce, the same as our English particle en, ”to make.” Ouranos, then, is ”The Enlightener.” This Ouranos is, by Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician, called the son of Elioun–i.e., as he himself, or Philo-Byblius, interprets the name, ”The Most High.” (SANCH) Ouranos, in the physical sense, is ”The Shiner”; and by Hesychius it is made equivalent to Kronos, which also has the same meaning, for Krn, the verb from which it comes, signifies either ”to put forth horns,” or ”to send forth rays of light”; and, therefore, while the epithet Kronos, or ”The Horned One,” had primarily reference to the physical power of Nimrod as a ”mighty” king; when that king was deified, and made ”Lord of Heaven,” that name, Kronos, was still applied to him in his new character as ”The Shiner or Lightgiver.” The distinction made by Hesiod between Ouranos and Kronos, is no argument against the real substantial identity of these divinities originally as Pagan divinities; for Herodotus states that Hesiod had a hand in ”inventing a theogony” for the Greeks, which implies that some at least of the details of that theogony must have come from his own fancy; and, on examination, it will be found, when the veil of allegory is removed, that Hesiod’s ”Ouranos,” though introduced as one of the Pagan gods, was really at bottom the ”God of Heaven,” the living and true God.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In this very character was Nimrod worshipped when he was deified. As the Sun-god he was regarded not only as the illuminator of the material world, but as the enlightener of the souls of men, for he was recognised as the revealer of ”goodness and truth.” It is evident, from the Old Testament, not less than the New, that the proper and personal name of our Lord Jesus Christ is, ”The Word of God,” as the Revealer of the heart and counsels of the Godhead. Now, to identify the Sun-god with the Great Revealer of the Godhead, while under the name of Mithra, he was exhibited in sculpture as a Lion; that Lion had a Bee represented between his lips. The bee between the lips of the sun-god was intended to point him out as ”the Word”; for Dabar, the expression which signifies in Chaldee a ”Bee,” signifies also a ”Word”; and the position of that bee in the mouth leaves no doubt as to the idea intended to be conveyed. It was intended to impress the belief that Mithra (who, says Plutarch, was worshipped as Mesites, ”The Mediator”), in his character as Ouranos, ”The Enlightener,” was no other than that glorious one of whom the Evangelist John says, ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God…In Him was life; and the life was THE LIGHT OF MEN.” The Lord Jesus Christ ever was the revealer of the Godhead, and must have been known to the patriarchs as such; for the same Evangelist says, ”No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared,” that is, He hath revealed ”Him.” Before the Saviour came, the ancient Jews commonly spoke of the Messiah, or the Son of God, under the name of Dabar, or the ”Word.” This will appear from a consideration of what is stated in the 3rd chapter of 1st Samuel. In the first verse of that chapter it is said, ”The WORD of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision,” that is, in consequence of the sin of Eli, the Lord had not, for a long time, revealed Himself in vision to him, as He did to the prophets. When the Lord had called Samuel, this ”vision” of the God of Israel was restored (though not to Eli), for it is said in the last verse (v 21), ”And the Lord APPEARED again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel by the WORD of the Lord.” Although the Lord spake to Samuel, this language implies more than speech, for it is said, ”The LORD appeared”–i.e., was seen. When the Lord revealed Himself, or was seen by Samuel, it is said that it was ”by (Dabar) the Word of the Lord.” The ”Word of the Lord” to be visible, must have been the personal ”Word of God,” that is, Christ. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* After the Babylonish captivity, as the Chaldee Targums or Paraphrases of the Old Testament show, Christ was commonly called by the title ”The Word of the Lord.” In these Targums of later Chaldee, the term for ”The Word” is ”Mimra”; but this word, though a synonym for that which is used in the Hebrew Scriptures, is never used there. Dabar is the word employed. This is so well recognised that, in the Hebrew translation of John’s Gospel in Bagster’s Polyglott, the first verse runs thus: ”In the beginning was the Word (Dabar).”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This had evidently been a primitive name by which He was known; and therefore it is not wonderful that Plato should speak of the second person of his Trinity under the name of the Logos, which is just a translation of ”Dabar,” or ”the Word.” Now, the light of the wax-candle, as the light from Dabar, ”the Bee,” was set up as the substitute of the light of Dabar, ”the Word.” Thus the apostates turned away from the ”True Light,” and set up a shadow in His stead. That this was really the case is plain; for, says Crabb, speaking of Saturn, ”on his altars were placed wax-tapers lighted, because by Saturn men were reduced from the darkness of error to the light of truth.” In Asiatic Greece, the Babylonian god was evidently recognised as the Light-giving ”Word,” for there we find the Bee occupying such a position as makes it very clear that it was a symbol of the great Revealer. Thus we find Muller referring to the symbols connected with the worship of the Ephesian Diana: ”Her constant symbol is the bee, which is not otherwise attributed to Diana…The chief priest himself was called Essen, or the king-bee.” The character of the chief priest shows the character of the god he represented. The contemplar divinity of Diana, the tower-bearing goddess, was of course the same divinity as invariably accompanied the Babylonian goddess: and this title of the priest shows that the Bee which appeared on her medals was just another symbol for her child, as the ”Seed of the Woman,” in his assumed character, as Dabar, ”The Word” that enlightened the souls of men. That this is the precise ”Mystery” couched under the wax-candles burning on the altars of the Papacy, we have very remarkable evidence from its own formularies; for, in the very same place in which the ”Mystery” of the wax-candle is spoken of, thus does Rome refer to the Bee, by which the wax is produced: ”Forasmuch as we do marvellously wonder, in considering the first beginning of this substance, to wit, wax-tapers, then must we of necessity greatly extol the original of Bees, for…they gather the flowers with their feet, yet the flowers are not injured thereby; they bring forth no young ones, but deliver their young swarms through their mouths, like as Christ (for a wonderful example) is proceeded from His Father’s MOUTH.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Review of Epistle of DR. GENTIANUS HARVET of Louvaine. This work, which is commonly called The Beehive of the Roman Church, contains the original Latin of the passage translated above. The passage in question is to be found in at least two Roman Missals, which, however, are now very rare–viz., one printed at Vienna in 1506, with which the quotation in the text has been compared and verified; and one printed at Venice in 1522. These dates are antecedent to the establishment of the Reformation; and it appears that this passage was expunged from subsequent editions, as being unfit to stand the searching scrutiny to which everything in regard to religion was subjected in consequence of that great event. The ceremonial of blessing the candles, however, which has no place in the Pontificale Romanum in the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library, is to be found in the Pontificale Romanum, Venice, 1542, and in Pontificale Romanum, Venice, 1572. In the ceremony of blessing the candles, given in the Roman Missal, printed at Paris, 1677, there is great praise of the Bee, strongly resembling the passage quoted in the text. The introduction of such an extraordinary formula into a religious ceremony is of very ancient date, and is distinctly traced to an Italian source; for, in the words of the Popish Bishop Ennodius, who occupied an Italian diocese in the sixth century, we find the counterpart of that under consideration. Thus, in a prayer in regard to the ”Easter Candle,” the reason for offering up the wax-candle is expressly declared to be, because that through means of the bees that produce the wax of which it is made, ”earth has an image of what is PECULIAR TO HEAVEN,” and that in regard to the very subject of GENERATION; the bees being able, ”through the virtue of herbs, to pour forth their young through their MOUTHS with less waste of time than all other creatures do in the ordinary way.” This prayer contains the precise idea of the prayer in the text; and there is only one way of accounting for the origin of such an idea. It must have come from a Chaldean Liturgy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here it is evident that Christ is referred to as the ”Word of God”; and how could any imagination ever have conceived such a parallel as is contained in this passage, had it not been for the equivoque [wordplay, double meaning] between ”Dabar,” ”the Bee,” and ”Dabar,” ”The Word.” In a Popish work already quoted, the Pancarpium Marianum, I find the Lord Jesus expressly called by the name of the Bee. Referring to Mary, under the title of ”The Paradise of Delight,” the author thus speaks: ”In this Paradise that celestial Bee, that is, the incarnate Wisdom, did feed. Here it found that dropping honeycomb, with which the whole bitterness of the corrupted world has been turned into sweetness.” This blasphemously represents the Lord Jesus as having derived everything necessary to bless the world from His mother! Could this ever have come from the Bible? No. It must have come only from the source where the writer learned to call ”the incarnate Wisdom” by the name of the Bee. Now, as the equivoque from which such a name applied to the Lord Jesus springs, is founded only on the Babylonian tongue, it shows whence his theology has come, and it proves also to demonstration that this whole prayer about the blessing of wax-candles must have been drawn from a Babylonian prayer-book. Surely, at every step, the reader must see more and more the exactitude of the Divine name given to the woman on the seven mountains, ”Mystery, Babylon the Great”! </span><br />
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GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-82264091697905254232014-02-16T14:05:00.001-08:002014-02-16T14:05:41.138-08:00Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God. Part 3.<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Part 3</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Two Babylons</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />Section VI<br />The Sign of the Cross</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is yet one more symbol of the Romish worship to be noticed, and that is the sign of the cross. In the Papal system as is well known, the sign of the cross and the image of the cross are all in all. No prayer can be said, no worship engaged in, no step almost can be taken, without the frequent use of the sign of the cross. The cross is looked upon as the grand charm, as the great refuge in every season of danger, in every hour of temptation as the infallible preservative from all the powers of darkness. The cross is adored with all the homage due only to the Most High; and for any one to call it, in the hearing of a genuine Romanist, by the Scriptural term, ”the accursed tree,” is a mortal offence. To say that such superstitious feeling for the sign of the cross, such worship as Rome pays to a wooden or a metal cross, ever grew out of the saying of Paul, ”God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”–that is, in the doctrine of Christ crucified–is a mere absurdity, a shallow subterfuge and pretence. The magic virtues attributed to the so-called sign of the cross, the worship bestowed on it, never came from such a source. The same sign of the cross that Rome now worships was used in the Babylonian Mysteries, was applied by Paganism to the same magic purposes, was honoured with the same honours. That which is now called the Christian cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians–the true original form of the letter T–the initial of the name of Tammuz–which, in Hebrew, radically the same as ancient Chaldee, was found on coins. That mystic Tau was marked in baptism on the foreheads of those initiated in the Mysteries, * and was used in every variety of way as a most sacred symbol.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TERTULLIAN, De Proescript. Hoeret. The language of Tertullian implies that those who were initiated by baptism in the Mysteries were marked on the forehead in the same way, as his Christian countrymen in Africa, who had begun by this time to be marked in baptism with the sign of the cross.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To identify Tammuz with the sun it was joined sometimes to the circle of the sun; sometimes it was inserted in the circle. Whether the Maltese cross, which the Romish bishops append to their names as a symbol of their episcopal dignity, is the letter T, may be doubtful; but there seems no reason to doubt that that Maltese cross is an express symbol of the sun; for Layard found it as a sacred symbol in Nineveh in such a connection as led him to identify it with the sun. The mystic Tau, as the symbol of the great divinity, was called ”the sign of life”; it was used as an amulet over the heart; it was marked on the official garments of the priests, as on the official garments of the priests of Rome; it was borne by kings in their hand, as a token of their dignity or divinely-conferred authority. The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now. The Egyptians did the same, and many of the barbarous nations with whom they had intercourse, as the Egyptian monuments bear witness. In reference to the adorning of some of these tribes, Wilkinson thus writes: ”The girdle was sometimes highly ornamented; men as well as women wore earrings; and they frequently had a small cross suspended to a necklace, or to the collar of their dress. The adoption of this last was not peculiar to them; it was also appended to, or figured upon, the robes of the Rot-n-no; and traces of it may be seen in the fancy ornaments of the Rebo, showing that it was already in use as early as the fifteenth century before the Christian era.” There is hardly a Pagan tribe where the cross has not been found. The cross was worshipped by the Pagan Celts long before the incarnation and death of Christ. ”It is a fact,” says Maurice, ”not less remarkable than well-attested, that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the Deity they adored, and having cut the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and, together with the body, presented the appearance of a HUGE CROSS, and on the bark, in several places, was also inscribed the letter Thau.” It was worshipped in Mexico for ages before the Roman Catholic missionaries set foot there, large stone crosses being erected, probably to the ”god of rain.” The cross thus widely worshipped, or regarded as a sacred emblem, was the unequivocal symbol of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses. This symbol of the Babylonian god is reverenced at this day in all the wide wastes of Tartary, where Buddhism prevails, and the way in which it is represented among them forms a striking commentary on the language applied by Rome to the Cross. ”The cross,” says Colonel Wilford, in the Asiatic Researches, ”though not an object of worship among the Baud’has or Buddhists, is a favourite emblem and device among them. It is exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers springing from it. This cross, putting forth leaves and flowers (and fruit also, as I am told), is called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree of life and knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in the terrestrial paradise.” Compare this with the language of Rome applied to the cross, and it will be seen how exact is the coincidence. In the Office of the Cross, it is called the ”Tree of life,” and the worshippers are taught thus to address it: ”Hail, O Cross, triumphal wood, true salvation of the world, among trees there is none like thee in leaf, flower, and bud…O Cross, our only hope, increase righteousness to the godly and pardon the offences of the guilty.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The above was actually versified by the Romanisers in the Church of England, and published along with much besides from the same source, some years ago, in a volume entitled Devotions on the Passion. The London Record, of April, 1842, gave the following as a specimen of the ”Devotions” provided by these ”wolves in sheep’s clothing” for members of the Church of England:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”O faithful cross, thou peerless tree,<br />No forest yields the like of thee,<br />Leaf, flower, and bud;<br />Sweet is the wood, and sweet the weight,<br />And sweet the nails that penetrate<br />Thee, thou sweet wood.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Can any one, reading the gospel narrative of the crucifixion, possibly believe that that narrative of itself could ever germinate into such extravagance of ”leaf, flower, and bud,” as thus appears in this Roman Office? But when it is considered that the Buddhist, like the Babylonian cross, was the recognised emblem of Tammuz, who was known as the mistletoe branch, or ”All-heal,” then it is easy to see how the sacred Initial should be represented as covered with leaves, and how Rome, in adopting it, should call it the ”Medicine which preserves the healthful, heals the sick, and does what mere human power alone could never do.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this Pagan symbol seems first to have crept into the Christian Church in Egypt, and generally into Africa. A statement of Tertullian, about the middle of the third century, shows how much, by that time, the Church of Carthage was infected with the old leaven. Egypt especially, which was never thoroughly evangelised, appears to have taken the lead in bringing in this Pagan symbol. The first form of that which is called the Christian Cross, found on Christian monuments there, is the unequivocal Pagan Tau, or Egyptian ”Sign of life.” Let the reader peruse the following statement of Sir G. Wilkinson: ”A still more curious fact may be mentioned respecting this hieroglyphical character [the Tau], that the early Christians of Egypt adopted it in lieu of the cross, which was afterwards substituted for it, prefixing it to inscriptions in the same manner as the cross in later times. For, though Dr. Young had some scruples in believing the statement of Sir A. Edmonstone, that it holds that position in the sepulchres of the great Oasis, I can attest that such is the case, and that numerous inscriptions, headed by the Tau, are preserved to the present day on early Christian monuments.” The drift of this statement is evidently this, that in Egypt the earliest form of that which has since been called the cross, was no other than the ”Crux Ansata,” or ”Sign of life,” borne by Osiris and all the Egyptian gods; that the ansa or ”handle” was afterwards dispensed with, and that it became the simple Tau, or ordinary cross, as it appears at this day, and that the design of its first employment on the sepulchres, therefore, could have no reference to the crucifixion of the Nazarene, but was simply the result of the attachment to old and long-cherished Pagan symbols, which is always strong in those who, with the adoption of the Christian name and profession, are still, to a large extent, Pagan in heart and feeling. This, and this only, is the origin of the worship of the ”cross.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This, no doubt, will appear all very strange and very incredible to those who have read Church history, as most have done to a large extent, even amongst Protestants, through Romish spectacles; and especially to those who call to mind the famous story told of the miraculous appearance of the cross to Constantine on the day before the decisive victory at the Milvian bridge, that decided the fortunes of avowed Paganism and nominal Christianity. That story, as commonly told, if true, would certainly give a Divine sanction to the reverence for the cross. But that story, when sifted to the bottom, according to the common version of it, will be found to be based on a delusion–a delusion, however, into which so good a man as Milner has allowed himself to fall. Milner’s account is as follows: ”Constantine, marching from France into Italy against Maxentius, in an expedition which was likely either to exalt or to ruin him, was oppressed with anxiety. Some god he thought needful to protect him; the God of the Christians he was most inclined to respect, but he wanted some satisfactory proof of His real existence and power, and he neither understood the means of acquiring this, nor could he be content with the atheistic indifference in which so many generals and heroes since his time have acquiesced. He prayed, he implored with such vehemence and importunity, and God left him not unanswered. While he was marching with his forces in the afternoon, the trophy of the cross appeared very luminous in the heavens, brighter than the sun, with this inscription, ‘Conquer by this.’ He and his soldiers were astonished at the sight; but he continued pondering on the event till night. And Christ appeared to him when asleep with the same sign of the cross, and directed him to make use of the symbol as his military ensign.” Such is the statement of Milner. Now, in regard to the ”trophy of the cross,” a few words will suffice to show that it is utterly unfounded. I do not think it necessary to dispute the fact of some miraculous sign having been given. There may, or there may not, have been on this occasion a ”dignus vindice nodus,” a crisis worthy of a Divine interposition. Whether, however, there was anything out of the ordinary course, I do not inquire. But this I say, on the supposition that Constantine in this matter acted in good faith, and that there actually was a miraculous appearance in the heavens, that it as not the sign of the cross that was seen, but quite a different thing, the name of Christ. That this was the case, we have at once the testimony of Lactantius, who was the tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus–the earliest author who gives any account of the matter, and the indisputable evidence of the standards of Constantine themselves, as handed down to us on medals struck at the time. The testimony of Lactantius is most decisive: ”Constantine was warned in a dream to make the celestial sign of God upon his solders’ shields, and so to join battle. He did as he was bid, and with the transverse letter X circumflecting the head of it, he marks Christ on their shields. Equipped with this sign, his army takes the sword.” Now, the letter X was just the initial of the name of Christ, being equivalent in Greek to CH. If, therefore, Constantine did as he was bid, when he made ”the celestial sign of God” in the form of ”the letter X,” it was that ”letter X,” as the symbol of ”Christ” and not the sign of the cross, which he saw in the heavens. When the Labarum, or far-famed standard of Constantine itself, properly so called, was made, we have the evidence of Ambrose, the well-known Bishop of Milan, that that standard was formed on the very principle contained in the statement of Lactantius–viz., simply to display the Redeemer’s name. He calls it ”Labarum, hoc est Christi sacratum nomine signum.”–”The Labarum, that is, the ensign consecrated by the NAME of Christ.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Epistle of Ambrose to the Emperor Theodosius about the proposal to restore the Pagan altar of Victory in the Roman Senate. The subject of the Labarum has been much confused through ignorance of the meaning of the word. Bryant assumes (and I was myself formerly led away by the assumption) that it was applied to the standard bearing the crescent and the cross, but he produces no evidence for the assumption; and I am now satisfied that none can be produced. The name Labarum, which is generally believed to have come from the East, treated as an Oriental word, gives forth its meaning at once. It evidently comes from Lab, ”to vibrate,” or ”move to and fro,” and ar ”to be active.” Interpreted thus, Labarum signifies simply a banner or flag, ”waving to and fro” in the wind, and this entirely agrees with the language of Ambrose ”an ensign consecrated by the name of Christ,” which implies a banner.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is not the slightest allusion to any cross–to anything but the simple name of Christ. While we have these testimonies of Lactantius and Ambrose, when we come to examine the standard of Constantine, we find the accounts of both authors fully borne out; we find that that standard, bearing on it these very words, ”Hoc signo victor eris,” ”In this sign thou shalt be a conqueror,” said to have been addressed from heaven to the emperor, has nothing at all in the shape of a cross, but ”the letter X.” In the Roman Catacombs, on a Christian monument to ”Sinphonia and her sons,” there is a distinct allusion to the story of the vision; but that allusion also shows that the X, and not the cross, was regarded as the ”heavenly sign.” The words at the head of the inscription are these: ”In Hoc Vinces [In this thou shalt overcome] X.” Nothing whatever but the X is here given as the ”Victorious Sign.” There are some examples, no doubt, of Constantine’s standard, in which there is a cross-bar, from which the flag is suspended, that contains that ”letter X”; and Eusebius, who wrote when superstition and apostacy were working, tries hard to make it appear that that cross-bar was the essential element in the ensign of Constantine. But this is obviously a mistake; that cross-bar was nothing new, nothing peculiar to Constantine’s standard. Tertullian shows that that cross-bar was found long before on the vexillum, the Roman Pagan standard, that carried a flag; and it was used simply for the purpose of displaying that flag. If, therefore, that cross-bar was the ”celestial sign,” it needed no voice from heaven to direct Constantine to make it; nor would the making or displaying of it have excited any particular attention on the part of those who saw it. We find no evidence at all that the famous legend, ”In this overcome,” has any reference to this cross-bar; but we find evidence the most decisive that that legend does refer to the X. Now, that that X was not intended as the sign of the cross, but as the initial of Christ’s name, is manifest from this, that the Greek P, equivalent to our R, is inserted in the middle of it, making by their union CHR. The standard of Constantine, then, was just the name of Christ. Whether the device came from earth or from heaven–whether it was suggested by human wisdom or Divine, supposing that Constantine was sincere in his Christian profession, nothing more was implied in it than a literal embodiment of the sentiment of the Psalmist, ”In the name of the Lord will we display our banners.” To display that name on the standards of Imperial Rome was a thing absolutely new; and the sight of that name, there can be little doubt, nerved the Christian soldiers in Constantine’s army with more than usual fire to fight and conquer at the Milvian bridge.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the above remarks I have gone on the supposition that Constantine acted in good faith as a Christian. His good faith, however, has been questioned; and I am not without my suspicions that the X may have been intended to have one meaning to the Christians and another to the Pagans. It is certain that the X was the symbol of the god Ham in Egypt, and as such was exhibited on the breast of his image. Whichever view be taken, however, of Constantine’s sincerity, the supposed Divine warrant for reverencing the sign of the cross entirely falls to the ground. In regard to the X, there is no doubt that, by the Christians who knew nothing of secret plots or devices, it was generally taken, as Lactantius declares, as equivalent to the name of ”Christ.” In this view, therefore, it had no very great attractions for the Pagans, who, even in worshipping Horus, had always been accustomed to make use of the mystic tau or cross, as the ”sign of life,” or the magical charm that secured all that was good, and warded off everything that was evil. When, therefore, multitudes of the Pagans, on the conversion of Constantine, flocked into the Church, like the semi-Pagans of Egypt, they brought along with them their predilection for the old symbol. The consequence was, that in no great length of time, as apostacy proceeded, the X which in itself was not an unnatural symbol of Christ, the true Messiah, and which had once been regarded as such, was allowed to go entirely into disuse, and the Tau, the sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the false Messiah, was everywhere substituted in its stead. Thus, by the ”sign of the cross,” Christ has been crucified anew by those who profess to be His disciples. Now, if these things be matter of historic fact, who can wonder that, in the Romish Church, ”the sign of the cross” has always and everywhere been seen to be such an instrument of rank superstition and delusion?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is more, much more, in the rites and ceremonies of Rome that might be brought to elucidate our subject. But the above may suffice. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* If the above remarks be well founded, surely it cannot be right that this sign of the cross, or emblem of Tammuz, should be used in Christian baptism. At the period of the Revolution, a Royal Commission, appointed to inquire into the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England, numbering among its members eight or ten bishops, strongly recommended that the use of the cross, as tending to superstition, should be laid aside. If such a recommendation was given then, and that by such authority as members of the Church of England must respect, how much ought that recommendation to be enforced by the new light which Providence has cast on the subject!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VI<br />Section I<br />The Sovereign Pontiff</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The gift of the ministry is one of the greatest gifts which Christ has bestowed upon the world. It is in reference to this that the Psalmist, predicting the ascension of Christ, thus loftily speaks of its blessed results: ”Thou hast ascended up on high: Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them” (Eph 4:8-11). The Church of Rome, at its first planting, had the divinely bestowed gift of a Scriptural ministry and government; and then ”its faith was spoken of throughout the whole world”; its works of righteousness were both rich and abundant. But, in an evil hour, the Babylonian element was admitted into its ministry, and thenceforth, that which had been intended as a blessing, was converted into a curse. Since then, instead of sanctifying men, it has only been the means of demoralising them, and making them ”twofold more the children of hell” than they would have been had they been left simply to themselves.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If there be any who imagine that there is some occult and mysterious virtue in an apostolic succession that comes through the Papacy, let them seriously consider the real character of the Pope’s own orders, and of those of his bishops and clergy. From the Pope downwards, all can be shown to be now radically Babylonian. The College of Cardinals, with the Pope at its head, is just the counterpart of the Pagan College of Pontiffs, with its ”Pontifex Maximus,” or ”Sovereign Pontiff,” which had existed in Rome from the earliest times, and which is known to have been framed on the model of the grand original Council of Pontiffs at Babylon. The Pope now pretends to supremacy in the Church as the successor of Peter, to whom it is alleged that our Lord exclusively committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven. But here is the important fact that, till the Pope was invested with the title, which for a thousand years had had attached to it the power of the keys of Janus and Cybele, * no such claim to pre-eminence, or anything approaching to it, was ever publicly made on his part, on the ground of his being the possessor of the keys bestowed on Peter.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It was only in the second century before the Christian era that the worship of Cybele, under that name, was introduced into Rome; but the same goddess, under the name of Cardea, with the ”power of the key,” was worshipped in Rome, along with Janus, ages before. OVID’s Fasti</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Very early, indeed, did the bishop of Rome show a proud and ambitious spirit; but, for the first three centuries, their claim for superior honour was founded simply on the dignity of their see, as being that of the imperial city, the capital of the Roman world. When, however, the seat of empire was removed to the East, and Constantinople threatened to eclipse Rome, some new ground for maintaining the dignity of the Bishop of Rome must be sought. That new ground was found, when, about 378, the Pope fell heir to the keys that were the symbols of two well-known Pagan divinities at Rome. Janus bore a key, and Cybele bore a key; and these are the two keys that the Pope emblazons on his arms as the ensigns of his spiritual authority. How the Pope came to be regarded as wielding the power of these keys will appear in the sequel; but that he did, in the popular apprehension, become entitled to that power at the period referred to is certain. Now, when he had come, in the estimation of the Pagans, to occupy the place of the representatives of Janus and Cybele, and therefore to be entitled to bear their keys, the Pope saw that if he could only get it believed among the Christians that Peter alone had the power of the keys, and that he was Peter’s successor, then the sight of these keys would keep up the delusion, and thus, though the temporal dignity of Rome as a city should decay, his own dignity as the Bishop of Rome would be more firmly established than ever. On this policy it is evident he acted. Some time was allowed to pass away, and then, when the secret working of the Mystery of iniquity had prepared the way for it, for the first time did the Pope publicly assert his pre-eminence, as founded on the keys given to Peter. About 378 was he raised to the position which gave him, in Pagan estimation, the power of the keys referred to. In 432, and not before, did he publicly lay claim to the possession of Peter’s keys. This, surely, is a striking coincidence. Does the reader ask how it was possible that men could give credit to such a baseless assumption? The words of Scripture, in regard to this very subject, give a very solemn but satisfactory answer (2 Thess 2:10,11): ”Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved…For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” Few lies could be more gross; but, in course of time, it came to be widely believed; and now, as the statue of Jupiter is worshipped at Rome as the veritable image of Peter, so the keys of Janus and Cybele have for ages been devoutly believed to represent the keys of the same apostle.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While nothing but judicial infatuation can account for the credulity of the Christians in regarding these keys as emblems of an exclusive power given by Christ to the Pope through Peter, it is not difficult to see how the Pagans would rally round the Pope all the more readily when they heard him found his power on the possession of Peter’s keys. The keys that the Pope bore were the keys of a ”Peter” well known to the Pagans initiated in the Chaldean Mysteries. That Peter the apostle was ever Bishop of Rome has been proved again and again to be an arrant fable. That he ever even set foot in Rome is at the best highly doubtful. His visit to that city rests on no better authority than that of a writer at the end of the second century or beginning of the third–viz., the author of the work called The Clementines, who gravely tells us that on the occasion of his visit, finding Simon Magus there, the apostle challenged him to give proof of his miraculous or magical powers, whereupon the sorcerer flew up into the air, and Peter brought him down in such hast that his leg was broken. All historians of repute have at once rejected this story of the apostolic encounter with the magician as being destitute of all contemporary evidence; but as the visit of Peter to Rome rests on the same authority, it must stand or fall along with it, or, at least, it must be admitted to be extremely doubtful. But, while this is the case with Peter the Christian, it can be shown to be by no means doubtful that before the Christian era, and downwards, there was a ”Peter” at Rome, who occupied the highest place in the Pagan priesthood. The priest who explained the Mysteries to the initiated was sometimes called by a Greek term, the Hierophant; but in primitive Chaldee, the real language of the Mysteries, his title, as pronounced without the points, was ”Peter”–i.e., ”the interpreter.” As the revealer of that which was hidden, nothing was more natural than that, while opening up the esoteric doctrine of the Mysteries, he should be decorated with the keys of the two divinities whose mysteries he unfolded. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Turkish Mufties, or ”interpreters” of the Koran, derive that name from the very same verb as that from which comes Miftah, a key.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus we may see how the keys of Janus and Cybele would come to be known as the keys of Peter, the ”interpreter” of the Mysteries. Yea, we have the strongest evidence that, in countries far removed from one another, and far distant from Rome, these keys were known by initiated Pagans not merely as the ”keys of Peter,” but as the keys of a Peter identified with Rome. In the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens, when the candidates for initiation were instructed in the secret doctrine of Paganism, the explanation of that doctrine was read to them out of a book called by ordinary writers the ”Book Petroma”; that is, as we are told, a book formed of stone. But this is evidently just a play upon words, according to the usual spirit of Paganism, intended to amuse the vulgar. The nature of the case, and the history of the Mysteries, alike show that this book could be none other than the ”Book Pet-Roma”; that is, the ”Book of the Grand Interpreter,” in other words, of Hermes Trismegistus, the great ”Interpreter of the Gods.” In Egypt, from which Athens derived its religion, the books of Hermes were regarded as the divine fountain of all true knowledge of the Mysteries. * In Egypt, therefore, Hermes was looked up to in this very character of Grand Interpreter, or ”Peter-Roma.” ** In Athens, Hermes, as its well known, occupied precisely the same place, *** and, of course, in the sacred language, must have been known by the same title.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The following are the authorities for the statement in the text: ”Jamblichus says that Hermes [i.e., the Egyptian] was the god of all celestial knowledge, which, being communicated by him to his priests, authorised them to inscribe their commentaries with the name of Hermes” (WILKINSON). Again, according to the fabulous accounts of the Egyptian Mercury, he was reported…to have taught men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayers and sacrifice (WILKINSON). Hermes Trismegistus seems to have been regarded as a new incarnation of Thoth, and possessed of higher honours. The principal books of this Hermes, according to Clemens of Alexandria, were treated by the Egyptians with the most profound respect, and carried in their religious processions (CLEM., ALEX., Strom.).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** In Egypt, ”Petr” was used in this very sense. See BUNSEN, Hieroglyph, where Ptr is said to signify ”to show.” The interpreter was called Hierophantes, which has the very idea of ”showing” in it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">*** The Athenian or Grecian Hermes is celebrated as ”The source of invention…He bestows, too, mathesis on souls, by unfolding the will of the father of Jupiter, and this he accomplishes as the angel or messenger of Jupiter…He is the guardian of disciplines, because the invention of geometry, reasoning, and language is referred to this god. He presides, therefore, over every species of erudition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls” (PROCLUS in Commentary on First Alcibiades, TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns). The Grecian Hermes was so essentially the revealer or interpreter of divine things, that Hermeneutes, an interpreter, was currently said to come from his name (HYGINUS).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The priest, therefore, that in the name of Hermes explained the Mysteries, must have been decked not only with the keys of Peter, but with the keys of ”Peter-Roma.” Here, then, the famous ”Book of Stone” begins to appear in a new light, and not only so, but to shed new light on one of the darkest and most puzzling passages of Papal history. It has always been a matter of amazement to candid historical inquirers how it could ever have come to pass that the name of Peter should be associated with Rome in the way in which it is found from the fourth century downwards–how so many in different countries had been led to believe that Peter, who was an ”apostle of the circumcision,” had apostatised from his Divine commission, and become bishop of a Gentile Church, and that he should be the spiritual ruler in Rome, when no satisfactory evidence could be found for his ever having been in Rome at all. But the book of ”Peter-Roma” accounts for what otherwise is entirely inexplicable. The existence of such a title was too valuable to be overlooked by the Papacy; and, according to its usual policy, it was sure, if it had the opportunity, to turn it to the account of its own aggrandisement. And that opportunity it had. When the Pope came, as he did, into intimate connection with the Pagan priesthood; when they came at last, as we shall see they did, under his control, what more natural than to seek not only to reconcile Paganism and Christianity, but to make it appear that the Pagan ”Peter-Roma,” with his keys, meant ”Peter of Rome,” and that that ”Peter of Rome” was the very apostle to whom the Lord Jesus Christ gave the ”keys of the kingdom of heaven”? Hence, from the mere jingle of words, persons and things essentially different were confounded; and Paganism and Christianity jumbled together, that the towering ambition of a wicked priest might be gratified; and so, to the blinded Christians of the apostacy, the Pope was the representative of Peter the apostle, while to the initiated pagans, he was only the representative of Peter, the interpreter of their well known Mysteries. Thus was the Pope the express counterpart of ”Janus, the double-faced.” Oh! what an emphasis of meaning in the Scriptural expression, as applied to the Papacy, ”The Mystery of Iniquity”!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reader will now be prepared to understand how it is that the Pope’s Grand Council of State, which assists him in the government of the Church, comes to be called the College of Cardinals. The term Cardinal is derived from Cardo, a hinge. Janus, whose key the Pope bears, was the god of doors and hinges, and was called Patulcius, and Clusius ”the opener and the shutter.” This had a blasphemous meaning, for he was worshipped at Rome as the grand mediator. Whatever important business was in hand, whatever deity was to be invoked, an invocation first of all must be addressed to Janus, who was recognised as the ”God of gods,” in whose mysterious divinity the characters of father and son were combined, and without that no prayer could be heard–the ”door of heaven” could not be opened. It was this same god whose worship prevailed so exceedingly in Asia Minor at the time when our Lord sent, by his servant John, the seven Apocalyptic messages to the churches established in that region. And, therefore, in one of these messages we find Him tacitly rebuking the profane ascription of His own peculiar dignity to that divinity, and asserting His exclusive claim to the prerogative usually attributed to His rival. Thus, Revelation 3:7 ”And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” Now, to this Janus, as Mediator, worshipped in Asia Minor, and equally, from very early times, in Rome, belonged the government of the world; and, ”all power in heaven, in earth, and the sea,” according to Pagan ideas, was vested in him. In this character he was said to have ”jus vertendi cardinis”–the ”power of turning the hinge”–of opening the doors of heaven, or of opening or shutting the gates of peace or war upon earth. The Pope, therefore, when he set up as the High-priest of Janus, assumed also the ”jus vertendi cardinis,” ”the power of turning the hinge,”–of opening and shutting in the blasphemous Pagan sense. Slowly and cautiously at first was this power asserted; but the foundation being laid, steadily, century after century, was the grand superstructure of priestly power erected upon it. The Pagans, who saw what strides, under Papal directions, Christianity, as professed in Rome, was making towards Paganism, were more than content to recognise the Pope as possessing this power; they gladly encouraged him to rise, step by step, to the full height of the blasphemous pretensions befitting the representative of Janus–pretensions which, as all men know, are now, by the unanimous consent of Western Apostate Christendom, recognised as inherent in the office of the Bishop of Rome. To enable the Pope, however, to rise to the full plenitude of power which he now asserts, the co-operation of others was needed. When his power increased, when his dominion extended, and especially after he became a temporal sovereign, the key of Janus became too heavy for his single hand–he needed some to share with him the power of the ”hinge.” Hence his privy councillors, his high functionaries of state, who were associated with him in the government of the Church and the world, got the now well known title of ”Cardinals”–the priests of the ”hinge.” This title had been previously borne by the high officials of the Roman Emperor, who, as ”Pontifex Maximus,” had been himself the representative of Janus, and who delegated his powers to servants of his own. Even in the reign of Theodosius, the Christian Emperor of Rome, the title of Cardinal was borne by his Prime Minister. But now both the name and the power implied in the name have long since disappeared from all civil functionaries of temporal sovereigns; and those only who aid the Pope in wielding the key of Janus–in opening and shutting–are known by the title of Cardinals, or priests of the ”hinge.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I have said that the Pope became the representative of Janus, who, it is evident, was none other than the Babylonian Messiah. If the reader only considers the blasphemous assumptions of the Papacy, he will see how exactly it has copied from its original. In the countries where the Babylonian system was most thoroughly developed, we find the Sovereign Pontiff of the Babylonian god invested with the very attributes now ascribed to the Pope. Is the Pope called ”God upon earth,” the ”Vice-God,” and ”Vicar of Jesus Christ”? The King in Egypt, who was Sovereign Pontiff, * was, says Wilkinson, regarded with the highest reverence as ”THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DIVINITY ON EARTH.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Wilkinson shows that the king had the right of enacting laws, and of managing all the affairs of religion and the State, which proves him to have been Sovereign Pontiff.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Is the Pope ”Infallible,” and does the Church of Rome, in consequence, boast that it has always been ”unchanged and unchangeable”? The same was the case with the Chaldean Pontiff, and the system over which he presided. The Sovereign Pontiff, says the writer just quoted, was believed to be ”INCAPABLE OF ERROR,” * and, in consequence, there was ”the greatest respect for the sanctity of old edicts”; and hence, no doubt, also the origin of the custom that ”the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be altered.” Does the Pope receive the adorations of the Cardinals? The king of Babylon, as Sovereign Pontiff, was adored in like manner. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* WILKINSON’S Egyptians. ”The Infallibility” was a natural result of the popular belief in regard to the relation in which the Sovereign stood to the gods: for, says Diodorus Siculus, speaking of Egypt, the king was believed to be ”a partaker of the divine nature.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From the statement of LAYARD (Nineveh and its Remains and Nineveh and Babylon), it appears that as the king of Egypt was the ”Head of the religion and the state,” so was the king of Assyria, which included Babylon. Then we have evidence that he was worshipped. The sacred images are represented as adoring him, which could not have been the case if his own subjects did not pay their homage in that way. Then the adoration claimed by Alexander the Great evidently came from this source. It was directly in imitation of the adoration paid to the Persian kings that he required such homage. From Xenophon we have evidence that this Persian custom came from Babylon. It was when Cyrus had entered Babylon that the Persians, for the first time, testified their homage to him by adoration; for, ”before this,” says Xenophon (Cyropoed), ”none of the Persians had given adoration to Cyrus.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Are kings and ambassadors required to kiss the Pope’s slipper? This, too, is copied from the same pattern; for, says Professor Gaussen, quoting Strabo and Herodotus, ”the kings of Chaldea wore on their feet slippers which the kings they conquered used to kiss.” In kind, is the Pope addressed by the title of ”Your Holiness”? So also was the Pagan Pontiff of Rome. The title seems to have been common to all Pontiffs. Symmachus, the last Pagan representative of the Roman Emperor, as Sovereign Pontiff, addressing one of his colleagues or fellow-pontiffs, on a step of promotion he was about to obtain, says, ”I hear that YOUR HOLINESS (sanctitatem tuam) is to be called out by the sacred letters.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Peter’s keys have now been restored to their rightful owner. Peter’s chair must also go along with them. That far-famed chair came from the very same quarter as the cross-keys. The very same reason that led the Pope to assume the Chaldean keys naturally led him also to take possession of the vacant chair of the Pagan Pontifex Maximus. As the Pontifex, by virtue of his office, had been the Hierophant, or Interpreter of the Mysteries, his chair of office was as well entitled to be called ”Peter’s” chair as the Pagan keys to be called ”the keys of Peter”; and so it was called accordingly. The real pedigree of the far-famed chair of Peter will appear from the following fact: ”The Romans had,” says Bower, ”as they thought, till the year 1662, a pregnant proof, not only of Peter’s erecting their chair, but of his sitting in it himself; for, till that year, the very chair on which they believed, or would make others believe, he had sat, was shown and exposed to public adoration on the 18th of January, the festival of the said chair. But while it was cleaning, in order to set it up in some conspicuous place of the Vatican, the twelve labours of Hercules unluckily appeared on it!” and so it had to be laid aside. The partisans of the Papacy were not a little disconcerted by this discovery; but they tried to put the best face on the matter they could. ”Our worship,” said Giacomo Bartolini, in his Sacred Antiquities of Rome, while relating the circumstances of the discovery, ”Our worship, however, was not misplaced, since it was not to the wood we paid it, but to the prince of the apostles, St. Peter,” that had been supposed to sit in it. Whatever the reader may think of this apology for chair-worship, he will surely at least perceive, taking this in connection with what we have already seen, that the hoary fable of Peter’s chair is fairly exploded. In modern times, Rome seems to have been rather unfortunate in regard to Peter’s chair; for, even after that which bore the twelve labours of Hercules had been condemned and cast aside, as unfit to bear the light that the Reformation had poured upon the darkness of the Holy See, that which was chosen to replace it was destined to reveal still more ludicrously the barefaced impostures of the Papacy. The former chair was borrowed from the Pagans; the next appears to have been purloined from the Mussulmans; for when the French soldiers under General Bonaparte took possession of Rome in 1795, they found on the back of it, in Arabic, this well known sentence of the Koran, ”There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Pope has not merely a chair to sit in; but he has a chair to be carried in, in pomp and state, on men’s shoulders, when he pays a visit to St. Peter’s, or any of the churches of Rome. Thus does an eye-witness describe such a pageant on the Lord’s Day, in the headquarters of Papal idolatry: ”The drums were heard beating without. The guns of the soldiers rung on the stone pavement of the house of God, as, at the bidding of their officer, they grounded, shouldered, and presented arms. How unlike the Sabbath–how unlike religion–how unlike the suitable preparation to receive a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus! Now, moving slowly up, between the two armed lines of soldiers, appeared a long procession of ecclesiastics, bishops, canons, and cardinals, preceding the Roman pontiff, who was borne on a gilded chair, clad in vestments resplendent as the sun. His bearers were twelve men clad in crimson, being immediately preceded by several persons carrying a cross, his mitre, his triple crown, and other insignia of his office. As he was borne along on the shoulders of men, amid the gaping crowds, his head was shaded or canopied by two immense fans, made of peacocks’ feathers, which were borne by two attendants.” Thus it is with the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome at this day; only that, frequently, over and above being shaded by the fan, which is just the ”Mystic fan of Bacchus,” his chair of state is also covered with a regular canopy. Now, look back through the vista of three thousand years, and see how the Sovereign Pontiff of Egypt used to pay a visit to the temple of his god. ”Having reached the precincts of the temple,” says Wilkinson, ”the guards and royal attendants selected to be the representatives of the whole army entered the courts…Military bands played the favourite airs of the country; and the numerous standards of the different regiments, the banners floating on the wind, the bright lustre of arms, the immense concourse of people, and the imposing majesty of the lofty towers of the propylaea, decked with their bright-coloured flags, streaming above the cornice, presented a scene seldom, we may say, equalled on any occasion, in any country. The most striking feature of this pompous ceremony was the brilliant cortege of the monarch, who was either borne in his chair of state by the principal officers of state, under a rich canopy, or walked on foot, overshadowed with rich flabella and fans of waving plumes.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">So much for Peter’s chair and Peter’s keys. Now Janus, whose key the Pope usurped with that of his wife or mother Cybele, was also Dagon. Janus, the two-headed god, ”who had lived in two worlds,” was the Babylonian divinity as an incarnation of Noah. Dagon, the fish-god, represented that deity as a manifestation of the same patriarch who had lived so long in the waters of the deluge. As the Pope bears the key of Janus, so he wears the mitre of Dagon. The excavations of Nineveh have put this beyond all possibility of doubt. The Papal mitre is entirely different from the mitre of Aaron and the Jewish high priests. That mitre was a turban. The two-horned mitre, which the Pope wears, when he sits on the high altar at Rome and receives the adoration of the Cardinals, is the very mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians. There were two ways in which Dagon was anciently represented. The one was when he was depicted as half-man half-fish; the upper part being entirely human, the under part ending in the tail of a fish. The other was, when, to use the words of Layard, ”the head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, while its scaly, fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed.” Of Dagon in this form Layard gives a representation in his last work; and no one who examines his mitre, and compares it with the Pope’s as given in Elliot’s Horoe, can doubt for a moment that from that, and no other source, has the pontifical mitre been derived. The gaping jaws of the fish surmounting the head of the man at Nineveh are the unmistakable counterpart of the horns of the Pope’s mitre at Rome. Thus was it in the East, at least five hundred years before the Christian era. The same seems to have been the case also in Egypt; for Wilkinson, speaking of a fish of the species of Siluris, says ”that one of the Genii of the Egyptian Pantheon appears under a human form, with the head of this fish.” In the West, at a later period, we have evidence that the Pagans had detached the fish-head mitre from the body of the fish, and used that mitre alone to adorn the head of the great Mediatorial god; for on several Maltese Pagan coins that god, with the well-known attributes of Osiris, is represented with nothing of the fish save the mitre on his head; very nearly in the same form as the mitre of the Pope, or of a Papal bishop at this day. Even in China, the same practice of wearing the fish-head mitre had evidently once prevailed; for the very counterpart of the Papal mitre, as worn by the Chinese Emperor, has subsisted to modern times. ”Is it known,” asks a well-read author of the present day, in a private communication to me, ”that the Emperor of China, in all ages, even to the present year, as high priest of the nation, once a year prays for and blesses the whole nation, having his priestly robes on and his mitre on his head, the same, the very same, as that worn by the Roman Pontiff for near 1200 years? Such is the fact.” The reader must bear in mind, that even in Japan, still farther distant from Babel than China itself, one of the divinities is represented with the same symbol of might as prevailed in Assyria–even the bull’s horns, and is called ”The ox-headed Prince of Heaven.” If the symbol of Nimrod, as Kronos, ”The Horned one,” is thus found in Japan, it cannot be surprising that the symbol of Dagon should be found in China.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But there is another symbol of the Pope’s power which must not be overlooked, and that is the pontifical crosier. Whence came the crosier? The answer to this, in the first place, is, that the Pope stole it from the Roman augur. The classical reader may remember, that when the Roman augurs consulted the heavens, or took prognostics from the aspect of the sky, there was a certain instrument with which it was indispensable that they should be equipped. That instrument with which they described the portion of the heavens on which their observations were to be made, was curved at the one end, and was called ”lituus.” Now, so manifestly was the ”lituus,” or crooked rod of the Roman augurs, identical with the pontifical crosier, that Roman Catholic writers themselves, writing in the Dark Ages, at a time when disguise was thought unnecessary, did not hesitate to use the term ”lituus” as a synonym for the crosier. Thus a Papal writer describes a certain Pope or Papal bishop as ”mitra lituoque decorus,” adorned with the mitre and the augur’s rod, meaning thereby that he was ”adorned with the mitre and the crosier.” But this lituus, or divining-rod, of the Roman augurs, was, as is well known, borrowed from the Etruscans, who, again, had derived it, along with their religion, from the Assyrians. As the Roman augur was distinguished by his crooked rod, so the Chaldean soothsayers and priests, in the performance of their magic rites, were generally equipped with a crook or crosier. This magic crook can be traced up directly to the first king of Babylon, that is, Nimrod, who, as stated by Berosus, was the first that bore the title of a Shepherd-king. In Hebrew, or the Chaldee of the days of Abraham, ”Nimrod the Shepherd,” is just Nimrod ”He-Roe”; and from this title of the ”mighty hunter before the Lord,” have no doubt been derived, both the name of Hero itself, and all that Hero-worship which has since overspread the world. Certain it is that Nimrod’s deified successors have generally been represented with the crook or crosier. This was the case in Babylon and Nineveh, as the extant monuments show. In Layard, it may be seen in a more ornate form, and nearly resembling the papal crosier as borne at this day. * This was the case in Egypt, after the Babylonian power was established there, as the statues of Osiris with his crosier bear witness, ** Osiris himself being frequently represented as a crosier with an eye above it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Nineveh and Babylon. Layard seems to think the instrument referred to, which is borne by the king, ”attired as high priest in his sacrificial robes,” a sickle; but any one who attentively examines it will see that it is a crosier, adorned with studs, as is commonly the case even now with the Roman crosiers, only, that instead of being held erect, it is held downwards.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** The well known name Pharaoh, the title of the Pontiff-kings of Egypt, is just the Egyptian form of the Hebrew He-Roe. Pharaoh in Genesis, without the points, is ”Phe-Roe.” Phe is the Egyptian definite article. It was not shepherd-kings that the Egyptians abhorred, but Roi-Tzan, ”shepherds of cattle” (Gen 46:34). Without the article Roe, a ”shepherd,” is manifestly the original of the French Roi, a king, whence the adjective royal; and from Ro, which signifies to ”act the shepherd,” which is frequently pronounced Reg–(with Sh, which signifies ”He who is,” or ”who does,” affixed)–comes Regah, ”He who acts the shepherd,” whence the Latin Rex, and Regal.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This is the case among the Negroes of Africa, whose god, called the Fetiche, is represented in the form of a crosier, as is evident from the following words of Hurd: ”They place Fetiches before their doors, and these titular deities are made in the form of grapples or hooks, which we generally make use of to shake our fruit trees.” This is the case at this hour in Thibet, where the Lamas or Theros bear, as stated by the Jesuit Huc, a crosier, as the ensign of their office. This is the case even in the far-distant Japan, where, in a description of the idols of the great temple of Miaco, the spiritual capital, we find this statement: ”Their heads are adorned with rays of glory, and some of them have shepherds’ crooks in their hands, pointing out that they are the guardians of mankind against all the machinations of evil spirits.” The crosier of the Pope, then, which he bears as an emblem of his office, as the great shepherd of the sheep, is neither more nor less than the augur’s crooked staff, or magic rod of the priests of Nimrod.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, what say the worshippers of the apostolic succession to all this? What think they now of their vaunted orders as derived from Peter of Rome? Surely they have much reason to be proud of them. But what, I further ask, would even the old Pagan priests say who left the stage of time while the martyrs were still battling against their gods, and, rather than symbolise with them, ”loved not their lives unto the death,” if they were to see the present aspect of the so-called Church of European Christendom? What would Belshazzar himself say, if it were possible for him to ”revisit the glimpses of the moon,” and enter St. Peter’s at Rome, and see the Pope in his pontificals, in all his pomp and glory? Surely he would conclude that he had only entered one of his own well known temples, and that all things continued as they were at Babylon, on that memorable night, when he saw with astonished eyes the handwriting on the wall: ”Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VI<br />Section II<br />Priests, Monks, and Nuns</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">If the head be corrupt, so also must be the members</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">. <u>If the Pope be essentially Pagan, what else can be the character of his clergy</u>? If they derive their orders from a radically corrupted source, these orders must partake of the corruption of the source from which they flow. This might be inferred independently of any special evidence; but the evidence in regard to the Pagan character of the Pope’s clergy is as complete as that in regard to the Pope himself. In whatever light the subject is viewed, this will be very apparent.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is a direct contrast between the character of the ministers of Christ, and that of the Papal priesthood. When Christ commissioned His servants, it was ”to feed His sheep, to feed His lambs,” and that with the Word of God, which testifies of Himself, and contains the words of eternal life. When the Pope ordains his clergy, he takes them bound to prohibit, except in special circumstances, the reading of the Word of God ”in the vulgar tongue,” that is, in a language which the people can understand. He gives them, indeed, a commission; and what is it? It is couched in these astounding words: ”Receive the power of sacrificing for the living and the dead.” What blasphemy could be worse than this? What more derogatory to the one sacrifice of Christ, whereby ”He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified”? (Heb 10:14) This is the real distinguishing function of the popish priesthood. At the remembrance that this power, in these very words, had been conferred on him, when ordained to the priesthood, Luther used, in after years, with a shudder, to express his astonishment that ”the earth had not opened its mouth and swallowed up both him who uttered these words, and him to whom they were addressed.” The sacrifice which the papal priesthood are empowered to offer, as a ”true propitiatory sacrifice” for the sins of the living and the dead, is just the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass, which was offered up in Babylon long before it was ever heard of in Rome.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, while Semiramis, the real original of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven, to whom the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass was first offered, was in her own person, as we have already seen, the very paragon of impurity, she at the same time affected the greatest favour for that kind of sanctity which looks down with contempt on God’s holy ordinance of marriage. The Mysteries over which she presided were scenes of the rankest pollution; and yet the higher orders of the priesthood were bound to a life of celibacy, as a life of peculiar and pre-eminent holiness. Strange though it may seem, yet the voice of antiquity assigns to that abandoned queen the invention of clerical celibacy, and that in the most stringent form. In some countries, as in Egypt, human nature asserted its rights, and though the general system of Babylon was retained, the yoke of celibacy was abolished, and the priesthood were permitted to marry. But every scholar knows that when the worship of Cybele, the Babylonian goddess, was introduced into Pagan Rome, it was introduced in its primitive form, with its celibate clergy. When the Pope appropriated to himself so much that was peculiar to the worship of that goddess, from the very same source, also, he introduced into the priesthood under his authority the binding obligation of celibacy. The introduction of such a principle into the Christian Church had been distinctly predicted as one grand mark of the apostacy, when men should ”depart from the faith, and speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron, should forbid to marry.” The effects of its introduction were most disastrous. The records of all nations where priestly celibacy has been introduced have proved that, instead of ministering to the purity of those condemned to it, it has only plunged them in the deepest pollution. The history of Thibet, and China, and Japan, where the Babylonian institute of priestly celibacy has prevailed from time immemorial, bears testimony to the abominations that have flowed from it. The excesses committed by the celibate priests of Bacchus in Pagan Rome in their secret Mysteries, were such that the Senate felt called upon to expel them from the bounds of the Roman republic. In Papal Rome the same abominations have flowed from priestly celibacy, in connection with the corrupt and corrupting system of the confessional, insomuch that all men who have examined the subject have been compelled to admire the amazing significance of the name divinely bestowed on it, both in a literal and figurative sense, ”Babylon the Great, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Revelation 17:5. The Rev. M. H. Seymour shows that in 1836 the whole number of births in Rome was 4373, while of these no fewer than 3160 were foundlings! What enormous profligacy does this reveal!–”Moral Results of the Romish System,” in Evenings with Romanists.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Out of a thousand facts of a similar kind, let one only be adduced, vouched for by the distinguished Roman Catholic historian De Thou. When Pope Paul V meditated the suppression of the licensed brothels in the ”Holy City,” the Roman Senate petitioned against his carrying his design into effect, on the ground that the existence of such places was the only means of hindering the priests from seducing their wives and daughters!!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">These celibate priests have all a certain mark set upon them at their ordination; and that is the clerical tonsure. The tonsure is the first part of the ceremony of ordination; and it is held to be a most important element in connection with the orders of the Romish clergy. When, after long contendings, the Picts were at last brought to submit to the Bishop of Rome, the acceptance of this tonsure as the tonsure of St. Peter on the part of the clergy was the visible symbol of that submission. Naitan, the Pictish king, having assembled the nobles of his court and the pastors of his church, thus addressed them: ”I recommend all the clergy of my kingdom to receive the tonsure.” Then, without delay, as Bede informs us, this important revolution was accomplished by royal authority. He sent agents into every province, and caused all the ministers and monks to receive the circular tonsure, according to the Roman fashion, and thus to submit to Peter, ”the most blessed Prince of the apostles.” ”It was the mark,” says Merle D’Aubigne, ”that Popes stamped not on the forehead, but on the crown. A royal proclamation, and a few clips of the scissors, placed the Scotch, like a flock of sheep, beneath the crook of the shepherd of the Tiber.” Now, as Rome set so much importance on this tonsure, let it be asked what was the meaning of it? It was the visible inauguration of those who submitted to it as the priests of Bacchus. This tonsure cannot have the slightest pretence to Christian authority. It was indeed the ”tonsure of Peter,” but not of the Peter of Galilee, but of the Chaldean ”Peter” of the Mysteries. He was a tonsured priest, for so was the god whose Mysteries he revealed. Centuries before the Christian era, thus spoke Herodotus of the Babylonian tonsure: ”The Arabians acknowledge no other gods than Bacchus and Urania [i.e., the Queen of Heaven], and they say that their hair was cut in the same manner as Bacchus’ is cut; now, they cut it in a circular form, shaving it around the temples.” What, then, could have led to this tonsure of Bacchus? Everything in his history was mystically or hieroglyphically represented, and that in such a way as none but the initiated could understand. One of the things that occupied the most important place in the Mysteries was the mutilation to which he was subjected when he was put to death. In memory of that, he was lamented with bitter weeping every year, as ”Rosh-Gheza,” ”the mutilated Prince.” But ”Rosh-Gheza” also signified the ”clipped or shaved head.” Therefore he was himself represented either with the one or the other form of tonsure; and his priests, for the same reason, at their ordination had their heads either clipped or shaven. Over all the world, where the traces of the Chaldean system are found, this tonsure or shaving of the head is always found along with it. The priests of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, were always distinguished by the shaving of their heads. In Pagan Rome, in India, and even in China, the distinguishing mark of the Babylonian priesthood was the shaven head. Thus Gautama Buddha, who lived at least 540 years before Christ, when setting up the sect of Buddhism in India which spread to the remotest regions of the East, first shaved his own head, in obedience, as he pretended, to a Divine command, and then set to work to get others to imitate his example. One of the very titles by which he was called was that of the ”Shaved-head.” ”The shaved-head,” says one of the Purans, ”that he might perform the orders of Vishnu, formed a number of disciples, and of shaved-heads like himself.” The high antiquity of this tonsure may be seen from the enactment in the Mosaic law against it. The Jewish priests were expressly forbidden to make any baldness upon their heads (Lev 21:5), which sufficiently shows that, even so early as the time of Moses, the ”shaved-head” had been already introduced. In the Church of Rome the heads of the ordinary priests are only clipped, the heads of the monks or regular clergy are shaven, but both alike, at their consecration, receive the circular tonsure, thereby identifying them, beyond all possibility of doubt, with Bacchus, ”the mutilated Prince.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It has been already shown that among the Chaldeans the one term ”Zero” signified at once ”a circle” and ”the seed.” ”Suro,” ”the seed,” in India, as we have seen, was the sun-divinity incarnate. When that seed was represented in human form, to identify him with the sun, he was represented with the circle, the well known emblem of the sun’s annual course, on some part of his person. Thus our own god Thor was represented with a blazing circle on his breast. (WILSON’S Parsi Religion) In Persia and Assyria the circle was represented sometimes on the breast, sometimes round the waist, and sometimes in the hand of the sun-divinity. (BRYANT and LAYARD’S Nineveh and Babylon) In India it is represented at the tip of the finger. (MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Vishnu”) Hence the circle became the emblem of Tammuz born again, or ”the seed.” The circular tonsure of Bacchus was doubtless intended to point him out as ”Zero,” or ”the seed,” the grand deliverer. And the circle of light around the head of the so-called pictures of Christ was evidently just a different form of the very same thing, and borrowed from the very same source. The ceremony of tonsure, says Maurice, referring to the practice of that ceremony in India, ”was an old practice of the priests of Mithra, who in their tonsures imitated the solar disk.” (Antiquities) As the sun-god was the great lamented god, and had his hair cut in a circular form, and the priests who lamented him had their hair cut in a similar manner, so in different countries those who lamented the dead and cut off their hair in honour of them, cut it in a circular form. There were traces of that in Greece, as appears from the Electra of Sophocles; and Herodotus particularly refers to it as practised among the Scythians when giving an account of a royal funeral among that people. ”The body,” says he, ”is enclosed in wax. They then place it on a carriage, and remove it to another district, where the persons who receive it, like the Royal Scythians, cut off a part of their ear, shave their heads in a circular form,” &c. (Hist.) Now, while the Pope, as the grand representative of the false Messiah, received the circular tonsure himself, so all his priests to identify them with the same system are required to submit to the same circular tonsure, to mark them in their measure and their own sphere as representatives of that same false Messiah.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if the priests of Rome take away the key of knowledge, and lock up the Bible from the people; if they are ordained to offer the Chaldean sacrifice in honour of the Pagan Queen of Heaven; if they are bound by the Chaldean law of celibacy, that plunges them in profligacy; if, in short, they are all marked at their consecration with the distinguishing mark of the priests of the Chaldean Bacchus, what right, what possible right, can they have to be called ministers of Christ?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But Rome has not only her ordinary secular clergy, as they are called; she has also, as every one knows, other religious orders of a different kind. She has innumerable armies of monks and nuns all engaged in her service. Where can there be shown the least warrant for such an institution in Scripture? In the religion of the Babylonian Messiah their institution was from the earliest times. In that system there were monks and nuns in abundance. In Thibet and Japan, where the Chaldean system was early introduced, monasteries are still to be found, and with the same disastrous results to morals as in Papal Europe. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* There are some, and Protestants, too, who begin to speak of what they call the benefits of monasteries in rude times, as if they were hurtful only when they fall into ”decrepitude and corruption”! Enforced celibacy, which lies at the foundation of the monastic system, is of the very essence of the Apostacy, which is divinely characterised as the ”Mystery of Iniquity.” Let such Protestants read 1 Timothy 4:1-3, and surely they will never speak more of the abominations of the monasteries as coming only from their ”decrepitude”!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Scandinavia, the priestesses of Freya, who were generally kings’ daughters, whose duty it was to watch the sacred fire, and who were bound to perpetual virginity, were just an order of nuns. In Athens there were virgins maintained at the public expense, who were strictly bound to single life. In Pagan Rome, the Vestal virgins, who had the same duty to perform as the priestesses of Freya, occupied a similar position. Even in Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the same system prevailed, and showed so remarkable an analogy, as to indicate that the Vestals of Rome, the nuns of the Papacy, and the Holy Virgins of Peru, must have sprung from a common origin. Thus does Prescott refer to the Peruvian nunneries: ”Another singular analogy with Roman Catholic institutions is presented by the virgins of the sun, the elect, as they were called. These were young maidens dedicated to the service of the deity, who at a tender age were taken from their homes, and introduced into convents, where they were placed under the care of certain elderly matrons, mamaconas, * who had grown grey within their walls. It was their duty to watch over the sacred fire obtained at the festival of Raymi. From the moment they entered the establishment they were cut off from all communication with the world, even with their own family and friends…Woe to the unhappy maiden who was detected in an intrigue! by the stern law of the Incas she was to be buried alive.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Mamacona, ”Mother Priestess,” is almost pure Hebrew, being derived from Am a ”mother,” and Cohn, ”a priest,” only with the feminine termination. Our own Mamma, as well as that of Peru, is just the Hebrew Am reduplicated. It is singular that the usual style and title of the Lady Abbess in Ireland is the ”Reverend Mother.” The term Nun itself is a Chaldean word. Ninus, the son in Chaldee is either Nin or Non. Now, the feminine of Non, a ”son,” is Nonna, a ”daughter,” which is just the Popish canonical name for a ”Nun,” and Nonnus, in like manner, was in early times the designation for a monk in the East. (GIESELER)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This was precisely the fate of the Roman Vestal who was proved to have violated her vow. Neither in Peru, however, nor in Pagan Rome was the obligation to virginity so stringent as in the Papacy. It was not perpetual, and therefore not so exceedingly demoralising. After a time, the nuns might be delivered from their confinement, and marry; from all hopes of which they are absolutely cut off in the Church of Rome. In all these cases, however, it is plain that the principle on which these institutions were founded was originally the same. ”One is astonished,” adds Prescott, ”to find so close a resemblance between the institutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Prescott finds it difficult to account for this resemblance; but the one little sentence from the prophet Jeremiah, which was quoted at the commencement of this inquiry, accounts for it completely: ”Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that hath made ALL THE EARTH drunken” (Jer 51:7). This is the Rosetta stone that has helped already to bring to light so much of the secret iniquity of the Papacy, and that is destined still further to decipher the dark mysteries of every system of heathen mythology that either has been or that is. The statement of this text can be proved to be a literal fact. It can be proved that the idolatry of the whole earth is one, that the sacred language of all nations is radically Chaldean–that the GREAT GODS of every country and clime are called by Babylonian names–and that all the Paganisms of the human race are only a wicked and deliberate, but yet most instructive corruption of the primeval gospel first preached in Eden, and through Noah, afterwards conveyed to all mankind. The system, first concocted in Babylon, and thence conveyed to the ends of the earth, has been modified and diluted in different ages and countries. In Papal Rome only is it now found nearly pure and entire. But yet, amid all the seeming variety of heathenism, there is an astonishing oneness and identity, bearing testimony to the truth of God’s Word. The overthrow of all idolatry cannot now be distant. But before the idols of the heathens shall be finally cast to the moles and to the bats, I am persuaded that they will be made to fall down and worship ”the Lord the king,” to bear testimony to His glorious truth, and with one loud and united acclaim, ascribe salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VII<br />The Two Developments Historically and Prophetically Considered</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Hitherto we have considered the history of the Two Babylons chiefly in detail. Now we are to view them as organised systems. The idolatrous system of the ancient Babylon assumed different phases in different periods of its history. In the prophetic description of the modern Babylon, there is evidently also a development of different powers at different times. Do these two developments bear any typical relation to each other? Yes, they do. When we bring the religious history of the ancient Babylonian Paganism to bear on the prophetic symbols that shadow forth the organised working of idolatry in Rome, it will be found that it casts as much light on this view of the subject as on that which has hitherto engaged our attention. The powers of iniquity at work in the modern Babylon are specifically described in chapters 12 and 13 of the Revelation; and they are as follows:–I. The Great Red Dragon; II. The Beast that comes up out of the sea; III. The Beast that ascendeth out of the earth; and IV. The Image of the Beast. In all these respects it will be found, on inquiry, that, in regard to succession and order of development, the Paganism of the Old Testament Babylon was the exact type of the Paganism of the new.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Section I<br />The Great Red Dragon</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This formidable enemy of the truth is particularly described in Revelation 12:3–”And there appeared another wonder in heaven, a great red dragon.” It is admitted on all hands that this is the first grand enemy that in Gospel times assaulted the Christian Church. If the terms in which it is described, and the deeds attributed to it, are considered, it will be found that there is a great analogy between it and the first enemy of all, that appeared against the ancient Church of God soon after the Flood. The term dragon, according to the associations currently connected with it, is somewhat apt to mislead the reader, by recalling to his mind the fabulous dragons of the Dark Ages, equipped with wings. At the time this Divine description was given, the term dragon had no such meaning among either profane or sacred writers. ”The dragon of the Greeks,” says Pausanias, ”was only a large snake”; and the context shows that this is the very case here; for what in the third verse is called a ”dragon,” in the fourteenth is simply described as a ”serpent.” Then the word rendered ”Red” properly means ”Fiery”; so that the ”Red Dragon” signifies the ”Fiery Serpent” or ”Serpent of Fire.” Exactly so does it appear to have been in the first form of idolatry, that, under the patronage of Nimrod, appeared in the ancient world. The ”Serpent of Fire” in the plains of Shinar seems to have been the grand object of worship. There is the strongest evidence that apostacy among the sons of Noah began in fire-worship, and that in connection with the symbol of the serpent.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">We have seen already, on different occasions, that fire was worshipped as the enlightener and the purifier. Now, it was thus at the very beginning; for Nimrod is singled out by the voice of antiquity as commencing this fire-worship. The identity of Nimrod and Ninus has already been proved; and under the name of Ninus, also, he is represented as originating the same practice. In a fragment of Apollodorus it is said that ”Ninus taught the Assyrians to worship fire.” The sun, as the great source of light and heat, was worshipped under the name of Baal. Now, the fact that the sun, under that name, was worshipped in the earliest ages of the world, shows the audacious character of these first beginnings of apostacy. Men have spoken as if the worship of the sun and of the heavenly bodies was a very excusable thing, into which the human race might very readily and very innocently fall. But how stands the fact? According to the primitive language of mankind, the sun was called ”Shemesh”–that is, ”the Servant”–that name, no doubt, being divinely given, to keep the world in mind of the great truth that, however glorious was the orb of day, it was, after all, the appointed Minister of the bounty of the great unseen Creator to His creatures upon earth. Men knew this, and yet with the full knowledge of it, they put the servant in the place of the Master; and called the sun Baal–that is, the Lord–and worshipped him accordingly. What a meaning, then, in the saying of Paul, that, ”when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God”; but ”changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed for ever.” The beginning, then, of sun-worship, and of the worship of the host of heaven, was a sin against the light–a presumptuous, heaven-daring sin. As the sun in the heavens was the great object of worship, so fire was worshipped as its earthly representative. To this primeval fire-worship Vitruvius alludes when he says that ”men were first formed into states and communities by meeting around fires.” And this is exactly in conformity with what we have already seen in regard to Phoroneus, whom we have identified with Nimrod, that while he was said to be the ”inventor of fire,” he was also regarded as the first that ”gathered mankind into communities.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Along with the sun, as the great fire-god, and, in due time, identified with him, was the serpent worshipped. ”In the mythology of the primitive world,” says Owen, ”the serpent is universally the symbol of the sun.” In Egypt, one of the commonest symbols of the sun, or sun-god, is a disc with a serpent around it. The original reason of that identification seems just to have been that, as the sun was the great enlightener of the physical world, so the serpent was held to have been the great enlightener of the spiritual, by giving mankind the ”knowledge of good and evil.” This, of course, implies tremendous depravity on the part of the ring-leaders in such a system, considering the period when it began; but such appears to have been the real meaning of the identification. At all events, we have evidence, both Scriptural and profane, for the fact, that the worship of the serpent began side by side with the worship of fire and the sun. The inspired statement of Paul seems decisive on the subject. It was, he says, ”when men knew God, but glorified Him not as God,” that they changed the glory of God, not only into an image made like to corruptible man, but into the likeness of ”creeping things”–that is, of serpents (Rom 1:23). With this profane history exactly coincides. Of profane writers, Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician, who is believed to have lived about the time of Joshua, says–”Thoth first attributed something of the divine nature to the serpent and the serpent tribe, in which he was followed by the Phoenicians and Egyptians. For this animal was esteemed by him to be the most spiritual of all the reptiles, and of a FIERY nature, inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit, without either hands or feet…Moreover, it is long-lived, and has the quality of RENEWING ITS YOUTH…as Thoth has laid down in the sacred books; upon which accounts this animal is introduced in the sacred rites and Mysteries.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, Thoth, it will be remembered, was the counsellor of Thamus, that is, Nimrod. From this statement, then, we are led to the conclusion that serpent-worship was a part of the primeval apostacy of Nimrod. The ”FIERY NATURE” of the serpent, alluded to in the above extract, is continually celebrated by the heathen poets. Thus Virgil, ”availing himself,” as the author of Pompeii remarks, ”of the divine nature attributed to serpents,” describes the sacred serpent that came from the tomb of Anchises, when his son Aeneas had been sacrificing before it, in such terms as illustrate at once the language of the Phoenician, and the ”Fiery Serpent” of the passage before us:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Scarce had he finished, when, with speckled pride,<br />A serpent from the tomb began to glide;<br />His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled,<br />Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold.<br />Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass<br />A rolling fire along, and singe the grass.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is not wonderful, then, the fire-worship and serpent-worship should be conjoined. The serpent, also, as ”renewing its youth” every year, was plausibly represented to those who wished an excuse for idolatry as a meet emblem of the sun, the great regenerator, who every year regenerates and renews the face of nature, and who, when deified, was worshipped as the grand Regenerator of the souls of men.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the chapter under consideration, the ”great fiery serpent” is represented with all the emblems of royalty. All its heads are encircled with ”crowns or diadems”; and so in Egypt, the serpent of fire, or serpent of the sun, in Greek was called the Basilisk, that is, the ”royal serpent,” to identify it with Moloch, which name, while it recalls the ideas both of fire and blood, properly signifies ”the King.” The Basilisk was always, among the Egyptians, and among many nations besides, regarded as ”the very type of majesty and dominion.” As such, its image was worn affixed to the head-dress of the Egyptian monarchs; and it was not lawful for any one else to wear it. The sun identified with this serpent was called ”P’ouro,” which signifies at one ”the Fire” and ”the King,” and from this very name the epithet ”Purros,” the ”Fiery,” is given to the ”Great seven-crowned serpent” of our text. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The word Purros in the text does not exclude the idea of ”Red,” for the sun-god was painted red to identify him with Moloch, at once the god of fire and god of blood.–(WILKINSON). The primary leading idea, however, is that of Fire.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus was the Sun, the Great Fire-god, identified with the Serpent. But he had also a human representative, and that was Tammuz, for whom the daughters of Israel lamented, in other words Nimrod. We have already seen the identity of Nimrod and Zoroaster. Now, Zoroaster was not only the head of the Chaldean Mysteries, but, as all admit, the head of the fire-worshippers.(see</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below) The title given to Nimrod, as the first of the Babylonian kings, by Berosus, indicates the same thing. That title is Alorus, that is, ”the god of fire.” As Nimrod, ”the god of fire,” was Molk-Gheber, or, ”the Mighty king,” inasmuch as he was the first who was called Moloch, or King, and the first who began to be ”mighty” (Gheber) on the earth, we see at once how it was that the ”passing through the fire to Moloch” originated, and how the god of fire among the Romans came to be called ”Mulkiber.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Commonly spelled Mulciber (OVID, Art. Am.); but the Roman c was hard. From the epithet ”Gheber,” the Parsees, or fire-worshippers of India, are still called ”Guebres.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It was only after his death, however, that he appears to have been deified. Then, retrospectively, he was worshipped as the child of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. In his own life-time, however, he set up no higher pretensions than that of being Bol-Khan, or Priest of Baal, from which the other name of the Roman fire-god Vulcan is evidently derived. Everything in the history of Vulcan exactly agrees with that of Nimrod. Vulcan was ”the most ugly and deformed” of all the gods. Nimrod, over all the world, is represented with the features and complexion of a negro. Though Vulcan was so ugly, that when he sought a wife, ”all the beautiful goddesses rejected him with horror”; yet ”Destiny, the irrevocable, interposed, and pronounced the decree, by which [Venus] the most beautiful of the goddesses, was united to the most unsightly of the gods.” So, in spite of the black and Cushite features of Nimrod, he had for his queen Semiramis, the most beautiful of women. The wife of Vulcan was noted for her infidelities and licentiousness; the wife of Nimrod was the very same. * Vulcan was the head and chief of the Cyclops, that is, ”the kings of flame.” **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Nimrod, as universal king, was Khuk-hold, ”King of the world.” As such, the emblem of his power was the bull’s horns. Hence the origin of the Cuckhold’s horns.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Kuclops, from Khuk, ”king,” and Lohb, ”flame.” The image of the great god was represented with three eyes–one in the forehead; hence the story of the Cyclops with the one eye in the forehead.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nimrod was the head of the fire-worshippers. Vulcan was the forger of the thunderbolts by which such havoc was made among the enemies of the gods. Ninus, or Nimrod, in his wars with the king of Bactria, seems to have carried on the conflict in a similar way. From Arnobius we learn, that when the Assyrians under Ninus made war against the Bactrians, the warfare was waged not only by the sword and bodily strength, but by magic and by means derived from the secret instructions of the Chaldeans. When it is known that the historical Cyclops are, by the historian Castor, traced up to the very time of Saturn or Belus, the first king of Babylon, and when we learn that Jupiter (who was worshipped in the very same character as Ninus, ”the child”), when fighting against the Titans, ”received from the Cyclops aid” by means of ”dazzling lightnings and thunders,” we may have some pretty clear idea of the magic arts derived from the Chaldean Mysteries, which Ninus employed against the Bactrian king. There is evidence that, down to a late period, the priests of the Chaldean Mysteries knew the composition of the formidable Greek fire, which burned under water, and the secret of which has been lost; and there can be little doubt that Nimrod, in erecting his power, availed himself of such or similar scientific secrets, which he and his associates alone possessed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In these, and other respects yet to be noticed, there is an exact coincidence between Vulcan, the god of fire of the Romans, and Nimrod, the fire-god of Babylon. In the case of the classic Vulcan, it is only in his character of the fire-god as a physical agent that he is popularly represented. But it was in his spiritual aspects, in cleansing and regenerating the souls of men, that the fire-worship told most effectually on the world. The power, the popularity, and skill of Nimrod, as well as the seductive nature of the system itself, enabled him to spread the delusive doctrine far and wide, as he was represented under the well-known name of Phaethon, (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#noteb"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below) as on the point of ”setting the whole world on fire,” or (without the poetical metaphor) of involving all mankind in the guilt of fire-worship. The extraordinary prevalence of the worship of the fire-god in the early ages of the world, is proved by legends found over all the earth, and by facts in almost every clime. Thus, in Mexico, the natives relate, that in primeval times, just after the first age, the world was burnt up with fire. As their history, like the Egyptian, was written in Hieroglyphics, it is plain that this must be symbolically understood. In India, they have a legend to the very same effect, though somewhat varied in its form. The Brahmins say that, in a very remote period of the past, one of the gods shone with such insufferable splendour, ”inflicting distress on the universe by his effulgent beams, brighter than a thousand worlds,” * that, unless another more potent god had interposed and cut off his head, the result would have been most disastrous.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* SKANDA PURAN, and PADMA PURAN, apud KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology, p. 275. In the myth, this divinity is represented as the fifth head of Brahma; but as this head is represented as having gained the knowledge that made him so insufferably proud by perusing the Vedas produced by the other four heads of Brahma, that shows that he must have been regarded as having a distinct individuality.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Druidic Triads of the old British Bards, there is distinct reference to the same event. They say that in primeval times a ”tempest of fire arose, which split the earth asunder to the great deep,” from which none escaped but ”the select company shut up together in the enclosure with the strong door,” with the great ”patriarch distinguished for his integrity,” that is evidently with Shem, the leader of the faithful–who preserved their ”integrity” when so many made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. These stories all point to one and the same period, and they show how powerful had been this form of apostacy. The Papal purgatory and the fires of St. John’s Eve, which we have already considered, and many other fables or practices still extant, are just so many relics of the same ancient superstition.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It will be observed, however, that the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery Serpent, is represented as standing before the Woman with the crown of twelve stars, that is, the true Church of God, ”To devour her child as soon as it should be born.” Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer. Though, at his first deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child, yet, as the first of mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Phaethon, though the child of the sun, is also called the Father of the gods. (LACTANTIUS, De Falsa Religione) In Egypt, too, Vulcan was the Father of the gods. (AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, ”he devoured his sons as soon as they were born.” Such is the analogy between type and antitype. This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or ”The Horned One,” it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ”The Phenicians,” says Eusebius, ”every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn, and the Rhodians also often did the same.” Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians, on one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore pressed, in order to rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat departed from the ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily ”chose out two hundred of the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them” to this god. There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made ”their children pass through the fire to Moloch,” and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When ”the fruit of the body” was thus offered, it was ”for the sin of the soul.” And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering (Num 18:9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that ”Cahna-Bal,” * the ”Priest of Baal,” is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The word Cahna is the emphatic form of Cahn. Cahn is ”a priest,” Cahna is ”the priest.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From the historian Castor (in Armenian translation of EUSEBIUS) we learn that it was under Bel, or Belus, that is Baal, that the Cyclops lived; and the Scholiast on Aeschylus states that these Cyclops were the brethren of Kronos, who was also Bel or Bal, as we have elsewhere seen. The eye in their forehead shows that originally this name was a name of the great god; for that eye in India and Greece is found the characteristic of the supreme divinity. The Cyclops, then, had been representatives of that God–in other words, priests, and priests of Bel or Bal. Now, we find that the Cyclops were well-known as cannibals, Referre ritus Cyclopum, ”to bring back the rites of the Cyclops,” meaning to revive the practice of eating human flesh. (OVID, Metam.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the ancient traditions relate that the apostates who joined in the rebellion of Nimrod made war upon the faithful among the sons of Noah. Power and numbers were on the side of the fire-worshippers. But on the side of Shem and the faithful was the mighty power of God’s Spirit. Therefore many were convinced of their sin, arrested in their evil career; and victory, as we have already seen, declared for the saints. The power of Nimrod came to an end, * and with that, for a time, the worship of the sun, and the fiery serpent associated with it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The wars of the giants against heaven, referred to in ancient heathen writers, had primary reference to this war against the saints; for men cannot make war upon God except by attacking the people of God. The ancient writer Eupolemus, as quoted by Eusebius (Praeparatio Evang.), states, that the builders of the tower of Babel were these giants; which statement amounts nearly to the same thing as the conclusion to which we have already come, for we have seen that the ”mighty ones” of Nimrod were ”the giants” of antiquity. Epiphanius records that Nimrod was a ringleader among these giants, and that ”conspiracy, sedition, and tyranny were carried on under him.” From the very necessity of the case, the faithful must have suffered most, as being most opposed to his ambitious and sacrilegious schemes. That Nimrod’s reign terminated in some very signal catastrophe, we have seen abundant reason already to conclude. The following statement of Syncellus confirms the conclusions to which we have already come as to the nature of that catastrophe; referring to the arresting of the tower-building scheme, Syncellus (Chronographia) proceeds thus: ”But Nimrod would still obstinately stay (when most of the other tower-builders were dispersed), and reside upon the spot; nor could he be withdrawn from the tower, still having the command over no contemptible body of men. Upon this, we are informed, that the tower, being beat upon by violent winds, gave way, and by the just judgment of God, crushed him to pieces.” Though this could not be literally true, for the tower stood for many ages, yet there is a considerable amount of tradition to the effect that the tower in which Nimrod gloried was overthrown by wind, which gives reason to suspect that this story, when properly understood, had a real meaning in it. Take it figuratively, and remembering that the same word which signifies the wind signifies also the Spirit of God, it becomes highly probable that the meaning is, that his lofty and ambitious scheme, by which, in Scriptural language, he was seeking to ”mount up to heaven,” and ”set his nest among the stars,” was overthrown for a time by the Spirit of God, as we have already concluded, and that, in that overthrow he himself perished.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The case was exactly as stated here in regard to the antitype (Rev 12:9): ”The great dragon,” or fiery serpent, was ”cast out of heaven to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him”; that is, the Head of the fire-worship, and all his associates and underlings, were cast down from the power and glory to which they had been raised. Then was the time when the whole gods of the classic Pantheon of Greece were fain to flee and hide themselves from the wrath of their adversaries. Then it was, that, in India, Indra, the king of the gods, Surya, the god of the sun, Agni, the god of fire, and all the rabble rout of the Hindu Olympus, were driven from heaven, wandered over the earth, or hid themselves, in forests, disconsolate, and ready to ”perish of hunger.” Then it was that Phaethon, while driving the chariot of the sun, when on the point of setting the world on fire, was smitten by the Supreme God, and cast headlong to the earth, while his sisters, the daughters of the sun, inconsolably lamented him, as, ”the women wept for Tammuz.” Then it was, as the reader must be prepared to see, that Vulcan, or Molk-Gheber, the classic ”god of fire,” was so ignominiously hurled down from heaven, as he himself relates in Homer, speaking of the wrath of the King of Heaven, which in this instance must mean God Most High:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”I felt his matchless might,<br />Hurled headlong downwards from the ethereal height;<br />Tossed all the day in rapid circles round,<br />Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground.<br />Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost.<br />The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The lines, in which Milton refers to this same downfall, though he gives it another application, still more beautifully describe the greatness of the overthrow:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”In Ausonian land<br />Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell<br />From heaven, they fabled. Thrown by angry Jove<br />Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn<br />To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,<br />A summer’s day; and, with the setting sun,<br />Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star.<br />On Lemnos, the Aegean isle.”<br />Paradise Lost</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">These words very strikingly show the tremendous fall of Molk-Gheber, or Nimrod, ”the Mighty King,” when ”suddenly he was cast down from the height of his power, and was deprived at once of his kingdom and his life.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Greek poets speak of two downfalls of Vulcan. In the one case he was cast down by Jupiter, in the other by Juno. When Jupiter cast him down, it was for rebellion; when Juno did so, one of the reasons specially singled out for doing so was his ”malformation,” that is, his ugliness. (HOMER’S Hymn to Apollo) How exactly does this agree with the story of Nimrod: First he was personally cast down, when, by Divine authority, he was slain. Then he was cast down, in effigy, by Juno, when his image was degraded from the arms of the Queen of Heaven, to make way for the fairer child.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, to this overthrow there is very manifest allusion in the prophetic apostrophe of Isaiah to the king of Babylon, exulting over his approaching downfall: ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning”! The Babylonian king pretended to be a representative of Nimrod or Phaethon; and the prophet, in these words, informs him, that, as certainly as the god in whom he gloried had been cast down from his high estate, so certainly should he. In the classic story, Phaethon is said to have been consumed with lightning (and, as we shall see by-and-by, Aesculapius also died the same death); but the lightning is a mere metaphor for the wrath of God, under which his life and his kingdom had come to an end. When the history is examined, and the figure stripped off, it turns out, as we have already seen, that he was judicially slain with the sword. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Though Orpheus was commonly represented as having been torn in pieces, he too was fabled to have been killed by lightning. (PAUSANIAS, Boeotica) When Zoroaster died, he also is said in the myth to have perished by lightning (SUIDAS); and therefore, in accordance with that myth, he is represented as charging his countrymen to preserve not his body, but his ”ashes.” The death by lightning, however, is evidently a mere figure.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the language of the prophecy, and so exactly does it correspond with the character, and deeds, and fate of the ancient type. How does it suit the antitype? Could the power of Pagan Imperial Rome–that power that first persecuted the Church of Christ, that stood by its soldiers around the tomb of the Son of God Himself, to devour Him, if it had been possible, when He should be brought forth, as the first-begotten from the dead, * to rule all nations–be represented by a ”Fiery Serpent”?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The birth of the Man-child, as given above, is different from that usually given: but let the reader consider if the view which I have taken does not meet all the requirements of the case. I think there will be but few who will assent to the opinion of Mr. Elliot, which in substance amounts to this, that the Man-child was Constantine the Great, and that when Christianity, in his person sat down on the throne of Imperial Rome, that was the fulfilment of the saying, that the child brought forth by the woman, amid such pangs of travail, was ”caught up to God and His throne.” When Constantine came to the empire, the Church indeed, as foretold in Daniel 11:34, ”was holpen with a little help”; but that was all. The Christianity of Constantine was but of a very doubtful kind, the Pagans seeing nothing in it to hinder but that when he died, he should be enrolled among their gods. (EUTROPIUS) But even though it had been better, the description of the woman’s child is far too high for Constantine, or any Christian emperor that succeeded him on the imperial throne. ”The Man-child, born to rule all nations with a rod of iron,” is unequivocally Christ (see Psalms 2:9; Rev 19:15). True believers, as one with Him in a subordinate sense, share in that honour (Rev 2:27); but to Christ alone, properly, does that prerogative belong; and I think it must be evident that it is His birth that is here referred to. But those who have contended for this view have done injustice to their cause by representing this passage as referring to His literal birth in Bethlehem. When Christ was born in Bethlehem, no doubt Herod endeavoured to cut Him off, and Herod was a subject of the Roman Empire. But it was not from any respect to Caesar that he did so, but simply from fear of danger to his own dignity as King of Judea. So little did Caesar sympathise with the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, that it is recorded that Augustus, on hearing of it, remarked that it was ”better to be Herod’s hog than to be his child.” (MACROBIUS, Saturnalia) Then, even if it were admitted that Herod’s bloody attempt to cut off the infant Saviour was symbolised by the Roman dragon, ”standing ready to devour the child as soon as it should be born,” where was there anything that could correspond to the statement that the child, to save it from that dragon, ”was caught up to God and His Throne”? The flight of Joseph and Mary with the Child into Egypt could never answer to such language. Moreover, it is worthy of special note, that when the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was born, in a very important sense only as ”King of the Jews.” ”Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” was the inquiry of the wise men that came from the East to seek Him. All His life long, He appeared in no other character; and when He died, the inscription on His cross ran in these terms: ”This is the King of the Jews.” Now, this was no accidental thing. Paul tells us (Rom 15:8) that ”Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.” Our Lord Himself plainly declared the same thing. ”I am not sent,” said He to the Syrophoenician woman, ”save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”; and, in sending out His disciples during His personal ministry, this was the charge which He gave them: ”Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.” It was only when He was ”begotten from the dead,” and ”declared to be the Son of God with power,” by His victory over the grave, that He was revealed as ”the Man-child, born to rule all nations.” Then said He to His disciples, when He had risen, and was about to ascend on high: ”All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and teach allnations.” To this glorious ”birth” from the tomb, and to the birth-pangs of His Church that preceded it, our Lord Himself made distinct allusion on the night before He was betrayed (John 16:20-22). ”Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a MAN is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” Here the grief of the apostles, and, of course, all the true Church that sympathised with them during the hour and power of darkness, is compared to the pangs of a travailing woman; and their joy, when the Saviour should see them again after His resurrection, to the joy of a mother when safely delivered of a Man-child. Can there be a doubt, then, what the symbol before us means, when the woman is represented as travailing in pain to be delivered of a ”Man-child, that was to rule all nations,” and when it is said that that ”Man-child was caught up to God and His Throne”?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nothing could more lucidly show it forth. Among the lords many, and the gods many, worshipped in the imperial city, the two grand objects of worship were the ”Eternal Fire,” kept perpetually burning in the temple of Vesta, and the sacred Epidaurian Serpent. In Pagan Rome, this fire-worship and serpent-worship were sometimes separate, sometimes conjoined; but both occupied a pre-eminent place in Roman esteem. The fire of Vesta was regarded as one of the grand safeguards of the empire. It was pretended to have been brought from Troy by Aeneas, who had it confided to his care by the shade of Hector, and was kept with the most jealous care by the Vestal virgins, who, for their charge of it, were honoured with the highest honours. The temple where it was kept, says Augustine, ”was the most sacred and most reverenced of all the temples of Rome.” The fire that was so jealously guarded in that temple, and on which so much was believed to depend, was regarded in the very same light as by the old Babylonian fire-worshippers. It was looked upon as the purifier, and in April every year, at the Palilia, or feast of Pales, both men and cattle, for this purpose, were made to pass through the fire. The Epidaurian snake, that the Romans worshipped along with the fire, was looked on as the divine representation of Aesculapius, the child of the Sun. Aesculapius, whom that sacred snake represented, was evidently, just another name for the great Babylonian god. His fate was exactly the same as that of Phaethon. He was said to have been smitten with lightning for raising the dead. It is evident that this could never have been the case in a physical sense, nor could it easily have been believed to be so. But view it in a spiritual sense, and then the statement is just this, that he was believed to raise men who were dead in trespasses and sins to newness of life. Now, this was exactly what Phaethon was pretending to do, when he was smitten for setting the world on fire. In the Babylonian system there was a symbolical death, that all the initiated had to pass through, before they got the new life which was implied in regeneration, and that just to declare that they had passed from death unto life. As the passing through the fire was both a purgation from sin and the means of regeneration, so it was also for raising the dead that Phaethon was smitten. Then, as Aesculapius was the child of the Sun, so was Phaethon. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The birth of Aesculapius in the myth was just the same as that of Bacchus. His mother was consumed by lightning, and the infant was rescued from the lightning that consumed her, as Bacchus was snatched from the flames that burnt up his mother.–LEMPRIERE</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To symbolise this relationship, the head of the image of Aesculapius was generally encircled with rays. The Pope thus encircles the heads of the pretended images of Christ; but the real source of these irradiations is patent to all acquainted either with the literature or the art of Rome. Thus speaks Virgil of Latinus:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”And now, in pomp, the peaceful kings appear,<br />Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear,<br />Twelve golden beams around his temples play,<br />To mark his lineage from the god of day.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The ”golden beams” around the head of Aesculapius were intended to mark the same, to point him out as the child of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. The ”golden beams” around the heads of pictures and images called by the name of Christ, were intended to show the Pagans that they might safely worship them, as the images of their well-known divinities, though called by a different name. Now Aesculapius, in a time of deadly pestilence, had been invited from Epidaurus to Rome. The god, under the form of a larger serpent, entered the ship that was sent to convey him to Rome, and having safely arrived in the Tiber, was solemnly inaugurated as the guardian god of the Romans. From that time forth, in private as well as in public, the worship of the Epidaurian snake, the serpent that represented the Sun-divinity incarnate, in other words, the ”Serpent of Fire,” became nearly universal. In almost every house the sacred serpent, which was a harmless sort, was to be found. ”These serpents nestled about the domestic altars,” says the author of Pompeii, ”and came out, like dogs or cats, to be patted by the visitors, and beg for something to eat. Nay, at table, if we may build upon insulated passages, they crept about the cups of the guests, and, in hot weather, ladies would use them as live boas, and twist them round their necks for the sake of coolness…These sacred animals made war on the rats and mice, and thus kept down one species of vermin; but as they bore a charmed life, and no one laid violent hands on them, they multiplied so fast, that, like the monkeys of Benares, they became an intolerable nuisance. The frequent fires at Rome were the only things that kept them under.” Some pictures represent Roman fire-worship and serpent-worship at once separate and conjoined. The reason of the double representation of the god I cannot here enter into, but it must be evident, from the words of Virgil already quoted, that the figures having their heads encircled with rays, represent the fire-god, or Sun-divinity; and what is worthy of special note is, that these fire-gods are black, * the colour thereby identifying them with the Ethiopian or black Phaethon; while, as the author of Pompeii himself admits, these same black fire-gods are represented by two huge serpents.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”All the faces in his (MAZOIS’) engraving are quite black.” (Pompeii) In India, the infant Crishna (emphatically the black god), in the arms of the goddess Devaki, is represented with the woolly hair and marked features of the Negro or African race.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if this worship of the sacred serpent of the Sun, the great fire-god, was so universal in Rome, what symbol could more graphically portray the idolatrous power of Pagan Imperial Rome than the ”Great Fiery Serpent”? No doubt it was to set forth this very thing that the Imperial standard itself–the standard of the Pagan Emperor of Rome, as Pontifex Maximus, Head of the great system of fire-worship and serpent-worship–was a serpent elevated on a lofty pole, and so coloured, as to exhibit it as a recognised symbol of fire-worship. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#notec"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, the powers of light and darkness came into collision (Rev 12:7,8): ”Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out;…he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” The ”great serpent of fire” was cast out, when, by the decree of Gratian, Paganism throughout the Roman empire was abolished–when the fires of Vesta were extinguished, and the revenues of the Vestal virgins were confiscated–when the Roman Emperor (who though for more than a century and a half a professor of Christianity, had been ”Pontifex Maximus,” the very head of the idolatry of Rome, and as such, on high occasions, appearing invested with all the idolatrous insignia of Paganism), through force of conscience abolished his own office. While Nimrod was personally and literally slain by the sword, it was through the sword of the Spirit that Shem overcame the system of fire-worship, and so bowed the hearts of men, as to cause it for a time to be utterly extinguished. In like manner did the Dragon of fire, in the Roman Empire, receive a deadly wound from a sword, and that the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. There is thus far an exact analogy between the type and the antitype.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But not only is there this analogy. It turns out, when the records of history are searched to the bottom, that when the head of the Pagan idolatry of Rome was slain with the sword by the extinction of the office of Pontifex Maximus, the last Roman Pontifex Maximus was the ACTUAL, LEGITIMATE, SOLE REPRESENTATIVE OF NIMROD and his idolatrous system then existing. To make this clear, a brief glance at the Roman history is necessary. In common with all the earth, Rome at a very early prehistoric period, had drunk deep of Babylon’s ”golden cup.” But above and beyond all other nations, it had had a connection with the idolatry of Babylon that put it in a position peculiar and alone. Long before the days of Romulus, a representative of the Babylonian Messiah, called by his name, had fixed his temple as a god, and his palace as a king, on one of those very heights which came to be included within the walls of that city which Remus and his brother were destined to found. On the Capitoline hill, so famed in after-days as the great high place of Roman worship, Saturnia, or the city of Saturn, the great Chaldean god, had in the days of dim and distant antiquity been erected. Some revolution had then taken place–the graven images of Babylon had been abolished–the erecting of any idol had been sternly prohibited, * and when the twin founders of the now world-renowned city reared its humble walls, the city and the palace of their Babylonian predecessor had long lain in ruins.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* PLUTARCH (in Hist. Numoe) states, that Numa forbade the making of images, and that for 170 years after the founding of Rome, no images were allowed in the Roman temples.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The ruined state of this sacred city, even in the remote age of Evander, is alluded to by Virgil. Referring to the time when Aeneas is said to have visited that ancient Italian king, thus he speaks:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Then saw two heaps of ruins; once they stood<br />Two stately towns on either side the flood;<br />Saturnia and Janicula’s remains;<br />And either place the founder’s name retains.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The deadly wound, however, thus given to the Chaldean system, was destined to be healed. A colony of Etruscans, earnestly attached to the Chaldean idolatry, had migrated, some say from Asia Minor, others from Greece, and settled in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. They were ultimately incorporated in the Roman state, but long before this political union took place they exercised the most powerful influence on the religion of the Romans. From the very first their skill in augury, soothsaying, and all science, real or pretended, that the augurs or soothsayers monopolised, made the Romans look up to them with respect. It is admitted on all hands that the Romans derived their knowledge of augury, which occupied so prominent a place in every public transaction in which they engaged, chiefly from the Tuscans, that is, the people of Etruria, and at first none but natives of that country were permitted to exercise the office of a Haruspex, which had respect to all the rites essentially involved in sacrifice. Wars and disputes arose between Rome and the Etruscans; but still the highest of the noble youths of Rome were sent to Etruria to be instructed in the sacred science which flourished there. The consequence was, that under the influence of men whose minds were moulded by those who clung to the ancient idol-worship, the Romans were brought back again to much of that idolatry which they had formerly repudiated and cast off. Though Numa, therefore, in setting up his religious system, so far deferred to the prevailing feeling of his day and forbade image-worship, yet in consequence of the alliance subsisting between Rome and Etruria in sacred things, matters were put in train for the ultimate subversion of that prohibition. The college of Pontiffs, of which he laid the foundation, in process of time came to be substantially an Etruscan college, and the Sovereign Pontiff that presided over that college, and that controlled all the public and private religious rites of the Roman people in all essential respects, became in spirit and in practice an Etruscan Pontiff.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Still the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome, even after the Etruscan idolatry was absorbed into the Roman system, was only an offshoot from the grand original Babylonian system. He was a devoted worshipper of the Babylonian god; but he was not the legitimate representative of that God. The true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff had his seat beyond the bounds of the Roman empire. That seat, after the death of Belshazzar, and the expulsion of the Chaldean priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos, where afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia. * There, in consequence, for many centuries was ”Satan’s seat” (Rev 2:13). There, under favour of the deified ** kings of Pergamos, was his favourite abode, there was the worship of Aesculapius, under the form of the serpent, celebrated with frantic orgies and excesses, that elsewhere were kept under some measure of restraint.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* BARKER and AINSWORTH’S Lares and Penates of Cilicia. Barker says, ”The defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos.” Phrygia, that was so remarkable for the worship of Cybele and Atys, formed part of the Kingdom of Pergamos. Mysia also was another, and the Mysians, in the Paschal Chronicle, are said to be descended from Nimrod. The words are, ”Nebrod, the huntsman and giant–from whence came the Mysians.” Lydia, also, from which Livy and Herodotus say the Etrurians came, formed part of the same kingdom. For the fact that Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia were constituent parts of the kingdom of Pergamos, see SMITH’s Classical Dictionary.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** The kings of Pergamos, in whose dominions the Chaldean Magi found an asylum, were evidently by them, and by the general voice of Paganism that sympathised with them, put into the vacant place which Belshazzar and his predecessors had occupied. They were hailed as the representatives of the old Babylonian god. This is evident from the statements of Pausanias. First, he quotes the following words from the oracle of a prophetess called Phaennis, in reference to the Gauls: ”But divinity will still more seriously afflict those that dwell near the sea. However, in a short time after, Jupiter will send them a defender, the beloved son of a Jove-nourished bull, who will bring destruction on all the Gauls.” Then on this he comments as follows: ”Phaennis, in this oracle, means by the son of a bull, Attalus, king of Pergamos, whom the oracle of Apollo called Taurokeron,” or bull-horned. This title given by the Delphian god, proves that Attalus, in whose dominions the Magi had their seat, had been set up and recognised in the very character of Bacchus, the Head of the Magi. Thus the vacant seat of Belshazzar was filled, and the broken chain of the Chaldean succession renewed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">At first, the Roman Pontiff had no immediate connection with Pergamos and the hierarchy there; yet, in course of time, the Pontificate of Rome and the Pontificate of Pergamos came to be identified. Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people, BC 133. For some time after the kingdom of Pergamos was merged in the Roman dominions, there was no one who could set himself openly and advisedly to lay claim to all the dignity inherent in the old title of the kings of Pergamos. The original powers even of the Roman Pontiffs seem to have been by that time abridged, but when Julius Caesar, who had previously been elected Pontifex Maximus, became also, as Emperor, the supreme civil ruler of the Romans, then, as head of the Roman state, and head of the Roman religion, all the powers and functions of the true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff were supremely vested in him, and he found himself in a position to assert these powers. Then he seems to have laid claim to the divine dignity of Attalus, as well as the kingdom that Attalus had bequeathed to the Romans, as centering in himself; for his well-known watchword, ”Venus Genetrix,” which meant that Venus was the mother of the Julian race, appears to have been intended to make him ”The Son” of the great goddess, even as the ”Bull-horned” Attalus had been regarded. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The deification of the emperors that continued in succession from the days of Divus Julius, or the ”Deified Julius,” can be traced to no cause so likely as their representing the ”Bull-horned” Attalus both as Pontiff and Sovereign.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Then, on certain occasions, in the exercise of his high pontifical office, he appeared of course in all the pomp of the Babylonian costume, as Belshazzar himself might have done, in robes of scarlet, with the crosier of Nimrod in his hand, wearing the mitre of Dagon and bearing the keys of Janus and Cybele. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* That the key was one of the symbols used in the Mysteries, the reader will find on consulting TAYLOR’S Note on Orphic Hymn to Pluto, where that divinity is spoken of as ”keeper of the keys.” Now the Pontifex, as ”Hierophant,” was ”arrayed in the habit and adorned with the symbols of the great Creator of the world, of whom in these Mysteries he was supposed to be the substitute.” (MAURICE’S Antiquities) The Primeval or Creative god was mystically represented as Androgyne, as combining in his own person both sexes (Ibid.), being therefore both Janus and Cybele at the same time. In opening up the Mysteries, therefore, of this mysterious divinity, it was natural that the Pontifex should bear the key of both these divinities. Janus himself, however, as well as Pluto, was often represented with more than one key.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus did matter continue, as already stated, even under so-called Christian emperors; who, as a salve to their consciences, appointed a heathen as their substitute in the performance of the more directly idolatrous functions of the pontificate (that substitute, however, acting in their name and by their authority), until the reign of Gratian, who, as shown by Gibbon, was the first that refused to be arrayed in the idolatrous pontifical attire, or to act as Pontifex. Now, from all this it is evident that, when Paganism in the Roman empire was abolished, when the office of Pontifex Maximus was suppressed, and all the dignitaries of paganism were cast down from their seats of influence and of power, which they had still been allowed in some measure to retain, that was not merely the casting down of the Fiery Dragon of Rome, but the casting down of the Fiery Dragon of Babylon. It was just the enacting over again, in a symbolical sense, upon the true and sole legitimate successor of Nimrod, what had taken place upon himself, when the greatness of his downfall gave rise to the exclamation, ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning”!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Notes</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect71.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Zoroaster, the Head of the Fire-Worshippers</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers, the following, among other evidence, may prove. Not to mention that the name Zoroaster is almost a synonym for a fire-worshipper, the testimony of Plutarch is of weight: ”Plutarch acknowledges that Zoroaster among the Chaldeans instituted the Magi, in imitation of whom the Persians also had their (Magi). * The Arabian History also relates that Zaradussit, or Zerdusht, did not for the first time institute, but (only) reform the religion of the Persians and Magi, who had been divided into many sects.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The great antiquity of the institution of the Magi is proved from the statement of Aristotle already referred to, as preserved in Theopompus, which makes them to have been ”more ancient than the Egyptians,” whose antiquity is well known. (Theopompi Fragmenta in MULLER).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The testimony of Agathias is to the same effect. He gives it as his opinion that the worship of fire came from the Chaldeans to the Persians. That the Magi among the Persians were the guardians of ”the sacred and eternal fire” may be assumed from Curtius, who says that fire was carried before them ”on silver altars”; from the statement of Strabo (Geograph.), that ”the Magi kept upon the altar a quantity of ashes and an immortal fire,” and of Herodotus, that ”without them, no sacrifice could be offered.” The fire-worship was an essential part of the system of the Persian Magi (WILSON, Parsee Religion). This fire-worship the Persian Magi did not pretend to have invented; but their popular story carried the origin of it up to the days of Hoshang, the father of Tahmurs, who founded Babylon (WILSON)–i.e., the time of Nimrod. In confirmation of this, we have seen that a fragment of Apollodorus makes Ninus the head of the fire-worshipper, Layard, quoting this fragment, supposes Ninus to be different from Zoroaster (Nineveh and its Remains); but it can be proved, that though many others bore the name of Zoroaster, the lines of evidence all converge, so as to demonstrate that Ninus and Nimrod and Zoroaster were one. The legends of Zoroaster show that he was known not only as a Magus, but as a Warrior (ARNOBIUS). Plato says that Eros Armenius (whom CLERICUS, De Chaldaeis, states to have been the same as the fourth Zoroaster) died and rose again after ten days, having been killed in battle; and that what he pretended to have learned in Hades, he communicated to men in his new life (PLATO, De Republica). We have seen the death of Nimrod, the original Zoroaster, was not that of a warrior slain in battle; but yet this legend of the warrior Zoroaster is entirely in favour of the supposition that the original Zoroaster, the original Head of the Magi, was not a priest merely, but a warrior-king. Everywhere are the Zoroastrians, or fire-worshippers, called Guebres or Gabrs. Now, Genesis 10:8 proves that Nimrod was the first of the ”Gabrs.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers, so Tammuz was evidently the same. We have seen evidence already that sufficiently proves the identity of Tammuz and Nimrod; but a few words may still more decisively prove it, and cast further light on the primitive fire-worship. 1. In the first place, Tammuz and Adonis are proved to be the same divinity. Jerome, who lived in Palestine when the rites of Tammuz were observed, up to the very time when he wrote, expressly identifies Tammuz and Adonis, in his Commentary on Ezekiel, where the Jewish women are represented as weeping for Tammuz; and the testimony of Jerome on this subject is universally admitted. Then the mode in which the rites of Tammuz or Adonis were celebrated in Syria was essentially the same as the rites of Osiris. The statement of Lucian (De Dea Syria) strikingly shows this, and Bunsen distinctly admits it. The identity of Osiris and Nimrod has been largely proved in the body of this work. When, therefore, Tammuz or Adonis is identified with Osiris, the identification of Tammuz with Nimrod follows of course. And then this entirely agrees with the language of Bion, in his Lament for Adonis, where he represents Venus as going in a frenzy of grief, like a Bacchant, after the death of Adonis, through the woods and valleys, and ”calling upon her Assyrian husband.” It equally agrees with the statement of Maimonides, that when Tammuz was put to death, the grand scene of weeping for that death was in the temple of Babylon. 2. Now, if Tammuz was Nimrod, the examination of the meaning of the name confirms the connection of Nimrod with the first fire-worship. After what has already been advanced, there needs no argument to show that, as the Chaldeans were the first who introduced the name and power of kings (SYNCELLUS), and as Nimrod was unquestionably the first of these kings, and the first, consequently, that bore the title of Moloch, or king, so it was in honour of him that the ”children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch.” But the intention of that passing through the fire was undoubtedly to purify. The name Tammuz has evidently reference to this, for it signifies ”to perfect,” that is, ”to purify” * ”by fire”; and if Nimrod was, as the Paschal Chronicle, and the general voice of antiquity, represent him to have been, the originator of fire-worship, this name very exactly expresses his character in that respect.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From tam, ”to perfect,” and muz, ”to burn.” To be ”pure in heart” in Scripture is just the same as to be ”perfect in heart.” The well-known name Deucalion, as connected with the flood, seems to be a correlative term of the water-worshippers. Dukh-kaleh signifies ”to purify by washing,” from Dikh, ”to wash” (CLAVIS STOCKII), and Khaleh, ”to complete,” or ”perfect.” The noun from the latter verb, found in 2 Chronicles 4:21, shows that the root means ”to purify,” ”perfect gold” being in the Septuagint justly rendered ”pure gold.” There is a name sometimes applied to the king of the gods that has some bearing on this subject. That name is ”Akmon.” What is the meaning of it? It is evidently just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew Khmn, ”the burner,” which becomes Akmon in the same way as the Hebrew Dem, ”blood,” in Chaldee becomes ”Adem.” Hesychius says that Akmon is Kronos, sub voce ”Akmon.” In Virgil (Aeneid) we find this name compounded so as to be an exact synonym for Tammuz, Pyracmon being the name of one of the three famous Cyclops whom the poet introduces. We have seen that the original Cyclops were Kronos and his brethren, and deriving the name from ”Pur,” the Chaldee form of Bur, ”to purify,” and ”Akmon,” it just signifies ”The purifying burner.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is evident, however, from the Zoroastrian verse, elsewhere quoted, that fire itself was worshipped as Tammuz, for it is called the ”Father that perfected all things.” In one respect this represented fire as the Creative god; but in another, there can be no doubt that it had reference to the ”perfecting” of men by ”purifying” them. And especially it perfected those whom it consumed. This was the very idea that, from time immemorial until very recently, led so many widows in India to immolate themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands, the woman who thus burned herself being counted blessed, because she became Suttee *–i.e., ”Pure by burning.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Siva.” The epithet for a woman that burns herself is spelled ”Sati,” but is pronounced ”Suttee,” as above.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">And this also, no doubt, reconciled the parents who actually sacrificed their children to Moloch, to the cruel sacrifice, the belief being cherished that the fire that consumed them also ”perfected” them, and made them meet for eternal happiness. As both the passing through the fire, and the burning in the fire, were essential rites in the worship of Moloch or Nimrod, this is an argument that Nimrod was Tammuz. As the priest and representative of the perfecting or purifying fire, it was he that carried on the work of perfecting or purifying by fire, and so he was called by its name.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When we turn to the legends of India, we find evidence to the very same effect as that which we have seen with regard to Zoroaster and Tammuz as head of the fire-worshippers. The fifth head of Brahma, that was cut off for inflicting distress on the three worlds, by the ”effulgence of its dazzling beams,” referred to in the text of this work, identifies itself with Nimrod. The fact that that fifth head was represented as having read the Vedas, or sacred books produced by the other four heads, shows, I think, a succession. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Indian Vedas that now exist do not seem to be of very great antiquity as written documents; but the legend goes much further back than anything that took place in India. The antiquity of writing seems to be very great, but whether or not there was any written religious document in Nimrod’s day, a Veda there must have been; for what is the meaning of the word ”Veda”? It is evidently just the same as the Anglo-Saxon Edda with the digamma prefixed, and both alike evidently come from ”Ed” a ”Testimony,” a ”Religious Record,” or ”confession of Faith.” Such a ”Record” or ”Confession,” either ”oral” or ”written,” must have existed from the beginning.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, coming down from Noah, what would that succession be? We have evidence from Berosus, that, in the days of Belus–that is, Nimrod–the custom of making representations like that of two-headed Janus, had begun. Assume, then, that Noah, as having lived in two worlds, has his two heads. Ham is the third, Cush the fourth, and Nimrod is, of course, the fifth. And this fifth head was cut off for doing the very thing for which Nimrod actually was cut off. I suspect that this Indian myth is the key to open up the meaning of a statement of Plutarch, which, according to the terms of it, as it stands, is visibly absurd. It is as follows: Plutarch (in the fourth book of his Symposiaca) says that ”the Egyptians were of the opinion that darkness was prior to light, and that the latter [viz. light] was produced from mice, in the fifth generation, at the time of the new moon.” In India, we find that ”a new moon” was produced in a different sense from the ordinary meaning of that term, and that the production of that new moon was not only important in Indian mythology, but evidently agreed in time with the period when the fifth head of Brahma scorched the world with its insufferable splendour. The account of its production runs thus: that the gods and mankind were entirely discontented with the moon which they had got, ”Because it gave no light,” and besides the plants were poor and the fruits of no use, and that therefore they churned the White sea [or, as it is commonly expressed, "they churned the ocean"], when all things were mingled–i.e., were thrown into confusion, and that then a new moon, with a new regent, was appointed, which brought in an entirely new system of things (Asiatic Researches). From MAURICE’s Indian Antiquities, we learn that at this very time of the churning of the ocean, the earth was set on fire, and a great conflagration was the result. But the name of the moon in India is Soma, or Som (for the final a is only a breathing, and the word is found in the name of the famous temple of Somnaut, which name signifies ”Lord of the Moon”), and the moon in India is male. As this transaction is symbolical, the question naturally arises, who could be meant by the moon, or regent of the moon, who was cast off in the fifth generation of the world? The name Som shows at once who he must have been. Som is just the name of Shem; for Shem’s name comes from Shom, ”to appoint,” and is legitimately represented either by the name Som, or Sem, as it is in Greek; and it was precisely to get rid of Shem (either after his father’s death, or when the infirmities of old age were coming upon him) as the great instructor of the world, that is, as the great diffuser of spiritual light, that in the fifth generation the world was thrown into confusion and the earth set on fire. The propriety of Shem’s being compared to the moon will appear if we consider the way in which his father Noah was evidently symbolised. The head of a family is divinely compared to the sun, as in the dream of Joseph (Gen 37:9), and it may be easily conceived how Noah would, by his posterity in general, be looked up to as occupying the paramount place as the Sun of the world; and accordingly Bryant, Davies, Faber, and others, have agreed in recognising Noah as so symbolised by Paganism. When, however, his younger son–for Shem was younger than Japhet–(Gen 10:21) was substituted for his father, to whom the world had looked up in comparison of the ”greater light,” Shem would naturally, especially by those who disliked him and rebelled against him, be compared to ”the lesser light,” or the moon. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”As to the kingdom, the Oriental Oneirocritics, jointly say, that the sun is the symbol of the king, and the moon of the next to him in power.” This sentence extracted from DAUBUZ’s Symbolical Dictionary, illustrated with judicious notes by my learned friend, the Rev. A. Forbes, London, shows that the conclusion to which I had come before seeing it, in regard to the symbolical meaning of the moon, is entirely in harmony with Oriental modes of thinking.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the production of light by mice at this period, comes in exactly to confirm this deduction. A mouse in Chaldee is ”Aakbar”; and Gheber, or Kheber, in Arabic, Turkish, and some of the other eastern dialects, becomes ”Akbar,” as in the well-known Moslem saying, ”Allar Akbar,” ”God is Great.” So that the whole statement of Plutarch, when stripped of its nonsensical garb, just amounts to this, that light was produced by the Guebres or fire-worshippers, when Nimrod was set up in opposition to Shem, as the representative of Noah, and the great enlightener of the world.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Story of Phaethon</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The identity of Phaethon and Nimrod has much to support it besides the prima facie evidence arising from the statement that Phaethon was an Ethiopian or Cushite, and the resemblance of his fate, in being cast down from heaven while driving the chariot of the sun, as ”the child of the Sun,” to the casting down of Molk-Gheber, whose very name, as the god of fire, identifies him with Nimrod. 1. Phaethon is said by Apollodorus to have been the son of Tithonus; but if the meaning of the name Tithonus be examined, it will be evident that he was Tithonus himself. Tithonus was the husband of Aurora (DYMOCK). In the physical sense, as we have already seen, Aur-ora signifies ”The awakener of the light”; to correspond with this Tithonus signifies ”The kindler of light,” or ”setter on fire.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Tzet or Tzit, ”to kindle,” or ”set on fire,” which in Chaldee becomes Tit, and Thon, ”to give.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now ”Phaethon, the son of Tithonus,” is in Chaldee ”Phaethon Bar Tithon.” But this also signifies ”Phaethon, the son that set on fire.” Assuming, then, the identity of Phaethon and Tithonus, this goes far to identify Phaethon with Nimrod; for Homer, as we have seen (Odyssey), mentions the marriage of Aurora with Orion, the mighty Hunter, whose identity with Nimrod is established. Then the name of the celebrated son that sprang from the union between Aurora and Tithonus, shows that Tithonus, in his original character, must have been indeed the same as ”the mighty hunter” of Scripture, for the name of that son was Memnon (MARTIAL and OVID, Metam.), which signifies ”The son of the spotted one,” * thereby identifying the father with Nimrod, whose emblem was the spotted leopard’s skin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Mem or Mom, ”spotted,” and Non, ”a son.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Ninus or Nimrod, was worshipped as the son of his own wife, and that wife Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, we see how exact is the reference to Phaethon, when Isaiah, speaking of the King of Babylon, who was his representative, says, ”How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning” (Isa 14:12). The marriage of Orion with Aurora; in other words, his setting up as ”The kindler of light,” or becoming the ”author of fire-worship,” is said by Homer to have been the cause of his death, he having in consequence perished under the wrath of the gods. 2. That Phaethon was currently represented as the son of Aurora, the common story, as related by Ovid, sufficiently proves. While Phaethon claimed to be the son of Phoebus, or the sun, he was reproached with being only the son of Merops–i.e., of the mortal husband of his mother Clymene (OVID, Metam.). The story implies that that mother gave herself out to be Aurora, not in the physical sense of that term, but in its mystical sense; as ”The woman pregnant with light”; and, consequently, her son was held up as the great ”Light-bringer” who was to enlighten the world,–”Lucifer, the son of the morning,” who was the pretended enlightener of the souls of men. The name Lucifer, in Isaiah, is the very word from which Eleleus, one of the names of Bacchus, evidently comes. It comes from ”Helel,” which signifies ”to irradiate” or ”to bring light,” and is equivalent to the name Tithon. Now we have evidence that Lucifer, the son of Aurora, or the morning, was worshipped in the very same character as Nimrod, when he appeared in his new character as a little child.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This Phaethon, or Lucifer, who was cast down is further proved to be Janus; for Janus is called ”Pater Matutinus” (HORACE); and the meaning of this name will appear in one of its aspects when the meaning of the name of the Dea Matuta is ascertained. Dea Matuta signifies ”The kindling or Light-bringing goddess,” * and accordingly, by Priscian, she is identified with Aurora.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Matuta comes from the same word as Tithonus–i.e., Tzet, Tzit, or Tzut, which in Chaldee becomes Tet, Tit, or Tut, ”to light” or ”set on fire.” From Tit, ”to set on fire,” comes the Latin Titio, ”a firebrand”; and from Tut, with the formative M prefixed, comes Matuta–just as from Nasseh, ”to forget,” with the same formative prefixed, comes Manasseh, ”forgetting,” the name of the eldest son of Joseph (Gen 41:51). The root of this verb is commonly given as ”Itzt”; but see BAKER’S Lexicon, where it is also given as ”Tzt.” It is evidently from this root that the Sanscrit ”Suttee” already referred to comes.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Matutinus is evidently just the correlate of Matuta, goddess of the morning; Janus, therefore, as Matutinus, is ”Lucifer, son of the morning.” But further, Matuta is identified with Ino, after she had plunged into the sea, and had, along with her son Melikerta, been changed into a sea-divinity. Consequently her son Melikerta, ”king of the walled city,” is the same as Janus Matutinus, or Lucifer, Phaethon, or Nimrod.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is still another link by which Melikerta, the sea-divinity, or Janus Matutinus, is identified with the primitive god of the fire-worshippers. The most common name of Ino, or Matuta, after she had passed through the waters, was Leukothoe (OVID, Metam.). Now, Leukothoe or Leukothea has a double meaning, as it is derived either from ”Lukhoth,” which signifies ”to light,” or ”set on fire,” or from Lukoth ”to glean.” In the Maltese medal, the ear of corn, at the side of the goddess, which is more commonly held in her hand, while really referring in its hidden meaning to her being the Mother of Bar, ”the son,” to the uninitiated exhibits her as Spicilega, or ”The Gleaner,”–”the popular name,” says Hyde, ”for the female with the ear of wheat represented in the constellation Virgo.” In Bryant, Cybele is represented with two or three ears of corn in her hand; for as there were three peculiarly distinguished Bacchuses, there were consequently as many ”Bars,” and she might therefore be represented with one, two, or three ears in her hand. But to revert to the Maltese medal just referred to, the flames coming out of the head of Lukothea, the ”Gleaner,” show that, though she has passed through the waters, she is still Lukhothea, ”the Burner,” or ”Light-giver.” And the rays around the mitre of the god on the reverse entirely agree with the character of that god as Eleleus, or Phaethon–in other words, as ”The Shining Bar.” Now, this ”Shining Bar,” as Melikerta, ”king of the walled city,” occupies the very place of ”Ala-Mahozim,” whose representative the Pope is elsewhere proved to be. But he is equally the sea-divinity, who in that capacity wears the mitre of Dagon. The fish-head mitre which the Pope wears shows that, in this character also, as the ”Beast from the sea,” he is the unquestionable representative of Melikerta.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Roman Imperial Standard of the Dragon a Symbol of Fire- worship</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The passage of Ammianus Marcellinus, that speaks of that standard, calls it ”purpureum signum draconis.” On this may be raised the question, Has the epithet purpureum, as describing the colour of the dragon, any reference to fire? The following extract from Salverte may cast some light upon it: ”The dragon figured among the military ensigns of the Assyrians. Cyrus caused it to be adopted by the Persians and Medes. Under the Roman emperors, and under the emperors of Byzantium, each cohort or centuria bore for an ensign a dragon.” There is no doubt that the dragon or serpent standard of the Assyrians and Persians had reference to fire-worship, the worship of fire and the serpent being mixed up together in both these countries. As the Romans, therefore, borrowed these standards evidently from these sources, it is to be presumed that they viewed them in the very same light as those from whom they borrowed them, especially as that light was so exactly in harmony with their own system of fire-worship. The epithet purpureus or ”purple” does not indeed naturally convey the idea of fire-colour to us. But it does convey the idea of red; and red in one shade or another, among idolatrous nations, has almost with one consent been used to represent fire. The Egyptians (BUNSEN), the Hindoos (MOOR’S Pantheon, ”Brahma”), the Assyrians (LAYARD’S Nineveh), all represented fire by red. The Persians evidently did the same, for when Quintus Curtius describes the Magi as following ”the sacred and eternal fire,” he describes the 365 youths, who formed the train of these Magi, as clad in ”scarlet garments,” the colour of these garments, no doubt, having reference to the fire whose ministers they were. Puniceus is equivalent to purpureus, for it was in Phenicia [six] that the purpura, or purple-fish, was originally found. The colour derived from that purple-fish was scarlet, and it is the very name of that Phoenician purple-fish, ”arguna,” that is used in Daniel 5:16 and 19, where it is said that he that should interpret the handwriting on the wall should ”be clothed in scarlet.” The Tyrians had the art of making true purples, as well as scarlet; and there seems no doubt that purpureus is frequently used in the ordinary sense attached to our word purple. But the original meaning of the epithet is scarlet; and as bright scarlet colour is a natural colour to represent fire, so we have reason to believe that that colour, when used for robes of state among the Tyrians, had special reference to fire; for the Tyrian Hercules, who was regarded as the inventor of purple (BRYANT), was regarded as ”King of Fire,” (NONNUS, Dionysiaca). Now, when we find that the purpura of Tyre produced the scarlet colour which naturally represented fire, and that puniceus, which is equivalent to purpureus, is evidently used for scarlet, there is nothing that forbids us to understand purpureus in the same sense here, but rather requires it. But even though it were admitted that the tinge was deeper, and purpureus meant the true purple, as red, of which it is a shade, is the established colour of fire, and as the serpent was the universally acknowledged symbol of fire-worship, the probability is strong that the use of a red dragon as the Imperial standard of Rome was designed as an emblem of that system of fire-worship on which the safety of the empire was believed so vitally to hinge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VII<br />Section II<br />The Beast from the Sea</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The next great enemy introduced to our notice is the Beast from the Sea (Rev 13:1): ”I stood,” says John, ”upon the sand of the sea-shore, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea.” The seven heads and ten horns on this beast, as on the great dragon, show that this power is essentially the same beast, but that it has undergone a circumstantial change. In the old Babylonian system, after the worship of the god of fire, there speedily followed the worship of the god of water or the sea. As the world formerly was in danger of being burnt up, so now it was in equal danger of being drowned. In the Mexican story it is said to have actually been so. First, say they, it was destroyed by fire, and then it was destroyed by water. The Druidic mythology gives the same account; for the Bards affirm that the dreadful tempest of fire that split the earth asunder, was rapidly succeeded by the bursting of the Lake Llion, when the waters of the abyss poured forth and ”overwhelmed the whole world.” In Greece we meet with the very same story. Diodorus Siculus tells us that, in former times, ”a monster called Aegides, who vomited flames, appeared in Phrygia; hence spreading along Mount Taurus, the conflagration burnt down all the woods as far as India; then, with a retrograde course, swept the forests of Mount Lebanon, and extended as far as Egypt and Africa; at last a stop was put to it by Minerva. The Phrygians remembered well this CONFLAGRATION and the FLOOD which FOLLOWED it.” Ovid, too, has a clear allusion to the same fact of the fire-worship being speedily followed by the worship of water, in his fable of the transformation of Cycnus. He represents King Cycnus, an attached friend of Phaethon, and consequently of fire-worship, as, after his friend’s death, hating the fire, and taking to the contrary element that of water, through fear, and so being transformed into a swan. In India, the great deluge, which occupies so conspicuous a place in its mythology, evidently has the same symbolical meaning, although the story of Noah is mixed up with it; for it was during that deluge that ”the lost Vedas,” or sacred books, were recovered, by means of the great god, under the form of a FISH. The ”loss of the Vedas” had evidently taken place at that very time of terrible disaster to the gods, when, according to the Purans, a great enemy of these gods, called Durgu, ”abolished all religious ceremonies, the Brahmins, through fear, forsook the reading of the Veda,…fire lost its energy, and the terrified stars retired from sight”; in other words, when idolatry, fire-worship, and the worship of the host of heaven had been suppressed. When we turn to Babylon itself, we find there also substantially the same account. In Berosus, the deluge is represented as coming after the time of Alorus, or the ”god of fire,” that is, Nimrod, which shows that there, too, this deluge was symbolical. Now, out of this deluge emerged Dagon, the fish-god, or god of the sea. The origin of the worship of Dagon, as shown by Berosus, was founded upon a legend, that, at a remote period of the past, when men were sunk in barbarism, there came up a BEAST CALLED OANNES FROM THE RED SEA, or Persian Gulf–half-man, half-fish–that civilised the Babylonians, taught them arts and sciences, and instructed them in politics and religion. The worship of Dagon was introduced by the very parties–Nimrod, of course, excepted–who had previously seduced the world into the worship of fire. In the secret Mysteries that were then set up, while in the first instance, no doubt, professing the greatest antipathy to the prescribed worship of fire, they sought to regain their influence and power by scenic representations of the awful scenes of the Flood, in which Noah was introduced under the name of Dagon, or the Fish-god–scenes in which the whole family of man, both from the nature of the event and their common connection with the second father of the human race, could not fail to feel a deep interest. The concocters of these Mysteries saw that if they could only bring men back again to idolatry in any shape, they could soon work that idolatry so as substantially to re-establish the very system that had been put down. Thus it was, that, as soon as the way was prepared for it, Tammuz was introduced as one who had allowed himself to be slain for the good of mankind. A distinction was made between good serpents and bad serpents, one kind being represented as the serpent of Agathodaemon, or the good divinity, another as the serpent of Cacodaemon, or the evil one. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* WILKINSON. In Egypt, the Uraeus, or the Cerastes, was the good serpent, the Apophis the evil one.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It was easy, then, to lead men on by degrees to believe that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, Tammuz, instead of being the patron of serpent-worship in any evil sense, was in reality the grand enemy of the Apophis, or great malignant serpent that envied the happiness of mankind, and that in fact he was the very seed of the woman who was destined to bruise the serpent’s head. By means of the metempsychosis, it was just as easy to identify Nimrod and Noah, and to make it appear that the great patriarch, in the person of this his favoured descendant, had graciously condescended to become incarnate anew, as Dagon, that he might bring mankind back again to the blessings they had lost when Nimrod was slain. Certain it is, that Dagon was worshipped in the Chaldean Mysteries, wherever they were established, in a character that represented both the one and the other.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the previous system, the grand mode of purification had been by fire. Now, it was by water that men were to be purified. Then began the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, connected, as we have seen, with the passing of Noah through the waters of the Flood. Then began the reverence for holy wells, holy lakes, holy rivers, which is to be found wherever these exist on the earth; which is not only to be traced among the Parsees, who, along with the worship of fire, worship also the Zereparankard, or Caspian Sea, and among the Hindoos, who worship the purifying waters of the Ganges, and who count it the grand passport to heaven, to leave their dying relatives to be smothered in its stream; but which is seen in full force at this day in Popish Ireland, in the universal reverence for holy wells, and the annual pilgrimages to Loch Dergh, to wash away sin in its blessed waters; and which manifestly lingers also among ourselves, in the popular superstition about witches which shines out in the well-known line of Burns–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”A running stream they daurna cross.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">So much for the worship of water. Along with the water-worship, however, the old worship of fire was soon incorporated again. In the Mysteries, both modes of purification were conjoined. Though water-baptism was held to regenerate, yet purification by fire was still held to be indispensable; * and, long ages after baptismal regeneration had been established, the children were still made ”to pass through the fire to Moloch.” This double purification both by fire and water was practised in Mexico, among the followers of Wodan. This double purification was also commonly practised among the old Pagan Romans; ** and, in course of time, almost everywhere throughout the Pagan world, both the fire-worship and serpent-worship of Nimrod, which had been put down, was re-established in a new form, with all its old and many additional abominations besides.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name Tammuz, as applied to Nimrod or Osiris, was equivalent to Alorus or the ”god of fire,” and seems to have been given to him as the great purifier by fire. Tammuz is derived from tam, ”to make perfect,” and muz, ”fire,” and signifies ”Fire the perfecter,” or ”the perfecting fire.” To this meaning of the name, as well as to the character of Nimrod as the Father of the gods, the Zoroastrian verse alludes when it says: ”All things are the progeny of ONE FIRE. The Father perfected all things, and delivered them to the second mind, whom all nations of men call the first.” (CORY’S Fragments) Here Fire is declared to be the Father of all; for all things are said to be its progeny, and it is also called the ”perfecter of all things.” The second mind is evidently the child who displaced Nimrod’s image as an object of worship; but yet the agency of Nimrod, as the first of the gods, and the fire-god, was held indispensable for ”perfecting” men. And hence, too, no doubt, the necessity of the fire of Purgatory to ”perfect” men’s souls at last, and to purge away all the sins that they have carried with them into the unseen world.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** OVID, Fasti. It was not a little interesting to me, after being led by strict induction from circumstantial evidence to the conclusion that the purgation by fire was derived from the fire-worship of Adon or Tammuz, and that by water had reference to Noah’s Flood, to find an express statement in Ovid, that such was the actual belief at Rome in his day. After mentioning, in the passage to which the above citation refers, various fanciful reasons for the twofold purgation by fire and water, he concludes thus: ”For my part, I do not believe them; there are some (however) who say that the one is intended to commemorate Phaethon, and the other the flood of Deucalion.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If, however, any one should still think it unlikely that the worship of Noah should be mingled in the ancient world with the worship of the Queen of Heaven and her son, let him open his eyes to what is taking place in Italy at this hour [in 1856] in regard to the worship of that patriarch and the Roman Queen of Heaven. The following, kindly sent me by Lord John Scott, as confirmatory of the views propounded in these pages, appeared in the Morning Herald, October 26, 1855: ”AN ARCHBISHOP’S PRAYER TO THE PATRIARCH NOAH.-POPERY IN TURIN.–For several consecutive years the vintage has been almost entirely destroyed in Tuscany, in consequence of the prevalent disease. The Archbishop of Florence has conceived the idea of arresting this plague by directing prayers to be offered, not to God, but to the patriarch Noah; and he has just published a collection, containing eight forms of supplication, addressed to this distinguished personage of the ancient covenant. ‘Most holy patriarch Noah!’ is the language of one of these prayers, ‘who didst employ thyself in thy long career in cultivating the vine, and gratifying the human race with that precious beverage, which allays the thirst, restores the strength, and enlivens the spirits of us all, deign to regard our vines, which, following thine example, we have cultivated hitherto; and, while thou beholdest them languishing and blighted by that disastrous visitation, which, before the vintage, destroys the fruit (in severe punishment for many blasphemies and other enormous sins we have committed), have compassion on us, and, prostrate before the lofty throne of God, who has promised to His children the fruits of the earth, and an abundance of corn and wine, entreat Him on our behalf; promise Him in our name, that, with the aid of Divine grace, we will forsake the ways of vice and sin, that we will no longer abuse His sacred gifts, and will scrupulously observe His holy law, and that of our holy Mother, the Catholic Church,’ &c. The collection concludes with a new prayer, addressed to the Virgin Mary, who is invoked in these words: ‘O immaculate Mary, behold our fields and vineyards! and, should it seem to thee that we merit so great a favour, stay, we beseech thee, this terrible plague, which, inflicted for our sins, renders our fields unfruitful, and deprives our vines of the honours of the vintage,’ &c. The work contains a vignette, representing the patriarch Noah presiding over the operations of the vintage, as well as a notification from the Archbishop, granting an indulgence of forty days to all who shall devoutly recite the prayers in question.–Christian Times” In view of such rank Paganism as this, well may the noble Lord already referred to remark, that surely here is the world turned backwards, and the worship of the old god Bacchus unmistakably restored!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this god of the sea, when his worship had been firmly re-established, and all formidable opposition had been put down, was worshipped also as the great god of war, who, though he had died for the good of mankind, now that he had risen again, was absolutely invincible. In memory of this new incarnation, the 25th of December, otherwise Christmas Day, was, as we have already seen, celebrated in Pagan Rome as ”Natalis Solis invicti,” ”the birth-day of the Unconquered Sun.” We have equally seen that the very name of the Roman god of war is just the name of Nimrod; for Mars and Mavors, the two well-known names of the Roman war-god, are evidently just the Roman forms of the Chaldee ”Mar” or ”Mavor,” the Rebel. Thus terrible and invincible was Nimrod when he reappeared as Dagon, the beast from the sea. If the reader looks at what is said in Revelation 13:3, he will see precisely the same thing: ”And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded unto death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” Such, in all respects, is the analogy between the language of the prophecy and the ancient Babylonian type.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Do we find, then, anything corresponding to this in the religious history of the Roman empire after the fall of the old Paganism of that empire? Exactly in every respect. No sooner was Paganism legally abolished, the eternal fire of Vesta extinguished, and the old serpent cast down from the seat of power, where so long he had sat secure, than he tried the most vigorous means to regain his influence and authority. Finding that persecution of Christianity, as such, in the meantime would not do to destroy the church symbolised by the sun-clothed Woman, he made another tack (Rev 12:15): ”And the serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.” The symbol here is certainly very remarkable. If this was the dragon of fire, it might have been expected that it would have been represented, according to popular myths, as vomiting fire after the woman. But it is not so. It was a flood of water that he cast out of his mouth. What could this mean? As the water came out of the mouth of the dragon–that must mean doctrine, and of course, false doctrine. But is there nothing more specific than this? A single glance at the old Babylonian type will show that the water cast out of the mouth of the serpent must be the water of baptismal regeneration. Now, it was precisely at this time, when the old Paganism was suppressed, that the doctrine of regenerating men by baptism, which had been working in the Christian Church before, threatened to spread like a deluge over the face of the Roman empire. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From about AD 360, to the time of the Emperor Justinian, about 550, we have evidence both of the promulgation of this doctrine, and also of the deep hold it came at last to take of professing Christians.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It was then precisely that our Lord Jesus Christ began to be popularly called Ichthys, that is, ”the Fish,” manifestly to identify him with Dagon. At the end of the fourth century, and from that time forward, it was taught, that he who had been washed in the baptismal font was thereby born again, and made pure as the virgin snow.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This flood issued not merely from the mouth of Satan, the old serpent, but from the mouth of him who came to be recognised by the Pagans of Rome as the visible head of the old Roman Paganism. When the Roman fire-worship was suppressed, we have seen that the office of Pontifex Maximus, the head of that Paganism, was abolished. That was ”the wounding unto death” of the head of the Fiery Dragon. But scarcely had that head received its deadly wound, when it began to be healed again. Within a few years after the Pagan title of Pontifex had been abolished, it was revived, and that by the very Emperor that had abolished it, and was bestowed, with all the Pagan associations clustering around it, upon the Bishop of Rome, who, from that time forward, became the grand agent in pouring over professing Christendom, first the ruinous doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and then all the other doctrines of Paganism derived from ancient Babylon. When this Pagan title was bestowed on the Roman bishop, it was not as a mere empty title of honour it was bestowed, but as a title to which formidable power was annexed. To the authority of the Bishop of Rome in this new character, as Pontifex, when associated ”with five or seven other bishops” as his counsellors, bishops, and even metropolitans of foreign churches over extensive regions of the West, in Gaul not less than in Italy, were subjected; and civil pains were attached to those who refused to submit to his pontifical decisions. Great was the danger to the cause of truth and righteousness when such power was, by imperial authority, vested in the Roman bishop, and that a bishop so willing to give himself to the propagation of false doctrine. Formidable, however, as the danger was, the true Church, the Bride, the Lamb’s wife (so far as that Church was found within the bounds of the Western Empire), was wonderfully protected from it. That Church was for a time saved from the peril, not merely by the mountain fastnesses in which many of its devoted members found an asylum, as Jovinian, Vigilantius, and the Waldenses, and such-like faithful ones, in the wilderness among the Cottian Alps, and other secluded regions of Europe, but also not a little, by a signal interposition of Divine Providence in its behalf. That interposition is referred to in these words (Rev 12:16): ”The earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth.” What means the symbol of the ”earth’s opening its mouth”? In the natural world, when the earth opens its mouth, there is an earthquake; and an ”earthquake,” according to the figurative language of the Apocalypse, as all admit, just means a great political convulsion. Now, when we examine the history of the period in question, we find that the fact exactly agrees with the prefiguration; that soon after the Bishop of Rome because Pontiff, and, as Pontiff, set himself so zealously to bring in Paganism into the Church, those political convulsions began in the civil empire of Rome, which never ceased till the framework of that empire was broken up, and it was shattered to pieces. But for this the spiritual power of the Papacy might have been firmly established over all the nations of the West, long before the time it actually was so. It is clear, that immediately after Damasus, the Roman bishop, received his pontifical power, the predicted ”apostacy” (1 Tim 4:3), so far as Rome was concerned, was broadly developed. Then were men ”forbidden to marry,” * and ”commanded to abstain from meats.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The celibacy of the clergy was enacted by Syricius, Bishop of Rome, AD 385. (GIESELER)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Then, with a factitious doctrine of sin, a factitious holiness also was inculcated, and people were led to believe that all baptised persons were necessarily regenerated. Had the Roman Empire of the West remained under one civil head, backed by that civil head, the Bishop of Rome might very soon have infected all parts of that empire with the Pagan corruption he had evidently given himself up to propagate. Considering the cruelty with which Jovinian, and all who opposed the Pagan doctrines in regard to marriage and abstinence, were treated by the Pontifex of Rome, under favour of the imperial power, it may easily be seen how serious would have been the consequences to the cause of truth in the Western Empire had this state of matters been allowed to pursue its natural course. But now the great Lord of the Church interfered. The ”revolt of the Goths,” and the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410, gave that shock to the Roman Empire which issued, by 476, in its complete upbreaking and the extinction of the imperial power. Although, therefore, in pursuance of the policy previously inaugurated, the Bishop of Rome was formally recognised, by an imperial edict in 445, as ”Head of all the Churches of the West,” all bishops being commanded ”to hold and observe as a law whatever it should please the Bishop of Rome to ordain or decree”; the convulsions of the empire, and the extinction, soon thereafter, of the imperial power itself, to a large extent nullified the disastrous effects of this edict. The ”earth’s opening its mouth,” then–in other words, the breaking up of the Roman Empire into so many independent sovereignties–was a benefit to true religion, and prevented the flood of error and corruption, that had its source in Rome, from flowing as fast and as far as it would otherwise have done. When many different wills in the different countries were substituted for the one will of the Emperor, on which the Sovereign Pontiff leaned, the influence of that Pontiff was greatly neutralised. ”Under these circumstances,” says Gieseler, referring to the influence of Rome in the different kingdoms into which the empire was divided, ”under these circumstances, the Popes could not directly interfere in ecclesiastical matters; and their communications with the established Church of the country depended entirely on the royal pleasure.” The Papacy at last overcame the effects of the earthquake, and the kingdoms of the West were engulfed in that flood of error that came out of the mouth of the dragon. But the overthrow of the imperial power, when so zealously propping up the spiritual despotism of Rome, gave the true Church in the West a lengthened period of comparative freedom, which otherwise it could not have had. The Dark Ages would have come sooner, and the darkness would have been more intense, but for the Goths and Vandals, and the political convulsions that attended their irruptions. They were raised up to scourge an apostatising community, not to persecute the saints of the Most High, though these, too, may have occasionally suffered in the common distress. The hand of Providence may be distinctly seen, in that, at so critical a moment, the earth opened its mouth and helped the woman.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To return, however, to the memorable period when the pontifical title was bestowed on the Bishop of Rome. The circumstances in which that Pagan title was bestowed upon Pope Damasus, were such as might have been not a little trying to the faith and integrity of a much better man than he. Though Paganism was legally abolished in the Western Empire of Rome, yet in the city of the Seven Hills it was still rampant, insomuch that Jerome, who knew it well, writing of Rome at this very period, calls it ”the sink of all superstitions.” The consequence was, that, while everywhere else throughout the empire the Imperial edict for the abolition of Paganism was respected, in Rome itself it was, to a large extent, a dead letter. Symmachus, the prefect of the city, and the highest patrician families, as well as the masses of the people, were fanatically devoted to the old religion; and, therefore, the Emperor found it necessary, in spite of the law, to connive at the idolatry of the Romans. How strong was the hold that Paganism had in the Imperial city, even after the fire of Vesta was extinguished, and State support was withdrawn from the Vestals, the reader may perceive from the following words of Gibbon: ”The image and altar of Victory were indeed removed from the Senate-house; but the Emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to public view; four hundred and twenty-four temples or chapels still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice.” Thus strong was Paganism in Rome, even after State support was withdrawn about 376. But look forward only about fifty years, and see what has become of it. The name of Paganism has almost entirely disappeared; insomuch that the younger Theodosius, in an edict issued AD 423, uses these words: ”The Pagans that remain, although now we may believe there are none.” The words of Gibbon in reference to this are very striking. While fully admitting that, notwithstanding the Imperial laws made against Paganism, ”no peculiar hardships” were imposed on ”the sectaries who credulously received the fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the Gospel,” he expresses his surprise at the rapidity of the revolution that took place among the Romans from Paganism to Christianity. ”The ruin of Paganism,” he says–and his dates are from AD 378, the year when the Bishop of Rome was made Pontifex, to 395–”The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.”…After referring to the hasty conversion of the senate, he thus proceeds: ”The edifying example of the Anician family [in embracing Christianity] was soon imitated by the rest of the nobility…The citizens who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace who were supported by the public liberality, filled the churches of the Lateran and Vatican with an incessant throng of devout proselytes. The decrees of the senate, which proscribed the worship of idols, were ratified by the general consent of the Romans; the splendour of the capitol was defaced, and the solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. Rome submitted to the yoke of the Gospel…The generation that arose in the world, after the promulgation of Imperial laws, was ATTRACTED within the pale of the Catholic Church, and so RAPID, yet so GENTLE was the fall of Paganism, that only twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius [the elder], the faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the legislator.” Now, how can this great and rapid revolution be accounted for? Is it because the Word of the Lord has had free course and been glorified? Then, what means the new aspect that the Roman Church has now begun to assume? In exact proportion as Paganism has disappeared from without the Church, in the very same proportion it appears within it. Pagan dresses for the priests, Pagan festivals for the people, Pagan doctrines and ideas of all sorts, are everywhere in vogue. The testimony of the same historian, who has spoken so decisively about the rapid conversion of the Romans to the profession of the Gospel, is not less decisive on this point. In his account of the Roman Church, under the head of ”Introduction of Pagan Ceremonies,” he thus speaks: ”As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to effect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, sacrilegious light.” Gibbon has a great deal more to the same effect. Now, can any one believe that this was accidental? No. It was evidently the result of that unprincipled policy, of which, in the course of this inquiry, we have already seen such innumerable instances on the part of the Papacy. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Gibbon distinctly admits this. ”It must ingenuously be confessed,” says he, ”that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model they were so impatient to destroy.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Pope Damasus saw that, in a city pre-eminently given to idolatry, if he was to maintain the Gospel pure and entire, he must be willing to bear the cross, to encounter hatred and ill-will, to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, he could not but equally see, that if bearing the title, around which, for so many ages, all the hopes and affections of Paganism had clustered, he should give its votaries reason to believe that he was willing to act up to the original spirit of that title, he might count on popularity, aggrandisement and glory. Which alternative, then, was Damasus likely to choose? The man that came into the bishopric of Rome, as a thief and a robber, over the dead bodies of above a hundred of his opponents, could not hesitate as to the election he should make. The result shows that he had acted in character, that, in assuming the Pagan title of Pontifex, he had set himself at whatever sacrifice of truth to justify his claims to that title in the eyes of the Pagans, as the legitimate representative of their long line of pontiffs. There is no possibility of accounting for the facts on any other supposition. It is evident also that he and his successors were ACCEPTED in that character by the Pagans, who, in flocking into the Roman Church, and rallying around the new Pontiff, did not change their creed or worship, but brought both into the Church along with them. The reader has seen how complete and perfect is the copy of the old Babylonian Paganism, which, under the patronage of the Popes, has been introduced into the Roman Church. He has seen that the god whom the Papacy worships as the Son of the Highest, is not only, in spite of a Divine command, worshipped under the form of an image, made, as in the days of avowed Paganism, by art and man’s device, but that attributes are ascribed to Him which are the very opposite of those which belong to the merciful Saviour, but which attributes are precisely those which were ascribed to Moloch, the fire-god, or Ala Mahozim, ”the god of fortifications.” He has seen that, about the very time when the Bishop of Rome was invested with the Pagan title of Pontifex, the Saviour began to be called Ichthys, or ”the Fish,” thereby identifying Him with Dagon, or the Fish-god; and that, ever since, advancing step by step, as circumstances would permit, what has gone under the name of the worship of Christ, has just been the worship of that same Babylonian divinity, with all its rites and pomps and ceremonies, precisely as in ancient Babylon. Lastly, he has seen that the Sovereign Pontiff of the so-called Christian Church of Rome has so wrought out the title bestowed upon him in the end of the fourth century, as to be now dignified, as for centuries he has been, with the very ”names of blasphemy” originally bestowed on the old Babylonian pontiffs. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The reader who has seen the first edition of this work, will perceive that, in the above reasoning, I found nothing upon the formal appointment by Gratian of the Pope as Pontifex, with direct authority over the Pagans, as was done in that edition. That is not because I do not believe that such an appointment was made, but because, at the present moment, some obscurity rests on the subject. The Rev. Barcroft Boake, a very learned minister of the Church of England in Ceylon, when in this country, communicated to me his researches on the subject, which have made me hesitate to assert that there was any formal authority given to the Bishop of Rome over the Pagans by Gratian. At the same time, I am still convinced that the original statement was substantially true. The late Mr. Jones, in the Journal of Prophecy, not only referred to the Appendix to the Codex Theodosianus, in proof of such an appointment, but, in elucidation of the words of the Codex, asserted in express terms that there was a contest for the office of Pontifex, and that there were two candidates, the one a Pagan, Symmachus, who had previously been Valentinian’s deputy, and the other the Bishop of Rome. (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, Oct. 1852) I have not been able to find Mr. Jones’s authority for this statement; but the statement is so circumstantial, that it cannot easily be called in question without impugning the veracity of him that made it. I have found Mr. Jones in error on divers points, but in no error of such a nature as this; and the character of the man forbids such a supposition. Moreover, the language of the Appendix cannot easily admit of any other interpretation. But, even though there were no formal appointment of Bishop Damasus to a pontificate extending over the Pagans, yet it is clear that, by the rescript of Gratian (the authenticity of which is fully admitted by the accurate Gieseler), he was made the supreme spiritual authority in the Western Empire in all religious questions. When, therefore, in the year 400, Pagan priests were, by the Christian Emperor of the West, from political motives, ”acknowledged as public officers” (Cod. Theod., ad POMPEJANUM, Procons), these Pagan priests necessarily came under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, as there was then no other tribunal but his for determining all matters affecting religion. In the text, however I have made no allusion to this. The argument, as I think the reader will admit, is sufficiently decisive without it.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if the circumstance in which the Pope has risen to all this height of power and blasphemous assumption, be compared with a prediction in Daniel, which, for want of the true key has never been understood, I think the reader will see how literally in the history of the Popes of Rome that prediction has been fulfilled. The prediction to which I allude is that which refers to what is commonly called the ”Wilful King” as described in Daniel 11:36, and succeeding verses. That ”Wilful King” is admitted on all hands to be a king that arises in Gospel times, and in Christendom, but has generally been supposed to be an Infidel Antichrist, not only opposing the truth but opposing Popery as well, and every thing that assumed the very name of Christianity. But now, let the prediction be read in the light of the facts that have passed in review before us, and it will be seen how very different is the case (v 36): ”And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the god of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.” So far these words give an exact description of the Papacy, with its pride, its blasphemy, and forced celibacy and virginity. But the words that follow, according to any sense that the commentators have put upon them, have never hitherto been found capable of being made to agree either with the theory that the Pope was intended, or any other theory whatever. Let them, however, only be literally rendered, and compared with the Papal history, and all is clear, consistent, and harmonious. The inspired seer has declared that, in the Church of Christ, some one shall arise who shall not only aspire to a great height, but shall actually reach it, so that ”he shall do according to his will”; his will shall be supreme in opposition to all law, human and Divine. Now, if this king is to be a pretended successor of the fisherman of Galilee, the question would naturally arise, How could it be possible that he should ever have the means of rising to such a height of power? The words that follow give a distinct answer to that question: ”He shall not REGARD * any god, for he shall magnify himself above all. BUT, in establishing himself, shall he honour the god of fortifications (Ala Mahozim), and a god, whom his fathers knew not, shall he honour with gold and silver, and with precious stones and pleasant things. Thus shall he make into strengthening bulwarks ** [for himself] the people of a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and he shall divide the land for gain.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The reader will observe, it is not said he shall not worship any god; the reverse is evident; but that he shall not regard any, that his own glory is his highest end.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** The word here is the same as above rendered ”fortifications.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the prophecy. Now, this is exactly what the Pope did. Self-aggrandisement has ever been the grand principle of the Papacy; and, in ”establishing” himself, it was just the ”god of Fortifications” that he honoured. The worship of that god he introduced into the Roman Church; and, by so doing, he converted that which otherwise would have been a source of weakness to him, into the very tower of his strength–he made the very Paganism of Rome by which he was surrounded the bulwark of his power. When once it was proved that the Pope was willing to adopt Paganism under Christian names, the Pagans and Pagan priests would be his most hearty and staunch defenders. And when the Pope began to wield lordly power over the Christians, who were the men that he would recommend–that he would promote–that he would advance to honour and power? Just the very people most devoted to ”the worship of the strange god” which he had introduced into the Christian Church. Gratitude and self-interest alike would conspire to this. Jovinian, and all who resisted the Pagan ideas and Pagan practices, were excommunicated and persecuted. Those only who were heartily attached to the apostacy (and none could now be more so than genuine Pagans) were favoured and advanced. Such men were sent from Rome in all directions, even as far as Britain, to restore the reign of Paganism–they were magnified with high titles, the lands were divided among them, and all to promote ”the gain” of the Romish see, to bring in ”Peter’s pence” from the ends of the earth to the Roman Pontiff. But it is still further said, that the self-magnifying king was to ”honour a god, whom his fathers knew not, with gold and silver and precious stones.” The principle on which transubstantiation was founded is unquestionably a Babylonian principle, but there is no evidence that that principle was applied in the way in which it has been by the Papacy. Certain it is, that we have evidence that no such wafer-god as the Papacy worships was ever worshipped in Pagan Rome. ”Was any man ever so mad,” says Cicero, who himself was a Roman augur and a priest–”was any man ever so mad as to take that which he feeds on for a god?” Cicero could not have said this if anything like wafer-worship had been established in Rome. But what was too absurd for Pagan Romans is no absurdity at all for the Pope. The host, or consecrated wafer, is the great god of the Romish Church. That host is enshrined in a box adorned with gold and silver and precious stones. And thus it is manifest that ”a god” whom even the Pope’s Pagan ”fathers knew not,” he at this day honours in the very way that the terms of the prediction imply that he would. Thus, in every respect, when the Pope was invested with the Pagan title of Pontifex, and set himself to make that title a reality, he exactly fulfilled the prediction of Daniel recorded more than 900 years before.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But to return to the Apocalyptic symbols. It was out of the mouth of the ”Fiery Dragon” that ”the flood of water” was discharged. The Pope, as he is now, was at the close of the fourth century the only representative of Belshazzar, or Nimrod, on the earth; for the Pagans manifestly ACCEPTED him as such. He was equally, of course, the legitimate successor of the Roman ”Dragon of fire.” When, therefore, on being dignified with the title of Pontifex, he set himself to propagate the old Babylonian doctrine of baptismal regeneration, that was just a direct and formal fulfilment of the Divine words, that the great Fiery Dragon should ”cast out of his mouth a flood of water to carry away the Woman with the flood.” He, and those who co-operated with him in this cause, paved the way for the erecting of that tremendous civil and spiritual despotism which began to stand forth full in the face of Europe in AD 606, when, amid the convulsions and confusions of the nations tossed like a tempestuous sea, the Pope of Rome was made Universal Bishop; and when the ten chief kingdoms of Europe recognised him as Christ’s Vicar upon earth, the only centre of unity, the only source of stability to their thrones. Then by his own act and deed, and by the consent of the UNIVERSAL PAGANISM of Rome, he was actually the representative of Dagon; and as he bears upon his head at this day the mitre of Dagon, so there is reason to believe he did then. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It is from this period only that the well-known 1260 days can begin to be counted; for not before did the Pope appear as Head of the ten-horned beast, and head of the Universal Church. The reader will observe that though the beast above referred to has passed through the sea, it still retains its primitive characteristic. The head of the apostacy at first was Kronos, ”The Horned One.” The head of the apostacy is Kronos still, for he is the beast ”with seven head and ten horns.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Could there, then, be a more exact fulfilment of chapter 13:1 ”And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the names of blasphemy…And I saw one of his heads as it had been wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast”?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VII<br />Section III<br />The Beast from the Earth</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This beast is presented to our notice (Rev 13:11): ”And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a serpent.” Though this beast is mentioned after the beast from the sea, it does not follow that he came into existence after the sea-beast. The work he did seems to show the very contrary; for it is by his instrumentality that mankind are led (v 12) ”to worship the first beast” after that beast had received the deadly wound, which shows that he must have been in existence before. The reason that he is mentioned second, is just because, as he exercises all the powers of the first beast, and leads all men to worship him, so he could not properly be described till that beast had first appeared on the stage. Now, in ancient Chaldea there was the type, also, of this. That god was called in Babylon Nebo, in Egypt Nub or Num, * and among the Romans Numa, for Numa Pompilius, the great priest-king of the Romans, occupied precisely the position of the Babylonian Nebo.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In Egypt, especially among the Greek-speaking population, the Egyptian b frequently passed into an m.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Among the Etrurians, from whom the Romans derived the most of their rites, he was called Tages, and of this Tages it is particularly recorded, that just as John saw the beast under consideration ”come up out of the earth,” so Tages was a child suddenly and miraculously born out of a furrow or hole in the ground. In Egypt, this God was represented with the head and horns of a ram. In Etruria he seems to have been represented in a somewhat similar way; for there we find a Divine and miraculous child exhibited wearing the ram’s horns. The name Nebo, the grand distinctive name of this god, signifies ”The Prophet,” and as such, he gave oracles, practised augury, pretended to miraculous powers, and was an adept in magic. He was the great wonder-worker, and answered exactly to the terms of the prophecy, when it is said (v 13), ”he doeth great wonders, and causeth fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men.” It was in this very character that the Etrurian Tages was known; for it was he who was said to have taught the Romans augury, and all the superstition and wonder-working jugglery connected therewith. As in recent times, we hear of weeping images and winking Madonnas, and innumerable prodigies besides, continually occurring in the Romish Church, in proof of this papal dogma or that, so was it also in the system of Babylon. There is hardly a form of ”pious fraud” or saintly imposture practised at this day on the banks of the Tiber, that cannot be proved to have had its counterpart on the banks of the Euphrates, or in the systems that came from it. Has the image of the Virgin been seen to shed tears? Many a tear was shed by the Pagan images. To these tender-hearted idols Lucan alludes, when, speaking of the prodigies that occurred during the civil wars, he says:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Tears shed by gods, our country’s patrons,<br />And sweat from Lares, told the city’s woes.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Virgil also refers to the same, when he says:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The weeping statues did the wars foretell,<br />And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When in the consulship of Appius Claudius, and Marcus Perpenna, Publius Crassus was slain in a battle with Aristonicus, Apollo’s statue at Cumae shed tears for four days without intermission. The gods had also their merry moods, as well as their weeping fits. If Rome counts it a divine accomplishment for the sacred image of her Madonna to ”wink,” it was surely not less becoming in the sacred images of Paganism to relax their features into an occasional grin. That they did so, we have abundant testimony. Psellus tells us that, when the priests put forth their magic powers, ”then statues laughed, and lamps were spontaneously enkindled.” When the images made merry, however, they seemed to have inspired other feelings than those of merriment into the breasts of those who beheld them. ”The Theurgists,” says Salverte, ”caused the appearance of the gods in the air, in the midst of gaseous vapour, disengaged from fire. The Theurgis Maximus undoubtedly made use of a secret analogous to this, when, in the fumes of the incense which he burned before the statue of Hecate, the image was seen to laugh so naturally as to fill the spectators with terror.” There were times, however, when different feelings were inspired. Has the image of the Madonna been made to look benignantly upon a favoured worshipper, and send him home assured that his prayer was heard? So did the statues of the Egyptian Isis. They were so framed, that the goddess could shake the silver serpent on her forehead, and nod assent to those who had preferred their petitions in such a way as pleased her. We read of Romish saints that showed their miraculous powers by crossing rivers or the sea in most unlikely conveyances. Thus, of St. Raymond it is written that he was transported over the sea on his cloak. Paganism is not a whit behind in this matter; for it is recorded of a Buddhist saint, Sura Acharya, that, when ”he used to visit his flocks west of the Indus, he floated himself across the stream upon his mantle.” Nay, the gods and high priests of Paganism showed far more buoyancy than even this. There is a holy man, at this day, in the Church of Rome, somewhere on the Continent, who rejoices in the name of St. Cubertin, who so overflows with spirituality, that when he engages in his devotions there is no keeping his body down to the ground, but, spite of all the laws of gravity, it rises several feet into the air. So was it also with the renowned St. Francis of Assisi, Petrus a Martina, and Francis of Macerata, some centuries ago. But both St. Cubertin and St. Francis and his fellows are far from being original in this superhuman devotion. The priests and magicians in the Chaldean Mysteries anticipated them not merely by centuries, but by thousands of years. Coelius Rhodiginus says, ”that, according to the Chaldeans, luminous rays, emanating from the soul, do sometimes divinely penetrate the body, which is then of itself raised above the earth, and that this was the case with Zoroaster.” The disciples of Jamblichus asserted that they had often witnessed the same miracle in the case of their master, who, when he prayed was raised to the height of ten cubits from the earth. The greatest miracle which Rome pretends to work, is when, by the repetition of five magic words, she professes to bring down the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, to make Him really and corporeally present in the sacrament of the altar. The Chaldean priests pretended, by their magic spells, in like manner, to bring down their divinities into their statues, so that their ”real presence” should be visibly manifested in them. This they called ”the making of gods”; and from this no doubt comes the blasphemous saying of the Popish priests, that they have power ”to create their Creator.” There is no evidence, so far as I have been able to find, that, in the Babylonian system, the thin round cake of wafer, the ”unbloody sacrifice of the mass,” was ever regarded in any other light than as a symbol, that ever it was held to be changed into the god whom it represented. But yet the doctrine of transubstantiation is clearly of the very essence of Magic, which pretended, on the pronunciation of a few potent words, to change one substance into another, or by a dexterous juggle, wholly to remove one substance, and to substitute another in its place. Further, the Pope, in the plenitude of his power, assumes the right of wielding the lightnings of Jehovah, and of blasting by his ”fulminations” whoever offends him. Kings, and whole nations, believing in this power, have trembled and bowed before him, through fear of being scathed by his spiritual thunders. The priests of Paganism assumed the very same power; and, to enforce the belief of their spiritual power, they even attempted to bring down the literal lightnings from heaven; yea, there seems some reason to believe that they actually succeeded, and anticipated the splendid discovery of Dr. Franklin. Numa Pompilius is said to have done so with complete success. Tullus Hostilius, his successor, imitating his example, perished in the attempt, himself and his whole family being struck, like Professor Reichman in recent times, with the lightning he was endeavouring to draw down. * Such were the wonder-working powers attributed in the Divine Word to the beast that was to come up from the earth; and by the old Babylonian type these very powers were all pretended to be exercised.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The means appointed for drawing down the lightning were described in the books of the Etrurian Tages. Numa had copied from these books, and had left commentaries behind him on the subject, which Tallus had misunderstood, and hence the catastrophe.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in remembrance of the birth of the god out of a ”hole in the earth,” the Mysteries were frequently celebrated in caves under ground. This was the case in Persia, where, just as Tages was said to be born out of the ground, Mithra was in like manner fabled to have been produced from a cave in the earth. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* JUSTIN MARTYR. It is remarkable that, as Mithra was born out of a cave, so the idolatrous nominal Christians of the East represent our Saviour as having in like manner been born in a a cave. (See KITTO’s Cyclopoedia, ”Bethlehem”) There is not the least hint of such a thing in the Scripture.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Numa of Rome himself pretended to get all his revelations from the Nymph Egeria, in a cave. In these caves men were first initiated in the secret Mysteries, and by the signs and lying wonders there presented to them, they were led back, after the death of Nimrod, to the worship of that god in its new form. This Apocalyptic beast, then, that ”comes up out of the earth,” agrees in all respects with that ancient god born from a ”hole in the ground”; for no words could more exactly describe his doing than the words of the prediction (v 13): ”He doeth great wonders, and causeth fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men,…and he causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” This wonder-working beast, called Nebo, or ”The Prophet,” as the prophet of idolatry, was, of course, the ”false prophet.” By comparing the passage before us with Revelation 19:20, it will be manifest that this beast that ”came up out of the earth” is expressly called by that very name: ”And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.” As it was the ”beast from the earth” that ”wrought miracles” before the first beast, this shows that ”the beast from the earth” is the ”false prophet”; in other words, is ”Nebo.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If we examine the history of the Roman empire, we shall find that here also there is a precise accordance between type and antitype. When the deadly wound of Paganism was healed, and the old Pagan title of Pontiff was restored, it was, through means of the corrupt clergy, symbolised, as is generally believed, and justly under the image of a beast with horns, like a lamb; according to the saying of our Lord, ”Beware of false prophets, that shall come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” The clergy, as a corporate body, consisted of two grand divisions–the regular and secular clergy answering to the two horns or powers of the beast, and combining also, at a very early period, both temporal and spiritual powers. The bishops, as heads of these clergy, had large temporal powers, long before the Pope gained his temporal crown. We have the distinct evidence of both Guizot and Gibbon to this effect. After showing that before the fifth century, the clergy had not only become distinct from, but independent of the people, Guizot adds: ”The Christian clergy had moreover another and very different source of influence. The bishops and priests became the principal municipal magistrates…If you open the code, either of Theodosius or Justinian, you will find numerous regulations which remit municipal affairs to the clergy and the bishops.” Guizot makes several quotations. The following extract from the Justinian code is sufficient to show how ample was the civil power bestowed upon the bishops: ”With respect to the yearly affairs of cities, whether they concern the ordinary revenues of the city, either from funds arising from the property of the city, or from private gifts or legacies, or from any other source; whether public works, or depots of provisions or aqueducts, or the maintenance of baths or ports, or the construction of walls or towers, or the repairing of bridges or roads, or trials, in which the city may be engaged in reference to public or private interests, we ordain as follows:–The very pious bishop, and three notables, chosen from among the first men of the city, shall meet together; they shall each year examine the works done; they shall take care that those who conduct them, or who have conducted them, shall regulate them with precision, render their accounts, and show that they have duly performed their engagements in the administration, whether of the public monuments, or of the sums appointed for provisions or baths, or of expenses in the maintenance of roads, aqueducts, or any other work.” Here is a large list of functions laid on the spiritual shoulders of ”the very pious bishop,” not one of which is even hinted at in the Divine enumeration of the duties of a bishop, as contained in the Word of God. (See 1 Timothy 3:1-7; and Titus 1:5-9.) How did the bishops, who were originally appointed for purely spiritual objects, contrive to grasp at such a large amount of temporal authority? From Gibbon we get light as to the real origin of what Guizot calls this ”prodigious power.” The author of the Decline and Fall shows, that soon after Constantine’s time, ”the Church” [and consequently the bishops, especially when they assumed to be a separate order from the other clergy] gained great temporal power through the right of asylum, which had belonged to the Pagan temples, being transferred by the Emperors to the Christian churches. His words are: ”The fugitive, and even the guilty, were permitted to implore either the justice or mercy of the Deity and His ministers.” Thus was the foundation laid of the invasion of the rights of the civil magistrate by ecclesiastics, and thus were they encouraged to grasp at all the powers of the State. Thus, also, as is justly observed by the authoress of Rome in the 19th Century, speaking of the right of asylum, were ”the altars perverted into protection towards the very crimes they were raised to banish from the world.” This is a very striking thing, as showing how the temporal power of the Papacy, in its very first beginnings, was founded on ”lawlessness,” and is an additional proof to the many that might be alleged, that the Head of the Roman system, to whom all bishops are subject is indeed ”The Lawless One” (2 Thess 2:8), predicted in Scripture as the recognised Head of the ”Mystery of Iniquity.” All this temporal power came into the hands of men, who, while professing to be ministers of Christ, and followers of the Lamb, were seeking simply their own aggrandisement, and, to secure that aggrandisement, did not hesitate to betray the cause which they professed to serve. The spiritual power which they wielded over the souls of men, and the secular power which they gained in the affairs of the world, were both alike used in opposition to the cause of pure religion and undefiled. At first these false prophets, in leading men astray, and seeking to unite Paganism and Christianity, wrought under-ground, mining like the mole in the dark, and secretly perverting the simple, according to the saying of Paul, ”The Mystery of Iniquity doth already work.” But by-and-by, towards the end of the fourth century, when the minds of men had been pretty well prepared, and the aspects of things seemed to be favourable for it, the wolves in sheep’s clothing appeared above ground, brought their secret doctrines and practices, by little and little, into the light of day, and century after century, as their power increased, by means of all ”deceivableness of unrighteousness,” and ”signs and lying wonders,” deluded the minds of the worldly Christians, made them believe that their anathema was equivalent to the curse of God; in other words, that they could ”bring down fire from heaven,” and thus ”caused the earth, and them that dwelt therein, to worship the beast whose deadly wound was healed.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Though the Pope be the great Jupiter Tonans of the Papacy, and ”fulminates” from the Vatican, as his predecessor was formerly believed to do from the Capitol, yet it is not he in reality that brings down the fire from heaven, but his clergy. But for the influence of the clergy in everywhere blinding the minds of the people, the Papal thunders would be but ”bruta fulmina” after all. The symbol, therefore, is most exact, when it attributes the ”bringing down of the fire from heaven,” to the beast from the earth, rather than to the beast from the sea.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When ”the deadly wound” of the Pagan beast was healed, and the beast from the sea appeared, it is said that this beast from the earth became the recognised, accredited executor of the will of the great sea beast (v 12), ”And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,” literally ”in his presence”–under his inspection. Considering who the first beast is, there is great force in this expression ”in his presence.” The beast that comes up from the sea, is ”the little horn,” that ”has eyes like the eyes of man” (Dan 7:8); it is Janus Tuens, ”All-seeing Janus,” in other words, the Universal Bishop or ”Universal Overseer,” who, from his throne on the seven hills, by means of the organised system of the confessional, sees and knows all that is done, to be the utmost bounds of his wide dominion. Now, it was just exactly about the time that the Pope became universal bishop, that the custom began of systematically investing the chief bishops of the Western empire with the Papal livery, the pallium, ”for the purpose,” says Gieseler, ”of symbolising and strengthening their connection with the Church of Rome.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GIESELER. From Gieseler we learn that so early as 501, the Bishop of Rome had laid the foundation of the corporation of bishops by the bestowal of the pallium; but, at the same time, he expressly states that it was only about 602, at the `63 ascent of Phocas to the imperial throne–that Phocas that made the Pope Universal Bishop–that the Popes began to bestow the pallium, that is, of course, systematically, and on a large scale.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That pallium, worn on the shoulders of the bishops, while on the one hand it was the livery of the Pope, and bound those who received it to act as the functionaries of Rome, deriving all their authority from him, and exercising it under his superintendence, as the ”Bishop of bishops,” on the other hand, was in reality the visible investiture of these wolves with the sheep’s clothing. For what was the pallium of the Papal bishop? It was a dress made of wool, blessed by the Pope, taken from the holy lambs kept by the nuns of St. Agnes, and woven by their sacred hands, that it might be bestowed on those whom the Popes delighted to honour, for the purpose, as one of themselves expressed it, of ”joining them to our society in the one pastoral sheepfold.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GIESELER, ”Papacy”). The reader who peruses the early letters of the Popes in bestowing the pallium, will not fail to observe the wide difference of meaning between ”the one pastoral sheepfold” above referred to, and ”the one sheepfold” of our Lord. The former really means a sheepfold consisting of pastors or shepherds. The papal letters unequivocally imply the organisation of the bishops, as a distinct corporation, altogether independent of the Church, and dependent only on the Papacy, which seems remarkably to agree with the terms of the prediction in regard to the beast from the earth.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus commissioned, thus ordained by the universal Bishop, they did their work effectually, and brought the earth and them that dwelt in it, ”to worship the beast that received the wound by a sword and did live.” This was a part of this beast’s predicted work. But there was another, and not less important, which remains for consideration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VII<br />Section IV<br />The Image of the Beast</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Not merely does the beast from the earth lead the world to worship the first beast, but (v 14) he prevails on them that dwell on the earth to make ”an IMAGE to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” In meditating for many years on what might be implied in ”the image of the beast,” I could never find the least satisfaction in all the theories that had ever been propounded, till I fell in with an unpretending but valuable work, which I have noticed already, entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse. That work, evidently the production of a penetrating mind deeply read in the history of the Papacy, furnished at once the solution of the difficulty. There the image of the beast is pronounced to be the Virgin Mother, or the Madonna. This at first sight may appear a very unlikely solution; but when it is brought into comparison with the religious history of Chaldea, the unlikelihood entirely disappears. In the old Babylonian Paganism, there was an image of the Beast from the sea; and when it is known what that image was, the question will, I think, be fairly decided. When Dagon was first set up to be worshipped, while he was represented in many different ways, and exhibited in many different characters, the favourite form in which he was worshipped, as the reader well knows, was that of a child in his mother’s arms. In the natural course of events, the mother came to be worshipped along with the child, yea, to be the favourite object of worship. To justify this worship, as we have already seen, that mother, of course, must be raised to divinity, and divine powers and prerogatives ascribed to her. Whatever dignity, therefore, the son was believed to possess a like dignity was ascribed to her. Whatever name of honour he bore, a similar name was bestowed upon her. He was called Belus, ”the Lord”; she, Beltis, ”My Lady.” He was called Dagon, ”the Merman”; she, Derketo, ”the Mermaid.” He, as the World-king, wore the bull’s horns; she, as we have already seen, on the authority of Sanchuniathon, put on her own head a bull’s head, as the ensign of royalty. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* EUSEBIUS, Proeparatio Evangelii. This statement is remarkable, as showing that the horns which the great goddess wore were really intended to exhibit her as the express image of Ninus, or ”the Son.” Had she worn merely the cow’s horns, it might have been supposed that these horns were intended only to identify her with the moon. But the bull’s horns show that the intention was to represent her as equal in her sovereignty with Nimrod, or Kronos, the ”Horned one.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">He, as the Sun-god, was called Beel-samen, ”Lord of heaven”; she, as the Moon-goddess, Melkat-ashemin, ”Queen of heaven.” He was worshipped in Egypt as the ”Revealer of goodness and truth”; she, in Babylon, under the symbol of the Dove, as the goddess of gentleness and mercy, the ”Mother of gracious acceptance,” ”merciful and benignant to men.” He, under the name of Mithra, was worshipped as Mesites, or ”the Mediator”; she, as Aphrodite, or the ”Wrath-subduer,” was called Mylitta, ”the Mediatrix.” He was represented as crushing the great serpent under his heel; she, as bruising the serpent’s head in her hand. He, under the name Janus, bore a key as the opener and shutter of the gates of the invisible world. She, under the name of Cybele, was invested with a like key, as an emblem of the same power. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TOOKE’S Pantheon. That the key of Cybele, in the esoteric story, had a corresponding meaning to that of Janus, will appear from the character above assigned to her as the Mediatrix.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">He, as the cleanser from sin, was called the ”Unpolluted god”; she, too, had the power to wash away sin, and, though the mother of the seed, was called the ”Virgin, pure and undefiled.” He was represented as ”Judge of the dead”; she was represented as standing by his side, at the judgment-seat, in the unseen world. He, after being killed by the sword, was fabled to have risen again, and ascended up to heaven. She, too, though history makes her to have been killed with the sword by one of her own sons, * was nevertheless in the myth, said to have been carried by her son bodily to heaven, and to have been made Pambasileia, ”Queen of the universe.” Finally, to clench the whole, the name by which she was now known was Semele, which, in the Babylonian language, signifies ”THE IMAGE.” ** Thus, in every respect, to the very least jot and tittle, she became the express image of the Babylonian ”beast that had the wound by a sword, and did live.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In like manner, Horus, in Egypt, is said to have cut off his mother’s head, as Bel in Babylon also cut asunder the great primeval goddess of the Babylonians. (BUNSEN)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Apollodorus states that Bacchus, on carrying his mother to heaven, called her Thuone, which was just the feminine of his own name, Thuoenus–in Latin Thyoneus. (OVID, Metam.) Thuoneus is evidently from the passive participle of Thn, ”to lament,” a synonym for ”Bacchus,” ”The lamented god.” Thuone, in like manner, is ”The lamented goddess.” The Roman Juno was evidently known in this very character of the ”Image”; for there was a temple erected to her in Rome, on the Capitoline hill, under the name of ”Juno Moneta.” Moneta is the emphatic form of one of the Chaldee words for an ”image”; and that this was the real meaning of the name, will appear from the fact that the Mint was contained in the precincts of that temple. (See SMITH’S ”Juno”) What is the use of a mint but just to stamp ”images”? Hence the connection between Juno and the Mint.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">After what the reader has already seen in a previous part of this work, it is hardly necessary to say that it is this very goddess that is now worshipped in the Church of Rome under the name of Mary. Though that goddess is called by the name of the mother of our Lord, all the attributes given to her are derived simply from the Babylonian Madonna, and not from the Virgin Mother of Christ. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The very way in which the Popish Madonna is represented is plainly copied from the idolatrous representations of the Pagan goddess. The great god used to be represented as sitting or standing in the cup of a Lotus-flower. In India, the very same mode of representation is common; Brahma being often seen seated on a Lotus-flower, said to have sprung from the navel of Vishnu. The great goddess, in like manner, must have a similar couch; and, therefore, in India, we find Lakshmi, the ”Mother of the Universe,” sitting on a Lotus, borne by a tortoise. Now, in this very thing, also Popery has copied from its Pagan model; for, in the Pancarpium Marianum the Virgin and child are represented sitting in the cup of a tulip.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is not one line or one letter in all the Bible to countenance the idea that Mary should be worshipped, that she is the ”refuge of sinners,” that she was ”immaculate,” that she made atonement for sin when standing by the cross, and when, according to Simeon, ”a sword pierced through her own soul also”; or that, after her death, she was raised from the dead and carried in glory to heaven. But in the Babylonian system all this was found; and all this is now incorporated in the system of Rome. The ”sacred heart of Mary” is exhibited as pierced through with a sword, in token, as the apostate Church teaches, that her anguish at the crucifixion was as true an atonement as the death of Christ;–for we read in the Devotional office or Service-book, adopted by the ”Sodality of the sacred heart,” such blasphemous words as these, ”Go, then, devout client! go to the heart of Jesus, but let your way be through the heart of Mary; the sword of grief which pierced her soul opens you a passage; enter by the wound which love has made”; *–again we hear one expounder of the new faith, like M. Genoude in France, say that ”Mary was the repairer of the guilt of Eve, as our Lord was the repairer of the guilt of Adam”; and another–Professor Oswald of Paderbon–affirm that Mary was not a human creature like us, that she is ”the Woman, as Christ is the Man,” that ”Mary is co-present in the Eucharist, and that it is indisputable that, according to the Eucharistic doctrine of the Church, this presence of Mary in the Eucharist is true and real, not merely ideal or figurative”; and, further, we read in the Pope’s decree of the Immaculate Conception, that that same Madonna, for this purpose ”wounded with the sword,” rose from the dead, and being assumed up on high, became Queen of Heaven. If all this be so, who can fail to see that in that apostate community is to be found what precisely answers to the making and setting up in the heart of Christendom, of an ”Image to the beast that had the wound by a sword and did live”?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Memoir of Rev. Godfrey Massy. In the Paradisus sponsi et sponsoe, by the author of Pancarpium Marianum, the following words, addressed to the Virgin, occur in illustration of a plate representing the crucifixion, and Mary, at the foot of the Cross, with the sword in her breast, ”Thy beloved son did sacrifice his flesh; thou thy soul–yea, both body and soul.” This does much more than put the sacrifice of the Virgin on a level with that of the Lord Jesus, it makes it greater far. This, in 1617, was the creed only of Jesuitism; now there is reason to believe it to be the general creed of the Papacy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the inspired terms be consulted, it will be seen that this was to be done by some public general act of apostate Christendom; (v 14), ”Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast”; and they made it. Now, here is the important fact to be observed, that this never was done, and this never could have been done, till eight years ago; for this plain reason, that till then the Madonna of Rome was never recognised as combining all the characters that belonged to the Babylonian ”IMAGE of the beast.” Till then it was not admitted even in Rome, though this evil leaven had been long working, and that strongly, that Mary was truly immaculate, and consequently she could not be the perfect counterpart of the Babylonian Image. What, however, had never been done before, was done in December, 1854. Then bishops from all parts of Christendom, and representatives from the ends of the earth, met in Rome; and with only four dissentient voices, it was decreed that Mary, the mother of God, who died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, should henceforth be worshipped as the Immaculate Virgin, ”conceived and born without sin.” This was the formal setting up of the Image of the beast, and that by the general consent of ”the men that dwell upon the earth.” Now, this beast being set up, it is said, that the beast from the earth gives life and speech to the Image, implying, first, that it has neither life nor voice in itself; but that, nevertheless, through means of the beast from the earth, it is to have both life and voice, and to be an effective agent of the Papal clergy, who will make it speak exactly as they please. Since the Image has been set up, its voice has been everywhere heard throughout the Papacy. Formerly decrees ran less or more in the name of Christ. Now all things are pre-eminently done in the name of the Immaculate Virgin. Her voice is everywhere heard–her voice is supreme. But, be it observed, when that voice is heard, it is not the voice of mercy and love, it is the voice of cruelty and terror. The decrees that come forth under the name of the Image, are to this effect (v 17), that ”no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” No sooner is the image set up than we see this very thing begun to be carried out. What was the Concordat in Austria, that so speedily followed, but this very thing? That concordat, through the force of unexpected events that have arisen, has not yet been carried into effect; but if it were, the results would just be what is predicted–that no man in the Austrian dominions should ”buy or sell” without the mark in some shape or other. And the very fact of such an intolerant concordat coming so speedily on the back of the Decree of the Immaculate Conception, shows what is the natural fruit of that decree. The events that soon thereafter took place in Spain showed the powerful working of the same persecuting spirit there also. During the last few years, the tide of spiritual despotism might have seemed to be effectually arrested; and many, no doubt, have indulged the persuasion that, crippled as the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy is, and tottering as it seems to be, that power, or its subordinates, could never persecute more. But there is an amazing vitality in the Mystery of Iniquity; and no one can ever tell beforehand what apparent impossibilities it may accomplish in the way of arresting the progress of truth and liberty, however promising the aspect of things may be. Whatever may become of the temporal sovereignty of the Roman states, it is by no means so evident this day, as to many it seemed only a short while ago, that the overthrow of the spiritual power of the Papacy is imminent, and that its power to persecute is finally gone. I doubt not but that many, constrained by the love and mercy of God, will yet obey the heavenly voice, and flee out of the doomed communion, before the vials of Divine wrath descend upon it. But if I have been right in the interpretation of this passage, then it follows that it must yet become more persecuting than ever it has been, and that that intolerance, which, immediately after the setting up of the Image, began to display itself in Austria and Spain, shall yet spread over all Europe; for it is not said that the Image of the beast should merely decree, but should ”cause that as many as would not worship the Image of the beast should be killed” (v 15). When this takes place, that evidently is the time when the language of verse 8 is fulfilled, ”And all that dwell on the earth shall worship the beast, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” It is impossible to get quit of this by saying, ”This refers to the Dark Ages; this was fulfilled before Luther.” I ask, had the men who dwelt on the earth set up the Image of the beast before Luther’s days? Plainly not. The decree of the Immaculate Conception was the deed of yesterday. The prophecy, then, refers to our own times–to the period on which the Church is now entering. In other words, the slaying of the witnesses, the grand trial of the saints, IS STILL TO COME. (see note below)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Is it past, or is it still to come? This is a vital question. The favourite doctrine at this moment is, that it is past centuries ago, and that no such dark night of suffering to the saints of God can ever come again, as happened just before the era of the Reformation. This is the cardinal principle of a work that has just appeared, under the title of The Great Exodus, which implies, that however much the truth may be assailed, however much the saints of God may be threatened, however their fears may be aroused, they have no real reason to fear, for that the Red Sea will divide, the tribes of the Lord will pass through dry shod, and all their enemies, like Pharaoh and his host, shall sink in overwhelming ruin. If the doctrine maintained by many of the soberest interpreters of Scripture for a century past, including such names as Brown of Haddington, Thomas Scott, and others, be well founded-viz., that the putting down of the testimony of the witnesses is till to come, this theory must not only be a delusion, but a delusion of most fatal tendency–a delusion that by throwing professors off their guard, and giving them an excuse for taking their ease, rather than standing in the high places of the field, and bearing bold and unflinching testimony for Christ, directly paves the way for that very extinction of the testimony which is predicted. I enter not into any historical disquisition as to the question, whether, as a matter of fact, it was true that the witnesses were slain before Luther appeared. Those who wish to see an historical argument on the subject may see it in the Red Republic, which I venture to think has not yet been answered. Neither do I think it worth while particularly to examine the assumption of Dr. Wylie, and I hold it to be a pure and gratuitous assumption, that the 1260 days during which the saints of God in Gospel times were to suffer for righteousness’ sake, has any relation whatever, as a half period, to a whole, symbolised by the ”Seven times” that passed over Nebuchadnezzar when he was suffering and chastened for his pride and blasphemy, as the representative of the ”world power.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The author does not himself make the humiliation of the Babylonian king a type of the humiliation of the Church. How then can he establish any typical relation between the ”seven times” in the one case, and the ”seven times” in the other? He seems to think it quite enough to establish that relation, if he can find one point of resemblance between Nebuchadnezzar, the humbled despot, and the ”world-power” that oppresses the Church during the two periods of ”seven times” respectively. That one point is the ”madness” of the one and the other. It might be asked, Was, then, the ”world-power” in its right mind before ”the seven times” began? But waiving that, here is the vital objection to this view: The madness in the case of Nebuchadnezzar was simply an affliction; in the other it was sin. The madness of Nebuchadnezzar did not, so far as we know, lead him to oppress a single individual; the madness of the ”world-power,” according to the theory, is essentially characterised by the oppression of the saints. Where, then, can there be the least analogy between the two cases? The ”seven times” of the Babylonian king were seven times of humiliation, and humiliation alone. The suffering monarch cannot be a type of the suffering Church; and still less can his ”seven times” of deepest humiliation, when all power and glory was taken from him, be a type of the ”seven times” of the ”world-power,” when that ”world-power” was to concentrate in itself all the glory and grandeur of the earth. This is one fatal objection to this theory. Then let the reader only look at the following sentence from the work under consideration, and compare it with historical fact, and he will see still more how unfounded the theory is: ”It follows undeniably,” says the author, ”that as the Church is to be tyrannised over by the idolatrous power throughout the whole of the seven times, she will be oppressed during the first half of the ‘seven times,’ by idolatry in the form of Paganism, and during the last half by idolatry in the form of Popery.” Now, the first half, or 1260 years, during which the Church was to be oppressed by Pagan idolatry, ran out exactly, it is said, in AD 530 or 532; when suddenly Justinian changed the scene, and brought the new oppressor on the stage. But I ask where was the ”world-power” to be found up to 530, maintaining ”idolatry in the form of Paganism”? From the time of Gratian at least, who, about 376, formally abolished the worship of the gods, and confiscated their revenues, where was there any such Pagan power to persecute? There is certainly a very considerable interval between 376 and 532. The necessities of the theory require that Paganism, and that avowed Paganism, be it observed, shall be persecuting the Church straight away till 532; but for 156 years there was no such thing as a Pagan ”world-power” in existence to persecute the Church. ”The legs of the lame,” says Solomon, ”are not equal”; and if the 1260 years of Pagan persecution lack no less that 156 years of the predicted period, surely it must be manifest that the theory halts very much on one side at least. But I ask, do the facts agree with the theory, even in regard to the running out of the second 1260 years in 1792, at the period of the French Revolution? If the 1260 years of Papal oppression terminated then, and if then the Ancient of days came to begin the final judgment on the beast, He came also to do something else. This will appear from the language of Daniel 7:21, 22: ”I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” This language implies that the judgment on the little horn, and the putting of the saints in possession ”of the kingdom” are contemporaneous events. Long has the rule of the kingdoms of this world been in the hands of worldly men, that knew not God nor obeyed Him; but now, when He to whom the kingdom belongs comes to inflict judgment on His enemies, He comes also to transfer the rule of the kingdoms of this world from the hands of those who have abused it, into the hand of those that fear God and govern their public conduct by His revealed will. This is evidently the meaning of the Divine statement. Now, on the supposition that 1792 was the predicted period of the coming of the Ancient of days, it follows that, ever since, the principles of God’s Word must have been leavening the governments of Europe more and more, and good and holy men, of the spirit of Daniel and Nehemiah, must have been advanced to the high places of power. But has it been so in point of fact? Is there one nation in all Europe that acts on Scriptural principles at this day? Does Britain itself do so? Why, it is notorious that it was just three years after the reign of righteousness, according to this theory, must have commenced that that unprincipled policy began that has left hardly a shred of appearance of respect for the honour of the ”Prince of the Kings of the earth” in the public rule of this nation. It was in 1795 that Pitt, and the British Parliament, passed the Act for the erecting of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, which formed the beginning of a course that, year by year, has lifted the Man of Sin into a position of power in this land, that threatens, if Divine mercy do not miraculously interfere, to bring us speedily back again under complete thraldom to Antichrist. Yet, according to the theory of The Great Exodus, the very opposite of this ought to have been the case.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But to this only I call the reader’s attention, that even on the theory of Dr. Wylie himself, the witnesses of Christ could not possibly have finished their testimony before the Decree of the Immaculate Conception came forth. The theory of Dr. Wylie, and those who take the same general view as he, is, that the ”finishing of the testimony,” means ”completing the elements” of the testimony, bearing a full and complete testimony against the errors of Rome. Dr. Wylie himself admits that ”the dogma of the ‘Immaculate Conception’ [which was given forth only during the last few years] declares Mary truly ‘divine,’ and places her upon the altars of Rome as practically the sole and supreme object of worship” (The Great Exodus). This was NEVER done before, and therefore the errors and blasphemies of Rome were not complete until that decree had gone forth, if even then. Now, if the corruption and blasphemy of Rome were ”incomplete” up to our own day, and if they have risen to a height which was never witnessed before, as all men instinctively felt and declared, when that decree was issued, how could the testimony of the witnesses be ”complete” before Luther’s day! It is nothing to say that the principle and the germ of this decree were in operation long before. The same thing may be said of all the leading errors of Rome long before Luther’s day. They were all in essence and substance very broadly developed, from near the time when Gregory the Great commanded the image of the Virgin to be carried forth in the processions that supplicated the Most High to remove the pestilence from Rome, when it was committing such havoc among its citizens. But that does in no wise prove that they were ”complete,” or that the witnesses of Christ could then ”finish their testimony” by bearing a full and ”complete testimony” against the errors and corruptions of the Papacy. I submit this view of the matter to every intelligent reader for his prayerful consideration. If we have not ”understanding of the times,” it is vain to expect that we ”shall know what Israel ought to do.” If we are saying ”Peace and safety,” when trouble is at hand, or underrating the nature of that trouble, we cannot be prepared for the grand struggle when that struggle shall come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter VII<br />Section V<br />The Name of the Beast, the Number of His Name–<br />The Invisible Head of the Papacy</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Dagon and the Pope being now identified, this brings us naturally and easily to the long-sought name and number of the beast, and confirms, by entirely new evidence, the old Protestant view of the subject. The name ”Lateinos” has been generally accepted by Protestant writers, as having many elements of probability to recommend it. But yet there has been always found a certain deficiency, and it has been felt that something was wanting to put it beyond all possibility of doubt. Now, looking at the subject from the Babylonian point of view, we shall find both the name and number of the beast brought home to us in such a way as leaves nothing to be desired on the point of evidence. Osiris, or Nimrod, whom the Pope represents, was called by many different titles, and therefore, as Wilkinson remarks, he was much in the same position as his wife, who was called ”Myrionymus,” the goddess with ”ten thousand names.” Among these innumerable names, how shall we ascertain the name at which the Spirit of God points in the enigmatical language that speaks of the name of the beast, and the number of his name? If we know the Apocalyptic name of the system, that will lead us to the name of the head of the system. The name of the system is ”Mystery” (Rev 17:5). Here, then, we have the key that at once unlocks the enigma. We have now only to inquire what was the name by which Nimrod was known as the god of the Chaldean Masteries. That name, as we have seen, was Saturn. Saturn and Mystery are both Chaldean words, and they are correlative terms. As Mystery signifies the Hidden system, so Saturn signifies the Hidden god. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Litany of the Mass, the worshippers are taught thus to pray: ”God Hidden, and my Saviour, have mercy upon us.” (M’GAVIN’S Protestant) Whence can this invocation of the ”God Hidden” have come, but from the ancient worship of Saturn, the ”Hidden God”? As the Papacy has canonised the Babylonian god by the name of St. Dionysius, and St. Bacchus, the ”martyr,” so by this very name of ”Satur” is he also enrolled in the calendar; for March 29th is the festival of ”St. Satur,” the martyr. (CHAMBER’S Book of Days)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else he was hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced Satur; but, as every Chaldee scholar knows, consists only of four letters, thus–Stur. This name contains exactly the Apocalyptic number 666:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">S = 060<br />T = 400<br />U = 006<br />R = 200</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the Pope is, as we have seen, the legitimate representative of Saturn, the number of the Pope, as head of the Mystery of Iniquity, is just 666. But still further it turns out, as shown above, that the original name of Rome itself was Saturnia, ”the city of Saturn.” This is vouched alike by Ovid, by Pliny, and by Aurelius Victor. Thus, then, the Pope has a double claim to the name and number of the beast. He is the only legitimate representative of the original Saturn at this day in existence, and he reigns in the very city of the seven hills where the Roman Saturn formerly reigned; and, from his residence in which, the whole of Italy was ”long after called by his name,” being commonly named ”the Saturnian land.” But what bearing, it may be said, has this upon the name Lateinos, which is commonly believed to be the ”name of the beast”? Much. It proves that the common opinion is thoroughly well-founded. Saturn and Lateinos are just synonymous, having precisely the same meaning, and belonging equally to the same god. The reader cannot have forgotten the lines of Virgil, which showed that Lateinos, to whom the Romans or Latin race traced back their lineage, was represented with a glory around his head, to show that he was a ”child of the Sun.” Thus, then, it is evident that, in popular opinion, the original Lateinos had occupied the very same position as Saturn did in the Mysteries, who was equally worshipped as the ”offspring of the Sun.” Moreover, it is evident that the Romans knew that the name ”Lateinos” signifies the ”Hidden One,” for their antiquarians invariably affirm that Latium received its name from Saturn ”lying hid” there. On etymological grounds, then, even on the testimony of the Romans, Lateinos is equivalent to the ”Hidden One”; that is, to Saturn, the ”god of Mystery.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Latium Latinus (the Roman form of the Greek Lateinos), and Lateo, ”to lie hid,” all alike come from the Chaldee ”Lat,” which has the same meaning. The name ”lat,” or the hidden one, had evidently been given, as well as Saturn, to the great Babylonian god. This is evident from the name of the fish Latus, which was worshipped along with the Egyptian Minerva, in the city of Latopolis in Egypt, now Esneh (WILKINSON), that fish Latus evidently just being another name for the fish-god Dagon. We have seen that Ichthys, or the Fish, was one of the names of Bacchus; and the Assyrian goddess Atergatis, with her son Ichthys is said to have been cast into the lake of Ascalon. That the sun-god Apollo had been known under the name of Lat, may be inferred from the Greek name of his mother-wife Leto, or in Doric, Lato, which is just the feminine of Lat. The Roman name Latona confirms this, for it signifies ”The lamenter of Lat,” as Bellona signifies ”The lamenter of Bel.” The Indian god Siva, who, as we have seen, is sometimes represented as a child at the breast of its mother, and has the same bloody character as Moloch, or the Roman Saturn, is called by this very name, as may be seen from the following verse made in reference to the image found in his celebrated temple at Somnaut:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”This image grim, whose name was LAUT,<br />Bold Mahmoud found when he took Sumnaut.”<br />BORROW’S Gypsies in Spain, or Zincali</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Lat was used as a synonym for Saturn, there can be little doubt that Latinus was used in the same sense.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The deified kings were called after the gods from whom they professed to spring, and not after their territories. The same, we may be sure, was the case with Latinus.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While Saturn, therefore, is the name of the beast, and contains the mystic number, Lateinos, which contains the same number, is just as peculiar and distinctive an appellation of the same beast. The Pope, then, as the head of the beast, is equally Lateinos or Saturn, that is, the head of the Babylonian ”Mystery.” When, therefore, the Pope requires all his services to be performed in the ”Latin tongue,” that is as much as to say that they must be performed in the language of ”Mystery”; when he calls his Church the Latin Church, that is equivalent to a declaration that it is the Church of ”Mystery.” Thus, by this very name of the Pope’s own choosing, he has with his own hands written upon the very forehead of his apostate communion its divine Apocalyptic designation, ”MYSTERY–Babylon the great.” Thus, also, by a process of the purest induction, we have been led on from step to step, till we find the mystic number 666 unmistakably and ”indelibly marked” on his own forehead, and that he who has his seat on the seven hills of Rome has exclusive and indefeasible claims to be regarded as the Visible head of the beast.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reader, however, who has carefully considered the language that speaks of the name and number of the Apocalyptic beast, must have observed that, in the terms that describe that name and number, there is still an enigma that ought not to be overlooked. The words are these: ”Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast–for it is the number of a man” (Rev 13:18). What means the saying, that the ”number of the beast is the number of a man”? Does it merely mean that he has been called by a name that has been borne by some individual man before? This is the sense in which the words have been generally understood. But surely this would be nothing very distinctive–nothing that might not equally apply to innumerable names. But view this language in connection with the ascertained facts of the case, and what a Divine light at once beams from the expression. Saturn, the hidden god,–the god of the Mysteries, whom the Pope represents, whose secrets were revealed only to the initiated,–was identical with Janus, who was publicly known to all Rome, to the uninitiated and initiated alike, as the grand Mediator, the opener and the shutter, who had the key of the invisible world. Now, what means the name Janus? That name, as Cornificius in Macrobius shows, was properly Eanus; and in ancient Chaldee, E-anush signifies ”the Man.” By that very name was the Babylonian beast from the sea called, when it first made its appearance. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name, as given in Greek by Berosus, is O-annes; but this is just the very way we might expect ”He-anesth,” ”the man,” to appear in Greek. He-siri, in Greek, becomes Osiris; and He-sarsiphon, Osarsiphon; and, in like manner, He-anesh naturally becomes Oannes. In the sense of a ”Man-god,” the name Oannes is taken by Barker (Lares and Penates). We find the conversion of the H’ into O’ among our own immediate neighbours, the Irish; what is now O’Brien and O’Connell was originally H’Brien and H’Connell (Sketches of Irish History).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The name E-anush, or ”the Man,” was applied to the Babylonian Messiah, as identifying him with the promised seed of the Woman. The name of ”the Man,” as applied to a god, was intended to designate him as the ”god-man.” We have seen that in India the Hindoo Shasters bear witness, that in order to enable the gods to overcome their enemies, it was needful that the Sun, the supreme divinity, should be incarnate, and born of a Woman. The classical nations had a legend of precisely the same nature. ”There was a current tradition in heaven,” says Apollodorus, ”that the giants could never be conquered except by the help of a man.” That man, who was believed to have conquered the adversaries of the gods, was Janus, the god-man. In consequence of his assumed character and exploits, Janus was invested with high powers, made the keeper of the gates of heaven, and arbiter of men’s eternal destinies. Of this Janus, this Babylonian ”man,” the Pope, as we have seen, is the legitimate representative; his key, therefore, he bears, with that of Cybele, his mother-wife; and to all his blasphemous pretensions he at this hour lays claim. The very fact, then, that the Pope founds his claim to universal homage on the possession of the keys of heaven, and that in a sense which empowers him, in defiance of every principle of Christianity, to open and shut the gates of glory, according to his mere sovereign will and pleasure, is a striking and additional proof that he is that head of the beast from the sea, whose number, as identified with Janus, is the number of a man, and amounts exactly to 666.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But there is something further still in the name of Janus or Eanus, not to be passed over. Janus, while manifestly worshipped as the Messiah or god-man, was also celebrated as ”Principium Decorum,” the source and fountain of all the Pagan gods. We have already in this character traced him backward through Cush to Noah; but to make out his claim to this high character, in its proper completeness, he must be traced even further still. The Pagans knew, and could not but know, at the time the Mysteries were concocted, in the days of Shem and his brethren, who, through the Flood, had passed from the old world to the new, the whole story of Adam, and therefore it was necessary, if a deification of mankind there was to be, that his pre-eminent dignity, as the human ”Father of gods and men,” should not be ignored. Nor was it. The Mysteries were full of what he did, and what befel him; and the name E-anush, or, as it appeared in the Egyptian form, Ph’anesh, ”The man,” was only another name for that of our great progenitor. The name of Adam in the Hebrew of Genesis almost always occurs with the article before it, implying ”The Adam,” or ”The man.” There is this difference, however–”The Adam” refers to man unfallen, E-anush, ”The man,” to ”fallen man.” E-anush, then, as ”Principium decorum,” ”The fountain and father of the gods,” is ”FALLEN Adam.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Anesh properly signifies only the weakness or frailty of fallen humanity; but any one who consults OVID, Fashti, as to the character of Janus, will see that when E-anush was deified, it was not simply as Fallen man with his weakness, but Fallen man with his corruption.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The principle of Pagan idolatry went directly to exalt fallen humanity, to consecrate its lusts, to give men license to live after the flesh, and yet, after such a life, to make them sure of eternal felicity. E-anus, the ”fallen man,” was set up as the human Head of this system of corruption–this ”Mystery of Iniquity.” Now, from this we come to see the real meaning of the name, applied to the divinity commonly worshipped in Phrygia along with Cybele in the very same character as this same Janus, who was at once the Father of the gods, and the Mediatorial divinity. That name was Atys, or Attis, or Attes, * and the meaning will evidently appear from the meaning of the well-known Greek word Ate, which signifies ”error of sin,” and is obviously derived from the Chaldean Hata, ”to sin.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* SMITH’S Classical Dictionary, ”Atys.” The identification of Attes with Bacchus or Adonis, who was at once the Father of the gods, and the Mediator, is proved from divers considerations. 1. While it is certain that the favourite god of the Phrygian Cybele was Attes, whence he was called ”Cybelius Attes,” from Strabo, we learn that the divinity worshipped along with Cybele in Phrygia, was called by the very name of Dionusos or Bacchus. 2. Attes was represented in the very same way as Bacchus. In Bryant there is an inscription to him along with the Idaean goddess, that is Cybele, under the name of ”Attis the Minotaur” (Mythol.). Bacchus was bull-horned; it is well known that the Minotaur, in like manner, was half-man, half-bull. 3. He was represented in the exoteric story, as perishing in the same way as Adonis by a wild boar (PAUSAN). 4. In the rites of Magna Mater or Cybele, the priests invoked him as the ”Deus propitius, Deus sanctus,” ”the merciful God, the holy God” (ARNOBIUS in Maxima Biblioth. Patrum), the very character which Bacchus or Adonis sustained as the mediatorial god.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Atys or Attes, formed from the same verb, and in a similar way, signifies ”The Sinner.” The reader will remember that Rhea or Cybele was worshipped in Phrygia under the name of Idaia Mater, ”The mother of knowledge,” and that she bore in her hand, as her symbol, the pomegranate, which we have seen reason to conclude to have been in Pagan estimation the fruit of the ”forbidden tree.” Who, then, so likely to have been the contemplar divinity of that ”Mother of knowledge” as Attes, ”The sinner,” even her own husband, whom she induced to share with her in her sin, and partake of her fatal knowledge, and who thereby became in true and proper sense, ”The man of sin,”–”the man by whom sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all, because all have sinned.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The whole story of Attes can be proved in detail to be the story of the Fall. Suffice it here only to state that, even on the surface, this sin was said to be connected with undue love for ”a nymph, whose fate depended on a tree” (OVID, Fasti). The love of Attes for this nymph was in one aspect an offence to Cybele, but, in another, it was the love of Cybele herself; for Cybele has two distinct fundamental characters–that of the Holy Spirit, and also that of our mother Eve. ”The nymph whose fate depended on a tree” was evidently Rhea, the mother of mankind.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now to Attes, this ”Man of sin,” after passing through those sorrows and sufferings, which his worshippers yearly commemorated, the distinguishing characteristics and glories of the Messiah were given. He was identified with the sun, * the only god; he was identified with Adonis; and to him as thus identified, the language of the Sixteenth Psalm, predicting the triumph of our Saviour Christ over death and the grave, was in all its greatness applied: ”Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">BRYANT. The ground of the Identification of Attis with the sun evidently was, that as Hata signifies to sin, so Hatah, which signifies to burn, is in pronunciation nearly the same. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect75.htm#note"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is sufficiently known that the first part of this statement was applied to Adonis; for the annual weeping of the women for Tammuz was speedily turned into rejoicings, on account of his fabled return from Hades, or the infernal regions. But it is not so well known that Paganism applied to its mediatorial god the predicted incorruption of the body of the Messiah. But that this was the fact, we learn from the distinct testimony of Pausanias. ”Agdistis,” that is Cybele, says he, ”obtained from Jupiter, that no part of the body of Attes should either become putrid or waste away.” Thus did Paganism apply to Attes ”the sinner,” the incommunicable honour of Christ, who came to ”save His people from their sins”–as contained in the Divine language uttered by the ”sweet psalmist of Israel,” a thousand years before the Christian era. If, therefore, the Pope occupies, as we have seen, the very place of Janus ”the man,” how clear is it, that he equally occupies the place of Attes, ”the sinner,” and then how striking in this point of view the name ”Man of sin,” as divinely given by prophecy (2 Thess 2:3) to him who was to be the head of the Christian apostacy, and who was to concentrate in that apostacy all the corruption of Babylonian Paganism?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Pope is thus on every ground demonstrated to be the visible head of the beast. But the beast has not only a visible, but an invisible head that governs it. That invisible head is none other than Satan, the head of the first grand apostacy that began in heaven itself. This is put beyond doubt by the language of Revelation 13:4 ”And they worshipped the Dragon which gave power unto the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” This language shows that the worship of the dragon is commensurate with the worship of the beast. That the dragon is primarily Satan, the arch-fiend himself, is plain from the statement of the previous chapter (Rev 12:9) ”And the Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” If, then, the Pope be, as we have seen, the visible head of the beast, the adherents of Rome, in worshipping the Pope, of necessity worship also the Devil. With the Divine statement before us, there is no possibility of escaping from this. And this is exactly what we might expect on other grounds. Let it be remembered that the Pope, as the head of the Mystery of Iniquity, is ”the son of perdition,” Iscariot, the false apostle, the traitor. Now, it is expressly stated, that before Judas committed his treason, ”Satan,” the prince of the Devils, ”entered into him,” took complete and entire possession of him. From analogy, we may expect the same to have been the case here. Before the Pope could even conceive such a scheme of complicated treachery to the cause of his Lord, as has been proved against him, before he could be qualified for successfully carrying that treacherous scheme into effect, Satan himself must enter into him. The Mystery of Iniquity was to practise and prosper according ”to the working”–i.e., literally, ”according to the energy or mighty power of Satan” (2 Thess 2:9). *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The very term ”energy” here employed, is the term continually used in the Chaldean books, describing the inspiration coming from the gods and demons to their worshippers. (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Therefore Satan himself, and not any subordinate spirit of hell, must preside over the whole vast system of consecrated wickedness; he must personally take possession of him who is its visible head, that the system may be guided by his diabolical subtlety, and ”energised” by his super-human power. Keeping this in view, we see at once how it is that, when the followers of the Pope worship the beast, they worship also the ”dragon that gave power to the beast.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, altogether independent of historical evidence on this point, we are brought to the irresistible conclusion that the worship of Rome is one vast system of Devil-worship. If it be once admitted that the Pope is the head of the beast from the sea, we are bound, on the mere testimony of God, without any other evidence whatever, to receive this as a fact, that, consciously or unconsciously, those who worship the Pope are actually worshipping the Devil. But, in truth, we have historical evidence, and that of a very remarkable kind, that the Pope, as head of the Chaldean Mysteries, is as directly the representative of Satan, as he is of the false Messiah of Babylon. It was long ago noticed by Irenaeus, about the end of the second century, that the name Teitan contained the Mystic number 666; and he gave it as his opinion that Teitan was ”by far the most probable name” of the beast from the sea. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* IRENAEUS. Though the name Teitan was originally derived from Chaldee, yet it became thoroughly naturalised in the Greek language. Therefore, to give the more abundant evidence on this important subject, the Spirit of God seems to have ordered it, that the number of Teitan should be found according to the Greek computation, while that of Satur is found by the Chaldee.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The grounds of his opinion, as stated by him, do not carry much weight; but the opinion itself he may have derived from others who had better and more valid reasons for their belief on this subject. Now, on inquiry, it will actually be found, that while Saturn was the name of the visible head, Teitan was the name of the invisible head of the beast. Teitan is just the Chaldean form of Sheitan, * the very name by which Satan has been called from time immemorial by the Devil-worshippers of Kurdistan; and from Armenia or Kurdistan, this Devil-worship embodied in the Chaldean Mysteries came westward to Asia Minor, and thence to Etruria and Rome.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The learned reader has no need of examples in proof of this frequent Chaldean transformation of the Sh or S into T; but for the common reader, the following may be adduced: Hebrew, Shekel, to weigh, becomes Tekel in Chaldee; Hebrew, Shabar, to break–Chaldee, Tabar; Hebrew, Seraphim–Chaldee, Teraphim, the Babylonian counterfeit of the Divine Cherubim or Seraphim; Hebrew, Asar, to be rich–Chaldee, Atar; Hebrew, Shani, second–Chaldee, Tanin, &c.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That Teitan was actually known by the classic nations of antiquity to be Satan, or the spirit of wickedness, and originator of moral evil, we have the following proofs: The history of Teitan and his brethren, as given in Homer and Hesiod, the two earliest of all the Greek writers, although later legends are obviously mixed up with it, is evidently the exact counterpart of the Scriptural account of Satan and his angels. Homer says, that ”all the gods of Tartarus,” or Hell, ”were called Teitans.” Hesiod tells us how these Teitans, or ”gods of hell,” came to have their dwelling there. The chief of them having committed a certain act of wickedness against his father, the supreme god of heaven, with the sympathy of many others of the ”sons of heaven,” that father ”called them all by an opprobrious name, Teitans,” pronounced a curse upon them, and then, in consequence of that curse, they were ”cast down to hell,” and ”bound in chains of darkness” in the abyss. While this is the earliest account of Teitan and his followers among the Greeks, we find that, in the Chaldean system, Teitan was just a synonym for Typhon, the malignant Serpent or Dragon, who was universally regarded as the Devil, or author of all wickedness. It was Typhon, according to the Pagan version of the story, that killed Tammuz, and cut him in pieces; but Lactantius, who was thoroughly acquainted with the subject, upbraids his Pagan countrymen for ”worshipping a child torn in pieces by the Teitans.” It is undeniable, then, that Teitan, in Pagan belief, was identical with the Dragon, or Satan. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* We have seen that Shem was the actual slayer of Tammuz. As the grand adversary of the Pagan Messiah, those who hated him for his deed called him for that very deed by the name of the Grand Adversary of all, Typhon, or the Devil. ”If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub,” no wonder that his servant was called by a similar name.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Mysteries, as formerly hinted, an important change took place as soon as the way was paved for it. First, Tammuz was worshipped as the bruiser of the serpent’s head, meaning thereby that he was the appointed destroyer of Satan’s kingdom. Then the dragon himself, or Satan, came to receive a certain measure of worship, to ”console him,” as the Pagans said, ”for the loss of his power,” and to prevent him from hurting them; and last of all the dragon, or Teitan or Satan, became the supreme object of worship, the Titania, or rites of Teitan, occupying a prominent place in the Egyptian Mysteries, and also in those of Greece. How vitally important was the place that these rites of Teitan or Satan occupied, may be judged of from the fact that Pluto, the god of Hell (who, in his ultimate character, was just the grand Adversary), was looked up to with awe and dread as the great god on whom the destinies of mankind in the eternal world did mainly depend; for it was said that to Pluto belonged ”to purify souls after death.” Purgatory having been in Paganism, as it is in Popery, the grand hinge of priestcraft and superstition, what a power did this opinion attribute to the ”god of Hell”! No wonder that the serpent, the Devil’s grand instrument in seducing mankind, was in all the earth worshipped with such extraordinary reverence, it being laid down in the Octateuch of Ostanes, that ”serpents were the supreme of all gods and the princes of the Universe.” No wonder that it came at last to be firmly believed that the Messiah, on whom the hopes of the world depended, was Himself the ”seed of the serpent”! This was manifestly the case in Greece; for the current story there came to be, that the first Bacchus was brought forth in consequence of a connexion on the part of his mother with the father of the gods, in the form of a ”speckled snake.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* OVID, Metam. So deeply was the idea of ”the seed of the serpent” being the great World-king imprinted on the Pagan mind, that when a man set up to be a god upon earth, it was held essential to establish his title to that character, that he prove himself to be the ”serpent’s seed.” Thus, when Alexander the Great claimed divine honours, it is well known that his mother Olympias, declared that he was not sprung from King Philip, her husband, but from Jupiter, in the form of a serpent. In like manner, says the authoress of Rome in the 19th Century, the Roman emperor, ”Augustus, pretended that he was the son of Apollo, and that the god had assumed the form of a serpent for the purpose of giving him birth.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That ”father of the gods” was manifestly ”the god of hell”; for Proserpine, the mother of Bacchus, that miraculously conceived and brought forth the wondrous child–whose rape by Pluto occupied such a place in the Mysteries–was worshipped as the wife of the god of Hell, as we have already seen, under the name of the ”Holy Virgin.” The story of the seduction of Eve * by the serpent is plainly imported into this legend, as Julius Firmicus and the early Christian apologists did with great force cast in the teeth of the Pagans of their day; but very different is the colouring given to it in the Pagan legend from that which it has in the Divine Word.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* We find that Semele, the mother of the Grecian Bacchus, had been identified with Eve; for the name of Eve had been given to her, as Photius tells us that ”Pherecydes called Semele, Hue.” Hue is just the Hebrew name for Eve, without the points.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus the grand Thimblerigger, by dexterously shifting the peas, through means of men who began with great professions of abhorrence of his character, got himself almost everywhere recognised as in very deed ”the god of this world.” So deep and so strong was the hold that Satan had contrived to get of the ancient world in this character, that even when Christianity had been proclaimed to man, and the true light had shone from Heaven, the very doctrine we have been considering raised its head among the professed disciples of Christ. Those who held this doctrine were called Ophiani or Ophites, that is, serpent-worshippers. ”These heretics,” says Tertullian, ”magnify the serpent to such a degree as to prefer him even to Christ Himself; for he, say they, gave us the first knowledge of good and evil. It was from a perception of his power and majesty that Moses was induced to erect the brazen serpent, to which whosoever looked was healed. Christ Himself, they affirm, in the Gospel imitates the sacred power of the serpent, when He says that, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’ They introduce it when they bless the Eucharist.” These wicked heretics avowedly worshipped the old serpent, or Satan, as the grand benefactor of mankind, for revealing to them the knowledge of good and evil. But this doctrine they had just brought along with them from the Pagan world, from which they had come, or from the Mysteries, as they came to be received and celebrated in Rome. Though Teitan, in the days of Hesiod and in early Greece, was an ”opprobrious name,” yet in Rome, in the days of the Empire and before, it had become the very reverse. ”The splendid or glorious Teitan” was the way in which Teitan was spoken of at Rome. This was the title commonly given to the Sun, both as the orb of day and viewed as a divinity. Now, the reader has seen already that another form of the sun-divinity, or Teitan, at Rome, was the Epidaurian snake, worshipped under the name of ”Aesculapius,” that is, ”the man-instructing serpent.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Aish-shkul-ape, from Aish, ”man”; shkul, ”to instruct”; and Aphe, or Ape, ”a serpent.” The Greek form of this name, Asklepios, signifies simply ”the instructing snake,” and comes from A, ”the,” skl, ”to teach,” and hefi, ”a snake,” the Chaldean words being thus modified in Egypt. The name Aselepios, however, is capable of another sense, as derived from Aaz, ”strength,” and Khlep, ”to renew”; and, therefore, in the exoteric doctrine, Aselepios was known simply as ”the strength-restorer,” or the Healing God. But, as identified with the serpent, the true meaning of the name seems to be that which is first stated. Macrobius, giving an account of the mystic doctrine of the ancients, says that Aesculapius was that beneficent influence of the sun which pervaded the souls of men. Now the Serpent was the symbol of the enlightening sun.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here, then, in Rome was Teitan, or Satan, identified with the ”serpent that taught mankind,” that opened their eyes (when, of course, they were blind), and gave them ”the knowledge of good and evil.” In Pergamos, and in all Asia Minor, from which directly Rome derived its knowledge of the Mysteries, the case was the same. In Pergamos, especially, where pre-eminently ”Satan’s seat was,” the sun-divinity, as is well known, was worshipped under the form of a serpent and under the name of Aesculapius, ”the man-instructing serpent.” According to the fundamental doctrine of the Mysteries, as brought from Pergamos to Rome, the sun was the one only god. Teitan, or Satan, then, was thus recognised as the one only god; and of that only god, Tammuz or Janus, in his character as the Son, or the woman’s seed, was just an incarnation. Here, then, the grand secret of the Roman Empire is at last brought to light–viz., the real name of the tutelar divinity of Rome. That secret was most jealously guarded; insomuch that when Valerius Soranus, a man of the highest rank, and, as Cicero declares, ”the most learned of the Romans,” had incautiously divulged it, he was remorselessly put to death for his revelation. Now, however, it stands plainly revealed. A symbolical representation of the worship of the Roman people, from Pompeii, strikingly confirms this deduction by evidence that appeals to the very senses. We have seen already that it is admitted by the author of Pompeii, that the serpents in the under compartment are only another way of exhibiting the dark divinities represented in the upper compartment. Let the same principle be admitted here, and it follows that the swallows, or birds pursuing the flies, represent the same thing as the serpents do below. But the serpent, of which there is a double representation, is unquestionably the serpent of Aesculapius. The fly-destroying swallow, therefore, must represent the same divinity. Now, every one knows what was the name by which ”the Lord of the fly,” or fly-destroying god of the Oriental world was called. It was Beel-zebub. This name, as signifying ”Lord of the Fly,” to the profane meant only the power that destroyed the swarms of flies when these became, as they often did in hot countries, a source of torment to the people whom they invaded. But this name, as identified with the serpent, clearly reveals itself as one of the distinctive names of Satan. And how appropriate is this name, when its mystic or esoteric meaning is penetrated. What is the real meaning of this familiar name? Baal-zebub just means ”The restless Lord,” * even that unhappy one who ”goeth to and fro in the earth, and walketh up and down in it,” who ”goeth through dry places seeking rest, and finding none.” From all this, the inference is unavoidable that Satan, in his own proper name, must have been the great god of their secret and mysterious worship, and this accounts for the extraordinary mystery observed on the subject. **</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See CLAVIS STOCKII, ”Zebub,” where it is stated that the word zebub, as applied to the fly, comes from an Arabic root, which signifies to move from place to place, as flies do, without settling anywhere. Baal-zebub, therefore, in its secret meaning, signifies, ”Lord of restless and unsettled motion.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** I find Lactantius was led to the conclusion that the Aesculapian servant was the express symbol of Satan, for, giving an account of the bringing of the Epidaurian snake to Rome, he says: ”Thither [i.e., to Rome] the Demoniarches [or Prince of the Devils] in his own proper shape, without disguise, was brought; for those who were sent on that business brought back with them a dragon of amazing size.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When, therefore, Gratian abolished the legal provision for the support of the fire-worship and serpent-worship of Rome, we see how exactly the Divine prediction was fulfilled (Rev 12:9) ”And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the DEVIL, and SATAN, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The facts stated above cast a very singular light on a well known superstition among ourselves. Everybody has heard of St. Swithin’s day, on which, if it rain, the current belief is, that it will rain in uninterrupted succession for six weeks. And who or what was St. Swithin that his day should be connected with forty days’ uninterrupted rain? for six weeks is just the round number of weeks equivalent to forty days. It is evident, in the first place, that he was no Christian saint, though an Archbishop of Canterbury in the tenth century is said to have been called by his name. The patron saint of the forty days’ rain was just Tammuz or Odin, who was worshipped among our ancestors as the incarnation of Noah, in whose time it rained forty days and forty nights without intermission. Tammuz and St. Swithin, then, must have been one and the same. But, as in Egypt, and Rome, and Greece, and almost everywhere else, long before the Christian era, Tammuz had come to be recognised as an incarnation of the Devil, we need not be surprised to find that St. Swithin is no other than St. Satan. One of the current forms of the grand adversary’s name among the Pagans was just Sytan or Sythan. This name, as applied to the Evil Being, is found as far to the east as the kingdom of Siam. It had evidently been known to the Druids, and that in connection with the flood; for they say that it was the son of Seithin that, under the influence of drink, let in the sea over the country so as to overwhelm a large and populous district. (DAVIES, Druids) The Anglo-Saxons, when they received that name, in the very same way as they made Odin into Wodin, would naturally change Sythan into Swythan; and thus, in St. Swithin’s day and the superstition therewith connected, we have at once a striking proof of the wide extent of Devil-worship in the heathen world, and of the thorough acquaintance of our Pagan ancestors with the great Scriptural fact of the forty days’ incessant rain at the Deluge.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If any one thinks it incredible that Satan should thus be canonised by the Papacy in the Dark Ages, let me call attention to the pregnant fact that, even in comparatively recent times, the Dragon–the Devil’s universally recognised symbol–was worshipped by the Romanists of Poictiers under the name of ”the good St. Vermine”!! (Notes of the Society of the Antiquaries of France, SALVERTE)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, as the Pagan Pontifex, to whose powers and prerogatives the Pope had served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so, when the Pope entered into a league and alliance with that system of Devil-worship, and consented to occupy the very position of that Pontifex, and to bring all its abominations into the Church, as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime Minister of the Devil, and, of course, came as thoroughly under his power as ever the previous Pontiff had been. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* This gives a new and darker significance to the mystic Tau, or sign of the cross. At first it was the emblem of Tammuz, at last it became the emblem of Teitan, or Satan himself.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How exact the fulfilment of the Divine statement that the coming of the Man of Sin was to be ”after the working or energy of Satan.” Here, then, is the grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical and Scriptural grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, so the mystery of iniquity is–so far as such a thing is possible–the Devil incarnate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect75.htm#back"><span lang="EN-US">[Back]</span></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Attes, the Sinner</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">We have seen that the name Pan signifies ”to turn aside,” and have concluded that as it is a synonym for Hata, ”to sin,” the proper generic meaning of which is ”to turn aside from the straight line,” that name was the name of our first parent, Adam. One of the names of Eve, as the primeval goddess, worshipped in ancient Babylon, while it gives confirmation to this conclusion, elucidates also another classical myth in a somewhat unexpected way. The name of that primeval goddess, as given by Berosus, is Thalatth, which, as we have seen, signifies ”the rib.” Adam’s name, as her husband, would be ”Baal-Thalatth,” ”Husband of the rib”; for Baal signifies Lord in the sense frequently of ”Husband.” But ”Baal-Thalatth,” according to a peculiar Hebrew idiom already noticed, signifies also ”He that halted or went sideways.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Chaldee Thalatth, ”a rib” or a ”side,” comes from the verb Thalaa, the Chaldee form of Tzalaa, which signifies ”to turn aside,” ”to halt,” ”to sidle,” or ”to walk sideways.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This is the remote origin of Vulcan’s lameness; for Vulcan, as the ”Father of the gods,” needed to be identified with Adam, as well as the other ”fathers of the gods,” to whom we have already traced him. Now Adam, in consequence of his sin and departure from the straight line of duty, was, all his life after, in a double sense ”Baal-Thalatth,” not only the ”Husband of the rib,” but ”The man that halted or walked sideways.” In memory of this turning aside, no doubt it was that the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:26) ”limped at the altar,” when supplicating their god to hear them (for that is the exact meaning in the original of the word rendered ”leaped”–see KITTO’s Bib. Cyclop), and that the Druidic priests went sideways in performing some of their sacred rites, as appears from the following passage of Davies: ”The dance is performed with solemn festivity about the lakes, round which and the sanctuary the priests move sideways, whilst the sanctuary is earnestly invoking the gliding king, before whom the fair one retreats upon the veil that covers the huge stones” (Druids). This Davies regards as connected with the story of Jupiter, the father of the gods, violating his own daughter in the form of a serpent. Now, let the reader look at what is on the breast of the Ephesian Diana, as the Mother of the gods, and he will see a reference to her share in the same act of going aside; for there is the crab, and how does a crab go but sideways? This, then, shows the meaning of another of the signs of the Zodiac. Cancer commemorates the fatal turning aside of our first parent from the paths of righteousness, when the covenant of Eden was broken.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Pagans knew that this turning aside or going sideways, implied death–the death of the soul–(”In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die”); and, therefore, while at the spring festival of Cybele and Attes, there were great lamentations for the death of Attes, so on the Hilaria or rejoicing festival of the 25th of March–that is, Lady-day, the last day of the festival–the mourning was turned into joy, ”on occasion of the dead god being restored to life again” (DUPUIS, Origine de tous les Cultes). If Attes was he that by ”his turning aside” brought sin and death into the world, what could the life be to which he was so speedily restored, but just that new and divine life which enters every soul when it is ”born again,” and so ”passes from death unto life.” When the promise was given that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and Adam grasped it by faith, that, there can be no doubt, was evidence that the divine life was restored, and that he was born again. And thus do the very Mysteries of Attes, which were guarded with special jealousy, and the secret meaning of which Pausanias declares that he found it impossible, notwithstanding all his efforts to discover (Achaica), bear their distinct testimony, when once the meaning of the name of Attes is deciphered, to the knowledge which paganism itself had of the real nature of the Fall, and of the essential character of that death, which was threatened in the primeval covenant.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This new birth of Attes laid the foundation for his being represented as a little child, and so being identified with Adonis, who, though he died a full-grown man, was represented in that very way. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, that commemorated the rape of Proserpine, that is, the seduction of Eve, the lamented god, or Bacchus, was represented as a babe, at the breast of the great Mother, who by Sophocles is called Deo (Antigone). As Deo or Demete, applied to the Great Mother, is evidently just another form of Idaia Mater, ”The Mother of Knowledge” (the verb ”to know” being either Daa or Idaa), this little child, in one of his aspects, was no doubt the same as Attes, and thus also Deoius, as his name is given. The Hilaria, or rejoicing festival of the 25th of March, or Lady-day, owed its gladness to the Annunciation of a birth yet to come, even the birth of the woman’s seed; but, at the same time, the joy of that festival was enhanced by the immediate new birth that very day of Attes, ”The sinner,” or Adam, who, in consequence of his breach of the covenant, had become dead in ”trespasses and sins.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Conclusion</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I have now finished the task I proposed to myself. Even yet the evidence is not nearly exhausted; but, upon the evidence which has been adduced, I appeal to the reader if I have not proved every point which I engaged to demonstrate. Is there one, who has candidly considered the proof that has been led, that now doubts that Rome is the Apocalyptic Babylon? Is there one who will venture to deny that, from the foundation to the topmost stone, it is essentially a system of Paganism? What, then, is to be the practical conclusion from all this?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">1. <b>Let every Christian henceforth and for ever treat it as an outcast from the pale of Christianity. Instead of speaking of it as a Christian Church, let it be recognised and regarded as the Mystery of Iniquity, yea, as the very Synagogue of Satan.</b> With such overwhelming evidence of its real character, it would be folly–it would be worse–it would be treachery to the cause of Christ–to stand merely on the defensive, to parley with its priests about the lawfulness of Protestant orders, the validity of Protestant sacraments, or the possibility of salvation apart from its communion. If Rome is now to be admitted to form a portion of the Church of Christ, where is the system of Paganism that has ever existed, or that now exists, that could not put in an equal claim? On what grounds could the worshippers of the original Madonna and child in the days of old be excluded ”from the commonwealth of Israel,” or shown to be ”strangers to the covenants of promise”? On what grounds could the worshippers of Vishnu at this day be put beyond the bounds of such wide catholicity? The ancient Babylonians held, the modern Hindoos still hold, clear and distinct traditions of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement. Yet, who will venture to say that such nominal recognition of the cardinal articles of Divine revelation could relieve the character of either the one system or the other from the brand of the most deadly and God-dishonouring heathenism? And so also in regard to Rome. True, it nominally admits Christian terms and Christian names; but all that is apparently Christian in its system is more than neutralised by the malignant Paganism that it embodies. Grant that the bread the Papacy presents to its votaries can be proved to have been originally made of the finest of the wheat; but what then, if every particle of that bread is combined with prussic acid or strychnine? Can the excellence of the bread overcome the virus of the poison? Can there by anything but death, spiritual and eternal death, to those who continue to feed upon the poisoned food that it offers? Yes, here is the question, and let it be fairly faced. Can there be salvation in a communion in which it is declared to be a fundamental principle, that the Madonna is ”our greatest hope; yea, the SOLE GROUND OF OUR HOPE”? *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The language of the late Pope Gregory, substantially endorsed by the present Pontiff.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The time is come when charity to the perishing souls of men, hoodwinked by a Pagan priesthood, abusing the name of Christ, requires that the truth in this matter should be clearly, loudly, unflinchingly proclaimed. The beast and the image of the beast alike stand revealed in the face of all Christendom; and now the tremendous threatening of the Divine Word in regard to their worship fully applies (Rev 14:9,10): ”And the third angel followed them, saying, ‘If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, poured without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.’” These words are words of awful import; and woe to the man who is found finally under the guilt which they imply. These words, as has already been admitted by Elliott, contain a ”chronological prophecy,” a prophecy not referring to the Dark Ages, but to a period not far distant from the consummation, when the Gospel should be widely diffused, and when bright light should be cast on the character and doom of the apostate Church of Rome (vv 6-8). They come, in the Divine chronology of events, immediately after an angel has proclaimed, ”BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN.” We have, as it were, with our own ears heard this predicted ”Fall of Babylon” announced from the high places of Rome itself, when the seven hills of the ”Eternal City” reverberated with the guns that proclaimed, not merely to the citizens of the Roman republic, but to the wide world, that ”PAPACY HAD FALLEN, de facto and de jure, from the temporal throne of the Roman State.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Apocalypse announces two falls of Babylon. The fall referred to above is evidently only the first. The prophecy clearly implies, that after the first fall it rises to a greater height than before; and therefore the necessity of the warning.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, it is in the order of the prophecy, after this fall of Babylon, that this fearful threatening comes. Can there, then, be a doubt that this threatening specially and peculiarly applies to this very time? Never till now was the real nature of the Papacy fully revealed; never till now was the Image of the beast set up. Till the Image of the beast was erected, till the blasphemous decree of the Immaculate Conception was promulged, no such apostacy had taken place, even in Rome, no such guilt had been contracted, as now lies at the door of the great Babylon. This, then, is a subject of infinite importance to every one within the pale of the Church of Rome–to every one also who is looking, as so many at present are doing, towards the City of the Seven Hills. If any one can prove that the Pope does not assume all the prerogatives and bear substantially all the blasphemous titles of that Babylonian beast that ”had the wound by a sword, and did live,” and if it can be shown that the Madonna, that has so recently with one consent been set up, is not in every essential respect the same as the Chaldean ”Image” of the beast, they may indeed afford to despise the threatening contained in these words. But if neither the one nor the other can be proved (and I challenge the strictest scrutiny in regard to both), then every one within the pale of the Papacy may well tremble at such a threatening. Now, then, as never before, may the voice Divine, and that a voice of the tenderest love, be heard sounding from the Eternal throne to every adherent of the Mystic Babylon, ”Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">2. But if the guilt and danger of those who adhere to the Roman Church, believing it to be the only Church where salvation can be found, be so great, what must be the guilt of those who, with a Protestant profession, nevertheless uphold the doomed Babylon? The constitution of this land requires our Queen to swear, before the crown can be put upon her head, before she can take her seat on the throne, that ”she believes” that the essential doctrines of Rome are ”idolatrous.” All the Churches of Britain, endowed and unendowed, alike with one voice declare the very same. They all proclaim that the system of Rome is a system of blasphemous idolatry…And yet the members of these Churches can endow and uphold, with Protestant money, the schools, the colleges, the chaplains of that idolatrous system. If the guilt of Romanists, then, be great, the guilt of Protestants who uphold such a system must be tenfold greater. That guilt has been greatly accumulating during the last three or four yeas. While the King of Italy, in the very States of the church–what but lately were the Pope’s own dominions–has been suppressing the monasteries (and in the space of two years no less than fifty-four were suppressed, and their property confiscated), the British Government has been acting on a policy the very reverse, has not only been conniving at the erection of monasteries, which are prohibited by the law of the land, but has actually been bestowing endowment on these illegal institutions under the name of Reformatories. It was only a short while ago, that it was stated, on authority of the Catholic Directory, that in the space of three years, fifty-two new converts were added to the monastic system of Great Britain, almost the very number that the Italians had confiscated, yet Christian men and Christian Churches look on with indifference. Now, if ever there was an excuse for thinking lightly of the guilt contracted by our national support of idolatry, that excuse will no longer avail. The God of Providence, in India, has been demonstrating that He is the God of Revelation. He has been proving, to an awe-struck world, by events that made every ear to tingle, that every word of wrath, written three thousand years ago against idolatry, is in as full force at this day as when He desolated the covenanted people of Israel for their idols, and sold them into the hands of their enemies. If men begin to see that it is a dangerous thing for professing Christians to uphold the Pagan idolatry of India, they must be blind indeed if they do not equally see that it must be as dangerous to uphold the Pagan idolatry of Rome. Wherein does the Paganism of Rome differ from that of Hindooism? Only in this, that the Roman Paganism is the more complete, more finished, more dangerous, more insidious Paganism of the two.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">I am afraid, that after all that has been said, not a few will revolt from the above comparative estimate of Popery and undisguised Paganism. Let me, therefore, fortify my opinion by the testimonies of two distinguished writers, well qualified to pronounce on this subject. They will, at least, show that I am not singular in the estimate which I have formed. The writers to whom I refer, are Sir George Sinclair of Ulbster, and Dr. Bonar of Kelso. Few men have studied the system of Rome more thoroughly than Sir George, and in his Letters to the Protestants of Scotland he has brought all the fertility of his genius, the curiosa felicitas of his style, and the stores of his highly cultivated mind, to bear upon the elucidation of his theme. Now, the testimony of Sir George is this: ”Romanism is a refined system of Christianised heathenism, and chiefly differs from its prototype in being more treacherous, more cruel, more dangerous, more intolerant.” The mature opinion of Dr. Bonar is the very same, and that, too, expressed with the Cawnpore massacre particularly in view: ”We are doing for Popery at home,” says he, ”what we have done for idolaters abroad, and in the end the results will be the same; nay, worse; for Popish cruelty, and thirst for the blood of the innocent, have been the most savage and merciless that the earth has seen. Cawnpore, Delhi, and Bareilly, are but dust in comparison with the demoniacal brutalities perpetrated by the Inquisition, and by the armies of Popish fanaticism.” These are the words of truth and soberness, that no man acquainted with the history of modern Europe can dispute. There is great danger of their being overlooked at this moment. It will be a fatal error if they be. Let not the pregnant fact be overlooked, that, while the Apocalyptic history runs down to the consummation of all things, in that Divine foreshadowing all the other Paganisms of the world are in a manner cast into the shade by the Paganism of Papal Rome. It is against Babylon that sits on the seven hills that the saints are forewarned; it is for worshipping the beast and his image pre-eminently, that ”the vials of the wrath of God, that liveth and abideth for ever,” are destined to be outpoured upon the nations. Now, if the voice of God has been heard in the late Indian calamities, the Protestantism of Britain will rouse itself to sweep away at once and for ever all national support, alike from the idolatry of Hindoostan and the still more malignant idolatry of Rome. Then, indeed, there would be a lengthening of our tranquility, then there would be hope that Britain would be exalted, and that its power would rest on a firm and stable foundation. But if we will not ”hear the voice, if we receive not correction, if we refuse to return,” if we persist in maintaining, at the national charge, ”that image of jealousy provoking to jealousy,” then, after the repeated and ever INCREASING strokes that the justice of God has laid on us, we have every reason to fear that the calamities that have fallen so heavily upon our countrymen in India, may fall still more heavily upon ourselves, within our own borders at home; for it was when ”the image of jealousy” was set up in Jerusalem by the elders of Judah, that the Lord said, ”Therefore will I also deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” He who let loose the Sepoys, to whose idolatrous feelings and antisocial propensities we have pandered so much, to punish us for the guilty homage we had paid to their idolatry, can just as easily let loose the Papal Powers of Europe, to take vengeance upon us for our criminal fawning upon the Papacy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">3. But, further, if the views established in this work be correct, it is time that the Church of God were aroused. Are the witnesses still to be slain, and has the Image of the Beast only within the last year or two been set up, at whose instigation the bloody work is to be done? Is this, then, the time for indifference, for sloth, for lukewarmness in religion? Yet, alas! how few are they who are lifting up their voice like a trumpet, who are sounding the alarm in God’s holy mountain–who are bestirring themselves according to the greatness of the emergency–to gather the embattled hosts of the Lord to the coming conflict? The emissaries of Rome for years have been labouring unceasingly night and day, in season and out of season, in every conceivable way, to advance their Master’s cause, and largely have they succeeded. But ”the children of light” have allowed themselves to be lulled into a fatal security; they have folded their hands; they have got to sleep as soundly as if Rome had actually disappeared from the face of the earth–as if Satan himself had been bound and cast into the bottomless pit, and the pit had shut its mouth upon him, to keep him fast for a thousand years. How long shall this state of things continue? Oh, Church of God, awake, awake! Open your eyes, and see if there be not dark and lowering clouds on the horizon that indicate an approaching tempest. Search the Scriptures for yourselves; compare them with the facts of history, and say, if there be not reason after all to suspect that there are sterner prospects before the saints than most seem to wot of. If it may turn out that the views opened up in these pages are Scriptural and well-founded, they are at least worthy of being made the subjects of earnest and prayerful inquiry. It never can tend to good to indulge an uninquiring and delusive feeling of safety, when, if they be true, the only safety is to be found in a timely knowledge of the danger and due preparation, by all activity, all zeal, all spirituality of mind, to meet it. On the supposition that peculiar dangers are at hand, and that God in His prophetic Word has revealed them, His goodness is manifest. He has made known the danger, that, being forewarned, we may be forearmed; that, knowing our own weakness, we may cast ourselves on His Almighty grace; that we may feel the necessity of a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost; that the joy of the Lord being our strength, we may be thorough and decided for the Lord, and for the Lord alone, that we may work, every one in his own sphere, with increased energy and diligence, in the Lord’s vineyard, and save all the souls we can, while yet opportunity lasts, and the dark predicted night has not come, wherein no man can work. Though there be dark prospects before us, there is no room for despondency; no ground for any one to say that, with such prospects, effort is vain. The Lord can bless and prosper to His own glory, the efforts of those who truly gird themselves to fight His battles in the most hopeless circumstances; and, at the very time when the enemy cometh in like a flood, He can, by His Spirit, lift up a standard against him. Nay, not only is this a possible thing, there is reason, from the prophetic word, to believe that so it shall actually be; that the last triumph of the Man of Sin shall not be achieved without a glorious struggle first, on the part of those who are leal-hearted to Zion’s King. But if we would really wish to do anything effectual in this warfare, it is indispensable that we know, and continually keep before our eyes, the stupendous character of that Mystery of Iniquity embodied in the Papacy that we have to grapple with. Popery boasts of being the ”old religion”; and truly, from what we have seen, it appears that it is ancient indeed. It can trace its lineage far beyond the era of Christianity, back over 4000 years, to near the period of the Flood and the building of the Tower of Babel. During all that period its essential elements have been nearly the same, and these elements have a peculiar adaptation to the corruption of human nature. Most seem to think that Popery is a system merely to be scouted and laughed at; but the Spirit of God everywhere characterises it in quite a different way. Every statement in the Scripture shows that it was truly described when it was characterised as ”Satan’s Masterpiece”–the perfection of his policy for deluding and ensnaring the world. It is not the state-craft of politicians, the wisdom of philosophers, or the resources of human science, that can cope with the wiles and subtleties of the Papacy. Satan, who inspires it, has triumphed over all these again and again. Why, the very nations where the worship of the Queen of Heaven, with all its attendant abominations, has flourished most in all ages, have been precisely the most civilised, the most polished, the most distinguished for arts and sciences. Babylon, where it took its rise, was the cradle of astronomy. Egypt, that nursed it in its bosom, was the mother of all the arts; the Greek cities of Asia Minor, where it found a refuge when expelled from Chaldea, were famed for their poets and philosophers, among the former Homer himself being numbered; and the nations of the European Continent, where literature has long been cultivated, are now prostrate before it. Physical force, no doubt, is at present employed in its behalf; but the question arises, How comes it that this system, of all others, can so prevail as to get that physical force to obey its behests? No answer can be given but this, that Satan, the god of this world, exerts his highest power in its behalf. Physical force has not always been on the side of the Chaldean worship of the Queen of Heaven. Again and again has power been arrayed against it; but hitherto every obstacle it has surmounted, every difficulty it has overcome. Cyrus, Xerxes, and many of the Medo-Persian kings, banished its priests from Babylon, and laboured to root it out of their empire; but then it found a secure retreat in Pergamos, and ”Satan’s seat” was erected there. The glory of Pergamos and the cities of Asia Minor departed; but the worship of the Queen of Heaven did not wane. It took a higher flight, and seated itself on the throne of Imperial Rome. That throne was subverted. The Arian Goths came burning with fury against the worshippers of the Virgin Queen; but still that worship rose buoyant above all attempts to put it down, and the Arian Goths themselves were soon prostrate at the feet of the Babylonian goddess, seated in glory on the seven hills of Rome. In more modern times, the temporal powers of all the kingdoms of Europe have expelled the Jesuits, the chief promoters of this idolatrous worship, from their dominions. France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Rome itself have all adopted the same measures, and yet what do we see at this hour? The same Jesuitism and the worship of the Virgin exalted above almost every throne on the Continent. When we look over the history of the last 4000 yeas, what a meaning in the words of inspiration, that ”the coming of the Man of Sin” is with the energy, ”the mighty power of Satan.” Now, is this the system that, year by year, has been rising into power in our own empire? And is it for a moment to be imagined that lukewarm, temporising, half-hearted Protestants can make any head against such a system? No; the time is come when Gideon’s proclamation must be made throughout the camp of the Lord: ”Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead.” Of the old martyrs it is said, ”They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.” The same self-denying, the same determined spirit, is needed now as much as ever it was. Are there none who are prepared to stand up, and in that very spirit to gird themselves for the great conflict that must come, before Satan shall be bound and cast into his prison-house? Can any one believe that such an event can take place without a tremendous struggle–that ”the god of this world” shall quietly consent to resign the power that for thousands of years he has wielded, without stirring up all his wrath, and putting forth all his energy and skill to prevent such a catastrophe. Who, then, is on the Lord’s side? If there be those who, within the last few years, have been revived and quickened–stirred up, not by mere human excitement, but by the Almighty grace of God’s Spirit, what is the gracious design of this? Is it merely that they themselves may be delivered from the wrath to come? No; it is that, zealous for the glory of their Lord, they may act the parts of true witnesses, contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and maintain the honour of Christ in opposition to him who blasphemously usurps his prerogatives. If the servants of Antichrist are faithful to their master, and unwearied in promoting his cause, shall it be said that the servants of Christ are less faithful to theirs? If none else will bestir themselves, surely to the generous hearts of the young and rising ministry of Christ, in the kindness of their youth, and the love of their espousals, the appeal shall not be made in vain, when the appeal is made in the name of Him whom their souls love, that in this grand crisis of the Church and of the world, they should ”come to the help of the Lord–the help of the Lord against the mighty,” that they should do what in them lies to strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of those who are seeking to stem the tide of apostacy, and to resist the efforts of the men who are labouring with such zeal, and with so much of infatuated patronage on the part of ”the powers that be,” to bring this land back again under the power of the Man of Sin. To take such a part, and steadily and perseveringly to pursue it, amid so much growing lukewarmness, it is indispensable that the servants of Christ set their faces as a flint. But if they have grace so to do, they shall not do so without a rich reward at last; and in time they have the firm and faithful promise that ”as their day is, so shall their strength be.” For all who wish truly to perform their part as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, there is the strongest and richest encouragement. With the blood of Christ on the conscience, with the Spirit of Christ warm and working in the heart, with our Father’s name on our forehead, and our life, as well as our lips, consistently bearing ”testimony” for God, we shall be prepared for every event. But it is not common grace that will do for uncommon times. If there be indeed such prospects before us, as I have endeavoured to prove there are, then we must live, and feel, and act as if we heard every day resounding in our ears the words of the great Captain of our Salvation, ”To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Lastly, I appeal to every reader of this work, if it does not contain an argument for the divinity of the Scriptures, as well as an exposure of the impostures of Rome. Surely, if one thing more than another be proved in the previous pages, it is this, that the Bible is no cunningly devised fable, but that holy men of God of old spake and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. What can account for the marvellous unity in all the idolatrous systems of the world, but that the facts recorded in the early chapters of Genesis were real transactions, in which, as all mankind were involved, so all mankind have preserved in their various systems, distinct and undeniable memorials of them, though those who have preserved them have long lost the true key to their meaning? What, too, but Omniscience could have foreseen that a system, such as that of the Papacy, could ever effect an entrance into the Christian Church, and practise and prosper as it has done? How could it ever have entered into the heart of John, the solitary exile of Patmos, to imagine, that any of the professed disciples of that Saviour whom he loved, and who said, ”My kingdom is not of this world,” should gather up and systematise all the idolatry and superstition and immorality of the Babylon of Belshazzar, introduce it into the bosom of the Church, and, by help of it, seat themselves on the throne of the Caesars, and there, as the high-priests of the queen of Heaven, and gods upon earth, for 1200 years, rule the nations with a rod of iron? Human foresight could never have done this; but all this the exile of Patmos has done. His pen, then, must have been guided by Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who calleth the things that be not as though they were. And if the wisdom of God now shines forth so brightly from the Divine expression ”Babylon the Great,” into which such an immensity of meaning has been condensed, ought not that to lead us the more to reverence and adore the same wisdom that is in reality stamped on every page of the inspired Word? Ought it not to lead us to say with the Psalmist, ”Therefore, I esteem all Thy commandments concerning all things to be right”? The commandments of God, to our corrupt and perverse minds, may sometimes seem to be hard. They may require us to do what is painful, they may require us to forego what is pleasing to flesh and blood. But, whether we know the reason of these commandments or no, if we only know that they come from ”the only wise God, our Saviour,” we may be sure that in the keeping of them there is great reward; we may go blindfold wherever the Word of God may lead us, and rest in the firm conviction that, in so doing, we are pursuing the very path of safety and peace. Human wisdom at the best is but a blind guide; human policy is a meter that dazzles and leads astray; and they who follow it walk in darkness, and know not whither they are going; but he ”that walketh uprightly,” that walks by the rule of God’s infallible Word, will ever find that ”he walketh surely,” and that whatever duty he has to perform, whatever danger he has to face, ”great peace have all they that love God’s law, and nothing shall offend them.”</span></div>
<br />
<br />
Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-76370076435416852602014-01-16T09:11:00.003-08:002014-01-16T09:15:58.543-08:00Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God. part 1<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">NYHETER</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Pingst gör studiebesök i
Vatikanen</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Saxat ur
tidningen Dagen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Dialogen
mellan Pingst och Katolska kyrkan i Sverige går in i en ny fas. I maj görs ett
gemensamt studiebesök i Vatikanen. Det har aldrig hänt tidigare. -En del kanske
höjer på ögonbrynen, men i klassisk ekumenik är sådana resor en viktig del,
säger Anders Arborelius, biskop i Katolska kyrkan i Sverige.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Inte heller
Pelle Hörnmark, föreståndare i Pingst, tycker att besöket i Rom är märkligt:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Jag ser det
som en naturlig fortsättning på de samtal vi haft under flera år, säger han om
dialogen som började 2003 och sedan dess pågått med träffar ett par gånger
varje år.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Rom är
Katolska kyrkans hjärta i världen. Om vi vill förstå hur de tänker är det
värdefullt att vara med på en sådan resa, säger Pelle Hörnmark.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Sedan han
tillträdde som pingstföreståndare för knappt tre år sedan har han inte deltagit
i samtalen utan valt att koncentrera sig på att jobba inåt i Pingst. Men nu ser
han fram emot att vara delaktig i den fortsatta processen.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Anders Arborelius,
som tillsammans med Sten-Gunnar Hedin tog initiativet till dialogen, hoppas att
besöket ska bidra till en större förståelse och insikt i hur Katolska kyrkan
fungerar:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Dessutom
tror jag att det kommer att leda till att Vatikanen får upp ögonen för den
fördjupade ekumenik som Katolska kyrkan i Sverige har med Pingst, säger Anders
Arborelius.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Han menar
att dialogen med Pingst inte är särskilt ifrågasatt bland katoliker i Sverige:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Nej, jag
tror inte det. De flesta katoliker ser det som något normalt och viktigt. Vi
har flera dialoger på gång samtidigt, bland annat med Svenska missionskyrkan
som vi också gjort resor med, säger han.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Inte rädd för samtal</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Pelle
Hörnmark är medveten om att det finns de inom Pingst som anser att man inte
borde ha en dialog med Katolska kyrkan.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Själv håller
han dock inte med:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Bara den
som är otrygg är rädd för ett samtal, säger han.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Resan till
Rom ser Pelle Hörnmark som ytterligare en möjlighet att bygga ett förtroende
mellan pingstvänner och katoliker i Sverige.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Som jag uppfattar
saken handlar det inte om en åsiktsgemenskap utan om att få en större
förståelse för våra likheter och olikheter samt att söka Andens gemenskap med
varandra. Och det åstadkommer man genom att umgås, säger Pelle Hörnmark.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bygga personliga relationer</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Han jämför
med den dialog Pingst har med Ortodoxa kyrkan i Sverige och som förra året
mynnade ut i en gemensam resa:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-I december
åkte några ledare från Pingst och Ortodoxa kyrkan till Jerusalem med ett
liknande syfte. Det vill säga att upptäcka mer av det vi har gemensamt och att
bygga personliga relationer.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Vad ser du
själv mest fram emot med resan till Rom?</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Dels att
bygga relationer mellan oss som ledare i Pingst och i Katolska kyrkan. Dels att
få större kunskaper om Katolska kyrkan. Det är inga specifika frågor jag söker
svar på utan det handlar mer om att få en känsla och en uppfattning om vilka de
är och vad de står för.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Har du varit
i Rom tidigare?</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Ja, flera
gånger men bara som turist. Att få en chans att se insidan blir förstås en helt
annan upplevelse än att enbart vara med på guidade turer, säger Pelle Hörnmark.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Visar på olika ansikten</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Fredrik
Emanuelson, tillförordnad talesperson för Katolska biskopsämbetet och
Stockholms katolska stift, har bott och studerat i Rom i flera år och är den
som ansvarar för programmet på resan.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Vi har
planerat detta i ungefär ett år och är angelägna om att visa Katolska kyrkans
många olika ansikten.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">För att
underlätta förståelsen och ge en bred bild av Katolska kyrkan har besöket
delats upp på tre olika nivåer: den globala, akademiska och lokala Katolska
kyrkan.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Vi har valt
ett sådant upplägg eftersom det är lätt att få intrycket att Katolska kyrkan
enbart är påven och Vatikanen. Så är det naturligtvis inte och det är viktigt
för oss att förmedla, säger han.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Det blir
bland annat ett besök på Påvliga rådet för främjandet av de kristnas enhet,
eller Enhetsrådet som det brukar kallas, och på Angelicum som är ett av de
katolska universiteten.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Tanken är
att också hinna med att besöka ett av de bästa ekumeniska biblioteken i
världen, Centro pro unione.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Vi planerar
dessutom att stifta bekantskap med en av de största katolska gemenskaperna i
världen, Sant’Egidio, en lekmannarörelse med fokus på att leva evangeliet
tillsammans och att engagera sig socialt, säger Fredrik Emanuelson.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Utökat teologiskt utbyte</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">När Anders
Arborelius beskriver vad åtta års dialog med Pingst betytt så nämner han dels
ett utökat teologiskt utbyte och dels ett närmande på det personliga planet.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Vi
katoliker har också blivit inspirerade av pingstvännernas inställning till
utåtriktat arbete. Vi har upptäckt betydelsen av att gemensamt föra ut det
kristna budskapet i det sekulariserade Sverige, säger Anders Arborelius.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Inte bara gräl mellan kristna</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Den
fortsatta processen med Pingst ser han positivt på. Han tror på teologiska
samtal, både om det som förenar och som skiljer. Han hoppas också på
utåtriktade satsningar tillsammans.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-I svensk
offentlig debatt beskrivs vi kristna ofta som ständigt grälande med varandra.
Men dialogen mellan Katolska kyrkan och Pingst tycker jag är ett bevis på att
vi är konstruktiva.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">-Och att vi
gör en gemensam resa till Rom betyder att vi också kan samverka på många andra
områden, säger Anders Arborelius.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">FAKTA: <b>Resan
till Rom</b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Tolv
personer, sex från vardera Pingst och Katolska kyrkan, åker till Rom.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Från Pingst
är det pingstföreståndaren <b>Pelle Hörnmark</b>, pastorerna <b>Sten-Gunnar
Hedin</b>, <b>Dan Salomonsson </b>och <b>Uno Solinger</b>,
teologen <b>Peter Halldorf</b>, samt Dagens förre chefredaktör <b>Olof
Djurfeldt</b>.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Katolska
kyrkans delegation består av biskop <b>Anders Arborelius</b>,
biskopsvikarie <b>Fredrik Emanuelson</b>, diakon <b>Erik Kennet
Pålsson</b>, dominikansyster <b>Veronica Tournier</b>, universitetslärare<b>Jonas
Holmstrand </b>samt överläkare <b>Michael Alvarsson</b>.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Resan
genomförs den 16-19 maj.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Saxat ur
Bengts Blogg, katolskt fönster.</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Ekumeniken
utvecklas på flera fronter. Innan Pelle Hörnmark stack iväg till Rom fick vi
höra att han predikat på Livets ords söndagsgudstjänst, vilket var historiskt
och vittnar om att relationerna håller på att utvecklas mellan Pingst och
Livets Ord. Ulf Ekman har ju för övrigt också varit i Rom på ett studiebesök
tillsammans med flera av sina pastorer. I dagens läge kan man säga att
relationerna mellan Livets Ord och Katolska kyrkan är mycket goda. Den sista
tioårsperioden har ju inneburit en ny fas i pastor Ulfs utveckling där han helt
ändrat attityd till de gamla samfunden. Vi har ofta sett katoliker som talare
på Livets Ords konferenser, och Ulf Ekman talade själv på den <u><span style="color: blue;">Nordiska katolska karismatiska konferensen</span></u> i
höstas.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Så i
triangeln Katolska kyrkan – Pingst – Livets Ord bedrivs just nu en
intensiv andlig ekumenik</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> som jag tror kommer att visa sig mycket fruktbärande. Jag tror alla tre
samfunden har en likartad syn på hur man bedriver ekumenik. Det handlar om att
lära känna varandra och göra det man kan gemensamt, men utan att kompromissa
med det som är väsentligt och grundläggande för den egna tron. De <u><span style="color: blue;">tio punkter som Charles Whitehead listade som ekumenikens
grunder</span></u> vid Nordiska karismatiska konferensen i Stockholm i höstas
tror jag alla skriver under på.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Den formel
som påve Benedikt XVI (kardinal Ratzinger då intervjun gjordes) uttryckt i <u><span style="color: blue;">intervjuboken </span></u><i>Gud och Världen</i> tror jag
också mycket väl fångar in vad ekumenik handlar om. Ratzinger svarar på
journalisten Peter Seewalds fråga <b>”<i>Kyrkan ber för de kristnas
återförening. </i></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Men vem ska egentligen ansluta
sig till vem</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">?”:</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">——-</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman
Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted
from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names.</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Learn the true origins of:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Mother and Child</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Mass</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Wafer (Eucharist)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Purgatory</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Sovereign Pontiff</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Prayers for the Dead</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Rosary</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Sign of the Cross</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Confessional</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Priests, Monks, and Nuns</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Relic Worship</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Worship of the Sacred Heart</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Extreme Unction</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">and much more!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Although difficult reading, this book accurately provides a fascinating
historical in-depth examination of the shocking similarities between the
practices of ancient Babylonian religion and those of today’s Roman Catholic
church.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">See how a religion that was started by Nimrod and his wife spread to
various regions, taking on different names, but keeping the same pagan rituals
and trappings. These same rituals embody the Catholic church of today.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Similar items:</span></b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">50 Years in the ”Church” of
Rome</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Answers to my Catholic Friends</span></u><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Understanding Roman Catholicism</span></u></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Rev 18:20 Rejoice over her, <i>thou</i> heaven,
and <i>ye</i> holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on
her.</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
SB</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Revelation 18:1-24</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Contents:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Last
form of apostate Christendom and the warning to God’s people. The human and the
angelic views of Babylon.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Conclusion:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> <b>As
there is to be an ecclesiastical (church) Babylon (“confusion”) heading up in
the great Tribulation period,</b> so there is also a great political
Babylon, the pride of the great men of the earth, which shall likewise come to
a terrible and an everlasting end, when Christ shall return in glory. <b>This
great system, back of which is anti-Christ, will bitterly hate any who would
glorify any god but materialism and the beast and will be guilty of the blood
of many prophets and saints who have stood true to the ever-lasting Gospel.</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Key Word:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Babylon’s
fall, <u>Rev_18:2</u>, <u>Rev_18:21</u>.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">JFB</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Revelation 18:20</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">holy apostles</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> — So C
reads. But A, B, <i>Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic,</i> and Andreas read,
“Ye <i>saints and ye</i> apostles.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">avenged you on her</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> — <i>Greek,</i> “judged
your judgment on (literally, exacting it <i>from</i>) her.” “There is more
joy in heaven at the harlot’s downfall than at that of the two beasts. <b>For
the most heinous of all sin is the sin of those who know God’s word of grace,
and keep it not.</b> <b>The worldliness of the Church is the most worldly
of all worldliness.</b> Hence, Babylon, in Revelation, has not only
Israel’s sins, but also the sins of the heathen; and John dwells longer on the
abominations and judgments of the harlot than on those of the beast. <b><u>The
term ‘harlot’ describes the false Church’s essential character</u>. </b>She
retains her human shape as the <i>woman,</i> does not become a <i>beast:</i> <b><u>she
has the form of godliness, but denies its power.</u> </b>Her rightful lord
and husband, Jehovah-Christ, and the joys and goods of His house, are no longer
her all in all, <b>but she runs after the visible and vain things of the
world, in its manifold forms.</b> <b><u>The fullest form of her whoredom
is, where the Church wishes to be itself a worldly power, uses politics and
diplomacy, makes flesh her arm, uses unholy means for holy ends, spreads her
dominion by sword or money, fascinates men by sensual ritualism, becomes
‘mistress of ceremonies’ to the dignitaries of the world, flatters prince or
people, and like Israel, seeks the help of one world power against the danger
threatening from another”</u></b> [Auberlen].</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Judgment,</span></u></i></b><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> therefore, <i>begins with</i> the harlot, as in
privileges <i>the house of God.</i></span></u></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">——-</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Where did the practices and beliefs of Roman Catholicism come from? In this
scholarly classic, first published over eighty years ago, <b>Alexander
Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ
or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and
given Christian names.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">or The Papal Worship Proved to be<br />
the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">By the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">First published as a pamphlet in 1853–greatly expanded in 1858</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Contents</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Introduction</span></u></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter I</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Distinctive Character of the Two Systems</span></u> (35k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter II</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> <b><br />
Objects of Worship</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. Trinity in Unity</span></u> (22k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. The Mother and Child, and the Original
of the Child</span></u> (14k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sub-Section I. The Child in Assyria</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (57k)</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sub-Section II. The Child in Egypt</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (22k)</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sub-Section III. The Child in Greece</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (28k)</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sub-Seciton IV. The Death of the Child</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (10k)</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sub-Section V. The Deification of the Child</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (61k)</span></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Section III. The Mother of the
Child</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (73k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter III</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<b>Festivals</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. Christmas and Lady-day</span></u> (35k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. Easter</span></u> (41k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section III. The Nativity of St. John</span></u> (42k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section IV. The Feast of the Assumption</span></u> (11k)<br />
See Chapter V, Section IV regarding Cupid (St. Valentine’s Day)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter IV</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<b>Doctrine and Discipline</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. Baptismal Regeneration</span></u> (47k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. Justification by Works</span></u> (39k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section III. The Sacrifice of the Mass</span></u> (25k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section IV. Extreme Unction</span></u> (6k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section V. Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead</span></u> (10k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter V</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<b>Rites and Ceremonies</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. Idol Procession</span></u> (15k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. Relic Worship</span></u> (16k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section III. The Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></u> (17k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section IV. The Rosary and the Worship of the
Sacred Heart</span></u> (10k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section V. Lamps and Wax-Candles</span></u> (18k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section VI. The Sign of the Cross</span></u> (21k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter VI</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<b>Religious Orders</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. The Sovereign Pontiff</span></u> (36k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. Priests, Monks, and Nuns</span></u> (19k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter VII</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
<b>The Two Developments Historically and Prophetically Considered</b><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section I. The Great Red Dragon</span></u> (79k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section II. The Beast from the Sea</span></u> (44k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section III. The Beast from the Earth</span></u> (22k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section IV. The Image of the Beast</span></u> (26k)<br />
<u><span style="color: blue;">Section V. The Name of the Beast, the Number of His
Name–the Invisible Head of the Papacy</span></u> (47k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Conclusion</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> (28k)</span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Introduction</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">”And upon
her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF
HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”–Revelation 17:5</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">There is this great difference between the works of men and the works of
God, that the same minute and searching investigation, which displays the defects
and imperfections of the one, brings out also the beauties of the other. If the
most finely polished needle on which the art of man has been expended be
subjected to a microscope, many inequalities, much roughness and clumsiness,
will be seen. But if the microscope be brought to bear on the flowers of the
field, no such result appears. Instead of their beauty diminishing, new
beauties and still more delicate, that have escaped the naked eye, are
forthwith discovered; beauties that make us appreciate, in a way which
otherwise we could have had little conception of, the full force of the Lord’s
saying, ”Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon, in all his
glory, was not arrayed like one of these.” The same law appears also in
comparing the Word of God and the most finished productions of men. There are
spots and blemishes in the most admired productions of human genius. But the
more the Scriptures are searched, the more minutely they are studied, the more
their perfection appears; new beauties are brought into light every day; and
the discoveries of science, the researches of the learned, and the labours of
infidels, all alike conspire to illustrate the wonderful harmony of all the
parts, and the Divine beauty that clothes the whole.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">If this be the case with Scripture in general, it is especially the case
with prophetic Scripture. As every spoke in the wheel of Providence revolves,
the prophetic symbols start into still more bold and beautiful relief. This is
very strikingly the case with the prophetic language that forms the groundwork
and corner-stone of the present work. <b>There never has been any
difficulty in the mind of any enlightened Protestant in identifying the woman
”sitting on seven mountains,” and having on her forehead the name written,
”Mystery, Babylon the Great,” with the Roman apostacy.</b> ”No other city
in the world has ever been celebrated, as the city of Rome has, for its
situation on seven hills. Pagan poets and orators, who had not thought of
elucidating prophecy, have alike characterised it as <b>‘the seven hilled
city.’”</b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">seven (n.)</span></u></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Old English <i>seofon</i>, from Proto-Germanic <i>*sebun</i> (cf.
Old Saxon <i>sibun</i>, Old Norse <i>sjau</i>, Swedish <i>sju</i>,
Danish <i>syv</i>, Old Frisian <i>sowen</i>, <i>siugun</i>,
Middle Dutch <i>seven</i>, Dutch <i>zeven</i>, Old High German <i>sibun</i>,
German <i>sieben</i>, Gothic <i>sibun</i>), from PIE <i>*septm</i> ”seven”
(cf. Sanskrit <i>sapta</i>, Avestan <i>hapta</i>, Hittite <i>shipta</i>,
Greek <i>hepta</i>, Latin <i>septem</i>, Old Church Slavonic <i>sedmi</i>,
Lithuanian <i>septyni</i>, Old Irish <i>secht</i>, Welsh <i>saith</i>).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Long regarded as a number of perfection (e.g. <i>seven wonders</i>; <i>seven
sleepers</i>, the latter translating Latin <i>septem dormientes</i>; <i>seven
against Thebes</i>, etc.), but that notion is late in Old English and in German
a nasty, troublesome woman could be <i>eine böse Sieben</i> ”an evil
seven” (1662).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Magical power or healing skill associated since 16c. with the <i>seventh
son</i> ["The seuenth Male Chyld by iust order (neuer a Gyrle or
Wench being borne betweene)," Thomas Lupton, "A Thousand Notable
Things," 1579]. The typical number for <b>”very great, strong,”</b> e.g. <i>seven-league
boots</i> in the fairy story of Hop o’my Thumb. The <i>Seven Years’
War</i> (1756-63) is also the Third Silesian War.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The <i>Seven Stars</i> (Old English <i>sibunsterri</i>),
usually refers to the Pleiades, though in 15c. and after this name occasionally
was given to the Big Dipper (which also has seven stars), or the seven planets
of classical astronomy. Popular as a tavern sign, it might also (with six in a
circle, one in the center) be a Masonic symbol.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">FOOL: … The reason why the<br />
seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.<br />
LEAR: Because they are not eight?<br />
FOOL: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.<br />
["King Lear," Act I, Scene V]</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Thus Virgil refers to it: ”Rome has both become the most beautiful (city)
in the world, and alone has surrounded for herself seven heights with a wall.”
Propertius, in the same strain, speaks of it (only adding another trait, which
completes the Apocalyptic picture) as ”<b>The lofty city on seven hills, which
governs the whole world.” Its ”governing the whole world” is just the
counterpart of the Divine statement–”which reigneth over the kings of the
earth” (Rev 17:18). </b>To call Rome the city ”of the seven hills” was by
its citizens held to be as descriptive as to call it by its own proper name.
Hence Horace speaks of it by reference to its seven hills alone, when he
addresses, ”<b>The gods who have set their affections on the seven hills.”
Martial, in like manner, speaks of ”The seven dominating mountains.”</b> In
times long subsequent, the same kind of language was in current use; for when
Symmachus, the prefect of the city, and the last acting Pagan Pontifex
Maximus, <b>as the Imperial substitute</b>, introduces by letter one
friend of his to another, he calls him ”De septem montibus virum”–”<b>a man
from the seven mountains</b>,” meaning thereby, as the commentators interpret
it, ”Civem Romanum, ”<b>A Roman Citizen</b>.” Now, while this characteristic of
Rome has ever been well marked and defined, it has always been easy to
show, <b>that the Church which has its seat and headquarters on the seven
hills of Rome might most appropriately be called ”Babylon,” inasmuch as it is
the chief seat of idolatry under the New Testament, as the ancient Babylon was
the chief seat of idolatry under the Old. </b>But recent discoveries in
Assyria, taken in connection with the previously well-known but ill-understood
history and mythology of the ancient world, demonstrate that there is a vast
deal more significance in the name Babylon the Great than this. <b>It has
been known all along that Popery was baptised Paganism; but God is now making
it manifest, that the Paganism which Rome has baptised is, in all its essential
elements, the very Paganism which prevailed in the ancient literal Babylon,
when Jehovah opened before Cyrus the two-leaved gates of brass, and cut in
sunder the bars of iron.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">That new and unexpected light, in some way or other, should be cast, about
this very period, on the Church of the grand Apostacy, the very language and
symbols of the Apocalypse might have prepared us to anticipate. In the
Apocalyptic visions, it is just before the judgment upon her that, for the
first time, John sees the Apostate Church with the name Babylon the Great
”written upon her forehead” (Rev 17:5). What means the writing of that name ”on
the forehead”? Does it not naturally indicate that, just before judgment
overtakes her, her real character was to be so thoroughly developed, that
everyone who has eyes to see, who has the least spiritual discernment, would be
compelled, as it were, on ocular demonstration, to recognise the wonderful
fitness of the title which the Spirit of God had affixed to her. Her judgment
is now evidently hastening on; and just as it approaches, the Providence of
God, conspiring with the Word of God, by light pouring in from all quarters,
makes it more and more evident that Rome is in very deed the Babylon of the
Apocalypse; that the essential character of her system, the grand objects of
her worship, her festivals, her doctrine and discipline, her rites and
ceremonies, her priesthood and their orders, have all been derived from ancient
Babylon; and, finally, that the Pope himself is truly and properly the lineal
representative of Belshazzar. In the warfare that has been waged against the
domineering pretensions of Rome, it has too often been counted enough merely to
meet and set aside her presumptuous boast, that she is the mother and mistress
of all churches–the one Catholic Church, out of whose pale there is no
salvation. If ever there was excuse for such a mode of dealing with her, that
excuse will hold no longer. If the position I have laid down can be
maintained, <b>she must be stripped of the name of a Christian Church
altogether</b>; for if it was a Church of Christ that was convened on that
night, when the pontiff-king of Babylon, in the midst of his thousand lords,
”praised the gods of gold, and of silver, and of wood, and of stone” (Dan 5:4),
then the Church of Rome is entitled to the name of a Christian Church; but not
otherwise. This to some, no doubt, will appear a very startling position; but
it is one which it is the object of this work to establish; and let the reader
judge for himself, whether I do not bring ample evidence to substantiate my
position.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter I<br />
Distinctive Character of the Two Systems</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In leading proof of the Babylonian character of the Papal Church the first
point to which I solicit the reader’s attention, is the character of MYSTERY
which attaches alike to the modern Roman and the ancient Babylonian systems.
The gigantic system of moral corruption and idolatry described in this passage
under the emblem of a woman with a ”GOLDEN CUP IN HER HAND” (Rev 17:4), ”making
all nations DRUNK with the wine of her fornication” (Rev 17:2; 18:3), is
divinely called ”MYSTERY, Babylon the Great” (Rev 17:5). That Paul’s ”MYSTERY
of iniquity,” as described in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, has its counterpart in the
Church of Rome, no man of candid mind, who has carefully examined the subject,
can easily doubt. Such was the impression made by that account on the mind of
the great Sir Matthew Hale, no mean judge of evidence, that he used to say,
that if the apostolic description were inserted in the public ”Hue and Cry” any
constable in the realm would be warranted in seizing, wherever he found him,
the bishop of Rome as the head of that ”MYSTERY of iniquity.” Now, as the
system here described is equally characterised by the name of ”MYSTERY,” it may
be presumed that both passages refer to the same system. But the language
applied to the New Testament Babylon, as the reader cannot fail to see,
naturally leads us back to the Babylon of the ancient world. As the Apocalyptic
woman has in her hand A CUP, wherewith she intoxicates the nations, so was it
with the Babylon of old. Of that Babylon, while in all its glory, the Lord thus
spake, in denouncing its doom by the prophet Jeremiah: ”Babylon hath been a
GOLDEN CUP in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations
have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jer 51:7). Why this
exact similarity of language in regard to the two systems? The natural
inference surely is, that the one stands to the other in the relation of type
and antitype. Now, as the Babylon of the Apocalypse is characterised by the
name of ”MYSTERY,” so the grand distinguishing feature of the ancient
Babylonian system was the Chaldean ”MYSTERIES,” that formed so essential a part
of that system. And to these mysteries, the very language of the Hebrew
prophet, symbolical though of course it is, distinctly alludes, when he speaks
of Babylon as a ”golden CUP.” To drink of ”mysterious beverages,” says
Salverte, was indispensable on the part of all who sought initiation in these
Mysteries. These ”mysterious beverages” were composed of ”wine, honey, water,
and flour.” From the ingredients avowedly used, and from the nature of others
not avowed, but certainly used, there can be no doubt that they were of an
intoxicating nature; and till the aspirants had come under their power, till
their understandings had been dimmed, and their passions excited by the
medicated draught, they were not duly prepared for what they were either to
hear or to see. If it be inquired what was the object and design of these
ancient ”Mysteries,” it will be found that there was a wonderful analogy
between them and that ”Mystery of iniquity” which is embodied in the Church of
Rome. Their primary object was to introduce privately, by little and little,
under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath, what it would not have
been safe all at once and openly to propound. The time at which they were
instituted proved that this must have been the case. The Chaldean Mysteries can
be traced up to the days of Semiramis, who lived only a few centuries after the
flood, and who is known to have impressed upon them the image of her own
depraved and polluted mind. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS compared with JUSTINUS, Historia and EUSEBIUS’
Chronicle. Eusebius says that Ninus and Semiramis reigned in the time of
Abraham.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">That beautiful but abandoned queen of Babylon was not only herself a
paragon of unbridled lust and licentiousness, but in the Mysteries which she
had a chief hand in forming, she was worshipped as Rhea, the great ”MOTHER” of
the gods, with such atrocious rites as identified her with Venus, the MOTHER of
all impurity, and raised the very city where she had reigned to a bad eminence
among the nations, as the grand seat at once of idolatry and consecrated
prostitution. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* A correspondent has pointed out a reference by Pliny to the cup of
Semiramis, which fell into the hands of the victorious Cyrus. Its gigantic
proportions must have made it famous among the Babylonians and the nations with
whom they had intercourse. It weighed fifteen talents, or 1200 pounds. PLINII,
Hist. Nat.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Thus was this Chaldean queen a fit and remarkable prototype of the ”Woman”
in the Apocalypse, with the golden cup in her hand, and the name on her
forehead, ”Mystery, Babylon the Great, the MOTHER of harlots and abominations
of the earth.” The Apocalyptic emblem of the Harlot woman with the cup in her
hand was even embodied in the symbols of idolatry, derived from ancient
Babylon, as they were exhibited in Greece; for thus was the Greek Venus
originally represented, (see <u><span style="color: blue;">note</span></u> below)
and it is singular that in our own day, and so far as appears for the first
time, the Roman Church has actually taken this very symbol as her own chosen
emblem. In 1825, on occasion of the jubilee, Pope Leo XII struck a medal,
bearing on the one side his own image, and on the other, that of the Church of
Rome symbolised as a ”Woman,” holding in her left hand a cross, and in her
right a CUP, with the legend around her, ”Sedet super universum,” ”The whole
world is her seat.” Now the period when Semiramis lived,–a period when the
patriarchal faith was still fresh in the minds of men, when Shem was still
alive, * to rouse the minds of the faithful to rally around the banner for the
truth and cause of God, made it hazardous all at once and publicly to set up
such a system as was inaugurated by the Babylonian queen.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* For the age of Shem see Genesis 11:10, 11. According to this, Shem lived
502 years after the flood, that is, according to the Hebrew chronology, till BC
1846. The age of Ninus, the husband of Semiramis, as stated in a former note,
according to Eusebius, synchronised with that of Abraham, who was born BC 1996.
It was only about nine years, however, before the end of the reign of Ninus,
that the birth of Abraham is said to have taken place. (SYNCELLUS)
Consequently, on this view, the reign of Ninus must have terminated, according
to the usual chronology, about BC 1987. Clinton, who is of high authority in
chronology, places the reign of Ninus somewhat earlier. In his Fasti Hellenici
he makes his age to have been BC 2182. Layard (in his Nineveh and its Remains)
subscribes to this opinion. Semiramis is said to have survived her husband
forty-two years. (SYNCELL) Whatever view, therefore, be adopted in regard to
the age of Ninus, whether that of Eusebius, or that at which Clinton and Layard
have arrived, it is evident that Shem long survived both Ninus and his wife. Of
course, this argument proceeds on the supposition of the correctness of the
Hebrew chronology. For conclusive evidence on that subject, see <u><span style="color: blue;">note 2</span></u> below.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">We know, from the statements in Job, that among patriarchal tribes that had
nothing whatever to do with Mosaic institutions, but which adhered to the pure
faith of the patriarchs, idolatry in any shape was held to be a crime, to be
visited with signal and summary punishment on the heads of those who practised
it. ”If I beheld the sun,” said Job, ”when it shined, or the moon walking in
brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, and * my mouth hath kissed
my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have
denied the God that is above” (Job 31:26-28).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* That which I have rendered ”and” is in the authorised version ”or,” but
there is no reason for such a rendering, for the word in the original is the
very same as that which connects the previous clause, ”and my heart,” &c.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now if this was the case in Job’s day, much more must it have been the case
at the earlier period when the Mysteries were instituted. It was a matter,
therefore, of necessity, if idolatry were to be brought in, and especially such
foul idolatry as the Babylonian system contained in its bosom, that it should
be done stealthily and in secret. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* It will be seen by-and-by what cogent reason there was, in point of fact,
for the profoundest secrecy in the matter. See Chapter II</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Even though introduced by the hand of power, it might have produced a
revulsion, and violent attempts might have been made by the uncorrupted portion
of mankind to put it down; and at all events, if it had appeared at once in all
its hideousness, it would have alarmed the consciences of men, and defeated the
very object in view. That object was to bind all mankind in blind and absolute
submission to a hierarchy entirely dependent on the sovereigns of Babylon. In
the carrying out of this scheme, all knowledge, sacred and profane, came to be
monopolised by the priesthood, who dealt it out to those who were initiated in
the ”Mysteries” exactly as they saw fit, according as the interests of the
grand system of spiritual despotism they had to administer might seem to
require. Thus the people, wherever the Babylonian system spread, were bound
neck and heel to the priests. The priests were the only depositaries of
religious knowledge; they only had the true tradition by which the writs and
symbols of the public religion could be interpreted; and without blind and
implicit submission to them, what was necessary for salvation could not be
known. Now compare this with the early history of the Papacy, and with its
spirit and modus operandi throughout, and how exact was the coincidence! Was it
in a period of patriarchal light that the corrupt system of the Babylonian
”Mysteries” began? It was in a period of still greater light that that unholy
and unscriptural system commenced, that has found such rank development in the
Church of Rome. It began in the very age of the apostles, when the primitive
Church was in its flower, when the glorious fruits of Pentecost were everywhere
to be seen, when martyrs were sealing their testimony for the truth with their
blood. Even then, when the Gospel shone so brightly, the Spirit of God bore
this clear and distinct testimony by Paul: ”THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY DOTH
ALREADY WORK” (2 Thess 2:7). That system of iniquity which then began it was
divinely foretold was to issue in a portentous apostacy, that in due time would
be awfully ”revealed,” and would continue until it should be destroyed ”by the
breath of the Lord’s mouth, and consumed by the brightness of His coming.” But
at its first introduction into the Church, it came in secretly and by stealth,
with ”all DECEIVABLENESS of unrighteousness.” It wrought ”mysteriously” under
fair but false pretences, leading men away from the simplicity of the truth as
it is in Jesus. And it did so secretly, for the very same reason that idolatry
was secretly introduced in the ancient Mysteries of Babylon; it was not safe,
it was not prudent to do otherwise. The zeal of the true Church, though
destitute of civil power, would have aroused itself, to put the false system
and all its abettors beyond the pale of Christianity, if it had appeared openly
and all at once in all its grossness; and this would have arrested its
progress. Therefore it was brought in secretly, and by little and little, one
corruption being introduced after another, as apostacy proceeded, and the backsliding
Church became prepared to tolerate it, till it has reached the gigantic height
we now see, when in almost every particular the system of the Papacy is the
very antipodes of the system of the primitive Church. Of the gradual
introduction of all that is now most characteristic of Rome, through the
working of the ”Mystery of iniquity,” we have very striking evidence, preserved
even by Rome itself, in the inscriptions copied from the Roman catacombs. These
catacombs are extensive excavations underground in the neighbourhood of Rome,
in which the Christians, in times of persecution during the first three
centuries, celebrated their worship, and also buried their dead. On some of the
tombstones there are inscriptions still to be found, which are directly in the
teeth of the now well-known principles and practices of Rome. Take only one
example: What, for instance, at this day is a more distinguishing mark of the
Papacy than the enforced celibacy of the clergy? Yet from these inscriptions we
have most decisive evidence, that even in Rome, there was a time when no such
system of clerical celibacy was known. Witness the following, found on
different tombs:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">1. ”To Basilius, the presbyter, and Felicitas, his wife. They made this for
themselves.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">2. ”Petronia, a priest’s wife, the type of modesty. In this place I lay my
bones. Spare your tears, dear husband and daughter, and believe that it is
forbidden to weep for one who lives in God.” (DR. MAITLAND’S Church in the
Catacombs) A prayer here and there for the dead: ”May God refresh thy spirit,”
proves that even then the Mystery of iniquity had begun to work; but
inscriptions such as the above equally show that it had been slowly and
cautiously working,–that up to the period to which they refer, the Roman Church
had not proceeded the length it has done now, of absolutely ”forbidding its
priests to ‘marry.’” Craftily and gradually did Rome lay the foundation of its
system of priestcraft, on which it was afterwards to rear so vast a
superstructure. At its commencement, ”Mystery” was stamped upon its system.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">But this feature of ”Mystery” has adhered to it throughout its whole
course. When it had once succeeded in dimming the light of the Gospel,
obscuring the fulness and freeness of the grace of God, and drawing away the
souls of men from direct and immediate dealings with the One Grand Prophet and
High Priest of our profession, a mysterious power was attributed to the clergy,
which gave them ”dominion over the faith” of the people–a dominion directly
disclaimed by apostolic men (2 Cor 1:24), but which, in connection with the
confessional, has become at least as absolute and complete as was ever
possessed by Babylonian priest over those initiated in the ancient Mysteries.
The clerical power of the Roman priesthood culminated in the erection of the
confessional. That confessional was itself borrowed from Babylon. The
confession required of the votaries of Rome is entirely different from the
confession prescribed in the Word of God. The dictate of Scripture in regard to
confession is, ”Confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16), which implies
that the priest should confess to the people, as well as the people to the
priest, if either should sin against the other. This could never have served
any purpose of spiritual despotism; and therefore, Rome, leaving the Word of
God, has had recourse to the Babylonian system. In that system, secret
confession to the priest, according to a prescribed form, was required of all
who were admitted to the ”Mysteries”; and till such confession had been made,
no complete initiation could take place. Thus does Salverte refer to this
confession as observed in Greece, in rites that can be clearly traced to a
Babylonian origin: ”All the Greeks, from Delphi to Thermopylae, were initiated
in the Mysteries of the temple of Delphi. Their silence in regard to everything
they were commanded to keep secret was secured both by the fear of the
penalties threatened to a perjured revelation, and by the general CONFESSION
exacted of the aspirants after initiation–a confession which caused them
greater dread of the indiscretion of the priest, than gave him reason to dread
their indiscretion.” This confession is also referred to by Potter, in his
”Greek Antiquities,” though it has been generally overlooked. In his account of
the Eleusinian mysteries, after describing the preliminary ceremonies and
instructions before the admission of the candidates for initiation into the
immediate presence of the divinities, he thus proceeds: ”Then the priest that
initiated them called the Hierophant, proposed certain QUESTIONs, as, whether
they were fasting, &c., to which they returned answers in a set form.” The
etcetera here might not strike a casual reader; but it is a pregnant etcetera,
and contains a great deal. It means, Are you free from every violation of
chastity? and that not merely in the sense of moral impurity, but in that
factitious sense of chastity which Paganism always cherishes. Are you free from
the guilt of murder?–for no one guilty of slaughter, even accidentally, could
be admitted till he was purged from blood, and there were certain priests,
called Koes, who ”heard confessions” in such cases, and purged the guilt away.
The strictness of the inquiries in the Pagan confessional is evidently implied
in certain licentious poems of Propertius, Tibullus, and Juvenal. Wilkinson, in
his chapter on ”Private Fasts and Penance,” which, he says, ”were strictly
enforced,” in connection with ”certain regulations at fixed periods,” has
several classical quotations, which clearly prove whence Popery derived the
kind of questions which have stamped that character of obscenity on its
confessional, as exhibited in the notorious pages of Peter Dens. The pretence
under which this auricular confession was required, was, that the solemnities
to which the initiated were to be admitted were so high, so heavenly, so holy,
that no man with guilt lying on his conscience, and sin unpurged, could
lawfully be admitted to them. For the safety, therefore of those who were to be
initiated, it was held to be indispensable that the officiating priest should
thoroughly probe their consciences, lest coming without due purgation from
previous guilt contracted, the wrath of the gods should be provoked against the
profane intruders. This was the pretence; but when we know the essentially
unholy nature, both of the gods and their worship, who can fail to see that
this was nothing more than a pretence; that the grand object in requiring the
candidates for initiation to make confession to the priest of all their secret
faults and shortcomings and sins, was just to put them entirely in the power of
those to whom the inmost feelings of their souls and their most important
secrets were confided? Now, exactly in the same way, and for the very same
purposes, has Rome erected the confessional. Instead of requiring priests and
people alike, as the Scripture does, to ”confess their faults one to another,”
when either have offended the other, it commands all, on pain of perdition, to
confess to the priest, * whether they have transgressed against him or no,
while the priest is under no obligation to confess to the people at all.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* BISHOP HAY’S Sincere Christian. In this work, the following question and
answer occur: ”Q. Is this confession of our sins necessary for obtaining
absolution? A. It is ordained by Jesus Christ as absolutely necessary for this
purpose.” See also Poor Man’s Manual, a work in use in Ireland.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Without such confession, in the Church of Rome, there can be no admission
to the Sacraments, any more than in the days of Paganism there could be
admission without confession to the benefit of the Mysteries. Now, this
confession is made by every individual, in SECRECY AND IN SOLITUDE, to the
priest sitting in the name and clothed with the authority of God, invested with
the power to examine the conscience, to judge the life, to absolve or condemn
according to his mere arbitrary will and pleasure. This is the grand pivot on
which the whole ”Mystery of iniquity,” as embodied in the Papacy, is made to
turn; and wherever it is submitted to, admirably does it serve the design of
binding men in abject subjection to the priesthood.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In conformity with the principle out of which the confessional grew, the
Church, that is, the clergy, claimed to be the sole depositaries of the true
faith of Christianity. As the Chaldean priests were believed alone to possess
the key to the understanding of the Mythology of Babylon, a key handed down to
them from primeval antiquity, so the priests of Rome set up to be the sole
interpreters of Scripture; they only had the true tradition, transmitted from
age to age, without which it was impossible to arrive at its true meaning.
They, therefore, require implicit faith in their dogmas; all men were bound to
believe as the Church believed, while the Church in this way could shape its
faith as it pleased. As possessing supreme authority, also, over the faith,
they could let out little or much, as they judged most expedient; and ”RESERVE”
in teaching the great truths of religion was as essential a principle in the
system of Babylon, as it is in Romanism or Tractariansim at this day. * It was
this priestly claim to dominion over the faith of men, that ”imprisoned the
truth in unrighteousness” ** in the ancient world, so that ”darkness covered
the earth, and gross darkness the people.” It was the very same claim, in the
hands of the Roman priests, that ushered in the dark ages, when, through many a
dreary century, the Gospel was unknown, and the Bible a sealed book to millions
who bore the name of Christ. In every respect, then, we see how justly Rome
bears on its forehead the name, ”Mystery, Babylon the Great.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Even among the initiated there was a difference. Some were admitted only
to the ”Lesser Mysteries”; the ”Greater” were for a favoured few. WILKINSON’S
Ancient Egyptians</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** Romans 1:18. The best interpreters render the passage as given above. It
will be observed Paul is expressly speaking of the heathen.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Notes</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Woman with Golden Cup</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In Pausanias we find an account of a goddess represented in the very
attitude of the Apocalyptic ”Woman.” ”But of this stone [Parian marble]
Phidias,” says he, ”made a statue of Nemesis; and on the head of the goddess
there is a crown adorned with stags, and images of victory of no great
magnitude. In her left hand, too, she holds a branch of an ash tree, and in her
right A CUP, in which Ethiopians are carved.” (PAUSANIAS, Attica) Pausanias
declares himself unable to assign any reason why ”the Ethiopians” were carved
on the cup; but the meaning of the Ethiopians and the stags too will be
apparent to all who read further. We find, however, from statements made in the
same chapter, that though Nemesis is commonly represented as the goddess of
revenge, she must have been also known in quite a different character. Thus
Pausanias proceeds, commenting on the statue: ”But neither has this statue of
the goddess wings. Among the Smyrneans, however, who possess the most holy
images of Nemesis, I perceived afterwards that these statues had wings. For, as
this goddess principally pertains to lovers, on this account they may be
supposed to have given wings to Nemesis, as well as to love,” i.e., Cupid. The
giving of wings to Nemesis, the goddess who ”principally pertained to lovers,”
because Cupid, the god of love, bore them, implies that, in the opinion of
Pausanias, she was the counterpart of Cupid, or the goddess of love–that is,
Venus. While this is the inference naturally to be deduced from the words of
Pausanias, we find it confirmed by an express statement of Photius, speaking of
the statue of Rhamnusian Nemesis: ”She was at first erected in the form of
Venus, and therefore bore also the branch of an apple tree.” (PHOTII, Lexicon)
Though a goddess of love and a goddess of revenge might seem very remote in
their characters from one another, yet it is not difficult to see how this must
have come about. The goddess who was revealed to the initiated in the
Mysteries, in the most alluring manner, was also known to be most unmerciful
and unrelenting in taking vengeance upon those who revealed these Mysteries;
for every such one who was discovered was unsparingly put to death. (POTTER’S
Antiquities, ”Eleusinia”) Thus, then, the cup-bearing goddess was at once
Venus, the goddess of licentiousness, and Nemesis, the stern and unmerciful one
to all who rebelled against her authority. How remarkable a type of the woman,
whom John saw, described in one aspect as the ”Mother of harlots,” and in
another as ”Drunken with the blood of the saints”!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Hebrew Chronology</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Dr. Hales has attempted to substitute the longer chronology of the
Septuagint for the Hebrew chronology. But this implies that the Hebrew Church,
as a body, was not faithful to the trust committed to it in respect to the
keeping of the Scriptures, which seems distinctly opposed to the testimony of
our Lord in reference to these Scriptures (John 5:39; 10:35), and also to that
of Paul (Rom 3:2), where there is not the least hint of unfaithfulness. Then we
can find a reason that might induce the translators of the Septuagint in
Alexandria to 83 lengthen out the period of the ancient history of the world;
we can find no reason to induce the Jews in Palestine to shorten it. The
Egyptians had long, fabulous eras in their history, and Jews dwelling in Egypt
might wish to make their sacred history go as far back as they could, and the
addition of just one hundred years in each case, as in the Septuagint, to the
ages of the patriarchs, looks wonderfully like an intentional forgery; whereas
we cannot imagine why the Palestine Jews should make any change in regard to
this matter at all. It is well known that the Septuagint contains innumerable
gross errors and interpolations.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Bunsen casts overboard all Scriptural chronology whatever, whether Hebrew,
Samaritan, or Greek, and sets up the unsupported dynasties of Manetho, as if
they were sufficient to over-ride the Divine word as to a question of
historical fact. But, if the Scriptures are not historically true, we can have
no assurance of their truth at all. Now it is worthy of notice that, though
Herodotus vouches for the fact that at one time there were no fewer than twelve
contemporaneous kings in Egypt, Manetho, as observed by Wilkinson, has made no
allusion to this, but has made his Thinite, Memphite, and Diospolitan dynasties
of kings, and a long etcetera of other dynasties, all successive!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The period over which the dynasties of Manetho extend, beginning with
Menes, the first king of these dynasties, is in itself a very lengthened
period, and surpassing all rational belief. But Bunsen, not content with this,
expresses his very confident persuasion that there had been long lines of
powerful monarchs in Upper and Lower Egypt, ”during a period of from two to
four thousand years,” even before the reign of Menes. In coming to such a
conclusion, he plainly goes upon the supposition that the name Mizraim, which
is the Scriptural name of the land of Egypt, and is evidently derived from the
name of the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah, is not, after all, the name of a
person, but the name of the united kingdom formed under Menes out of ”the two
Misr,” ”Upper and Lower Egypt,” which had previously existed as separate
kingdoms, the name Misrim, according to him, being a plural word. This
derivation of the name Mizraim, or Misrim, as a plural word, infallibly leaves
the impression that Mizraim, the son of Ham, must be only a mythical personage.
But there is no real reason for thinking that Mizraim is a plural word, or that
it became the name of ”the land of Ham,” from any other reason than because that
land was also the land of Ham’s son. Mizraim, as it stands in the Hebrew of
Genesis, without the points, is Metzrim; and Metzr-im signifies ”The encloser
or embanker of the sea” (the word being derived from Im, the same as Yam, ”the
sea,” and Tzr, ”to enclose,” with the formative M prefixed).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">If the accounts which ancient history has handed down to us of the original
state of Egypt be correct, the first man who formed a settlement there must
have done the very thing implied in this name. Diodorus Siculus tells us that,
in primitive times, that which, when he wrote, ”was Egypt, was said to have
been not a country, but one universal sea.” Plutarch also says (De Iside) that
Egypt was sea. From Herodotus, too, we have very striking evidence to the same
effect. He excepts the province of Thebes from his statement; but when it is
seen that ”the province of Thebes” did not belong to Mizraim, or Egypt proper,
which, says the author of the article ”Mizraim” in Biblical Cyclopoedia,
”properly denotes Lower Egypt”; the testimony of Herodotus will be seen
entirely to agree with that of Diodorus and Plutarch. His statement is, that in
the reign of the first king, ”the whole of Egypt (except the province of
Thebes) was an extended marsh. No part of that which is now situate beyond the
lake Moeris was to be seen, the distance between which lake and the sea is a
journey of seven days.” Thus all Mizraim or Lower Egypt was under water.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">This state of the country arose from the unrestrained overflowing of the
Nile, which, to adopt the language of Wilkinson, ”formerly washed the foot of
the sandy mountains of the Lybian chain.” Now, before Egypt could be fit for
being a suitable place for human abode–before it could become what it
afterwards did become, one of the most fertile of all lands, it was
indispensable that bounds should be set to the overflowings of the sea (for by
the very name of the Ocean, or Sea, the Nile was anciently called–DIODORUS),
and that for this purpose great embankments should enclose or confine its
waters. If Ham’s son, then, led a colony into Lower Egypt and settled it there,
this very work he must have done. And what more natural than that a name should
be given him in memory of his great achievement? and what name so exactly
descriptive as Metzr-im, ”The embanker of the sea,” or as the name is found at
this day applied to all Egypt (WILKINSON), Musr or Misr? Names always tend to
abbreviation in the mouths of a people, and, therefore, ”The land of Misr” is
evidently just ”The land of the embanker.” From this statement it follows that
the ”embanking of the sea”–the ”enclosing” of it within certain bounds, was the
making of it as a river, so far as Lower Egypt was concerned. Viewing the
matter in this light, what a meaning is there in the Divine language in Ezekiel
29:3, where judgments are denounced against the king of Egypt, the
representative of Metzr-im, ”The embanker of the sea,” for his pride: ”Behold,
I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the
midst of his rivers, which saith, My river is mine own, I have made it for
myself.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When we turn to what is recorded of the doings of Menes, who, by Herodotus,
Manetho, and Diodorus alike, is made the first historical king of Egypt, and
compare what is said of him, with this simple explanation of the meaning of the
name of Mizraim, how does the one cast light on the other? Thus does Wilkinson
describe the great work which entailed fame on Menes, ”who,” says he, ”is
allowed by universal consent to have been the first sovereign of the country.”
”Having diverted the course of the Nile, which formerly washed the foot of the
sandy mountains of the Lybian chain, he obliged it to run in the centre of the
valley, nearly at an equal distance between the two parallel ridges of
mountains which border it on the east and west; and built the city of Memphis
in the bed of the ancient channel. This change was effected by constructing a
dyke about a hundred stadia above the site of the projected city, whose lofty
mounds and strong EMBANKMENTS turned the water to the eastward, and effectually
CONFINED the river to its new bed. The dyke was carefully kept in repair by
succeeding kings; and, even as late as the Persian invasion, a guard was always
maintained there, to overlook the necessary repairs, and to watch over the
state of the embankments.” (Egyptians)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When we see that Menes, the first of the acknowledged historical kings of
Egypt, accomplished that very achievement which is implied in the name of
Mizraim, who can resist the conclusion that menes and Mizraim are only two
different names for the same person? And if so, what becomes of Bunsen’s vision
of powerful dynasties of sovereigns ”during a period of from two to four
thousand years” before the reign of Menes, by which all Scriptural chronology respecting
Noah and his sons was to be upset, when it turns out that Menes must have been
Mizraim, the grandson of Noah himself? Thus does Scripture contain, within its
own bosom, the means of vindicating itself; and thus do its minutest
statements, even in regard to matters of fact, when thoroughly understood, shed
surprising light on the dark parts of the history of the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter II<br />
Section I<br />
Trinity in Unity</span></b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">If there be this general coincidence between the systems of Babylon and
Rome, the question arises, Does the coincidence stop here? To this the answer
is, Far otherwise. We have only to bring the ancient Babylonian Mysteries to
bear on the whole system of Rome, and then it will be seen how immensely the
one has borrowed from the other. These Mysteries were long shrouded in
darkness, but now the thick darkness begins to pass away. All who have paid the
least attention to the literature of Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, or Rome are
aware of the place which the ”Mysteries” occupied in these countries, and that,
whatever circumstantial diversities there might be, in all essential respects
these ”Mysteries” in the different countries were the same. Now, as the
language of Jeremiah, already quoted, would indicate that Babylon was the
primal source from which all these systems of idolatry flowed, so the
deductions of the most learned historians, on mere historical grounds have led
to the same conclusion. From Zonaras we find that the concurrent testimony of
the ancient authors he had consulted was to this effect; for, speaking of
arithmetic and astronomy, he says: ”It is said that these came from the
Chaldees to the Egyptians, and thence to the Greeks.” If the Egyptians and
Greeks derived their arithmetic and astronomy from Chaldea, seeing these in
Chaldea were sacred sciences, and monopolised by the priests, that is
sufficient evidence that they must have derived their religion from the same
quarter. Both Bunsen and Layard in their researches have come to substantially
the same result. The statement of Bunsen is to the effect that the religious
system of Egypt was derived from Asia, and ”the primitive empire in Babel.”
Layard, again, though taking a somewhat more favourable view of the system of
the Chaldean Magi, than, I am persuaded, the facts of history warrant,
nevertheless thus speaks of that system: ”Of the great antiquity of this
primitive worship there is abundant evidence, and that it originated among the
inhabitants of the Assyrian plains, we have the united testimony of sacred and
profane history. It obtained the epithet of perfect, and was believed to be the
most ancient of religious systems, having preceded that of the Egyptians.” ”The
identity,” he adds, ”of many of the Assyrian doctrines with those of Egypt is
alluded to by Porphyry and Clemens”; and, in connection with the same subject,
he quotes the following from Birch on Babylonian cylinders and monuments: ”The
zodiacal signs…show unequivocally that the Greeks derived their notions and
arrangements of the zodiac [and consequently their Mythology, that was
intertwined with it] from the Chaldees. The identity of Nimrod with the
constellation Orion is not to be rejected.” Ouvaroff, also, in his learned work
on the Eleusinian mysteries, has come to the same conclusion. After referring
to the fact that the Egyptian priests claimed the honour of having transmitted
to the Greeks the first elements of Polytheism, he thus concludes: ”These
positive facts would sufficiently prove, even without the conformity of ideas,
that the Mysteries transplanted into Greece, and there united with a certain
number of local notions, never lost the character of their origin derived from
the cradle of the moral and religious ideas of the universe. All these separate
facts–all these scattered testimonies, recur to that fruitful principle which
places in the East the centre of science and civilisation.” If thus we have
evidence that Egypt and Greece derived their religion from Babylon, we have
equal evidence that the religious system of the Phoenicians came from the same
source. Macrobius shows that the distinguishing feature of the Phoenician
idolatry must have been imported from Assyria, which, in classic writers,
included Babylonia. ”The worship of the Architic Venus,” says he, ”formerly
flourished as much among the Assyrians as it does now among the Phenicians.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now to establish the identity between the systems of ancient Babylon and
Papal Rome, we have just to inquire in how far does the system of the Papacy
agree with the system established in these Babylonian Mysteries. In prosecuting
such an inquiry there are considerable difficulties to be overcome; for, as in
geology, it is impossible at all points to reach the deep, underlying strata of
the earth’s surface, so it is not to be expected that in any one country we
should find a complete and connected account of the system established in that
country. But yet, even as the geologist, by examining the contents of a fissure
here, an upheaval there, and what ”crops out” of itself on the surface elsewhere,
is enabled to determine, with wonderful certainty, the order and general
contents of the different strata over all the earth, so is it with the subject
of the Chaldean Mysteries. What is wanted in one country is supplemented in
another; and what actually ”crops out” in different directions, to a large
extent necessarily determines the character of much that does not directly
appear on the surface. Taking, then, the admitted unity and Babylonian
character of the ancient Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, and Rome, as
the clue to guide us in our researches, let us go on from step to step in our
comparison of the doctrine and practice of the two Babylons–the Babylon of the
Old Testament and the Babylon of the New.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">And here I have to notice, first, the identity of the objects of worship in
Babylon and Rome. The ancient Babylonians, just as the modern Romans,
recognised in words the unity of the Godhead; and, while worshipping
innumerable minor deities, as possessed of certain influence on human affairs,
they distinctly acknowledged that there was ONE infinite and almighty Creator,
supreme over all. Most other nations did the same. ”In the early ages of
mankind,” says Wilkinson in his ”Ancient Egyptians,” ”The existence of a sole
and omnipotent Deity, who created all things, seems to have been the universal
belief; and tradition taught men the same notions on this subject, which, in
later times, have been adopted by all civilised nations.” ”The Gothic
religion,” says Mallet, ”taught the being of a supreme God, Master of the
Universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient.” (Tacti. de Morib.
Germ.) The ancient Icelandic mythology calls him ”the Author of every thing
that existeth, the eternal, the living, and awful Being; the searcher into
concealed things, the Being that never changeth.” It attributeth to this deity
”an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, and incorruptible justice.” We have
evidence of the same having been the faith of ancient Hindostan. Though modern
Hinduism recognises millions of gods, yet the Indian sacred books show that
originally it had been far otherwise. Major Moor, speaking of Brahm, the
supreme God of the Hindoos, says: ”Of Him whose Glory is so great, there is no
image” (Veda). He ”illumines all, delights all, whence all proceeded; that by
which they live when born, and that to which all must return” (Veda). In the
”Institutes of Menu,” he is characterised as ”He whom the mind alone can
perceive; whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts,
who exists from eternity…the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend.”
In these passages, there is a trace of the existence of Pantheism; but the very
language employed bears testimony to the existence among the Hindoos at one
period of a far purer faith.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Nay, not merely had the ancient Hindoos exalted ideas of the natural
perfections of God, but there is evidence that they were well aware of the
gracious character of God, as revealed in His dealings with a lost and guilty
world. This is manifest from the very name Brahm, appropriated by them to the
one infinite and eternal God. There has been a great deal of unsatisfactory
speculation in regard to the meaning of this name, but when the different
statements in regard to Brahm are carefully considered, it becomes evident that
the name Brahm is just the Hebrew Rahm, with the digamma prefixed, which is
very frequent in Sanscrit words derived from Hebrew or Chaldee. Rahm in Hebrew
signifies ”The merciful or compassionate one.” But Rahm also signifies the WOMB
or the bowels; as the seat of compassion. Now we find such language applied to
Brahm, the one supreme God, as cannot be accounted for, except on the
supposition that Brahm had the very same meaning as the Hebrew Rahm. Thus, we
find the God Crishna, in one of the Hindoo sacred books, when asserting his
high dignity as a divinity and his identity with the Supreme, using the
following words: ”The great Brahm is my WOMB, and in it I place my foetus, and
from it is the procreation of all nature. The great Brahm is the WOMB of all
the various forms which are conceived in every natural womb.” How could such
language ever have been applied to ”The supreme Brahm, the most holy, the most
high God, the Divine being, before all other gods; without birth, the mighty Lord,
God of gods, the universal Lord,” but from the connection between Rahm ”the
womb” and Rahm ”the merciful one”? Here, then, we find that Brahm is just the
same as ”Er-Rahman,” ”The all-merciful one,”–a title applied by the Turks to
the Most High, and that the Hindoos, notwithstanding their deep religious
degradation now, had once known that ”the most holy, most high God,” is also
”The God of Mercy,” in other words, that he is ”a just God and a Saviour.” And
proceeding on this interpretation of the name Brahm, we see how exactly their
religious knowledge as to the creation had coincided with the account of the
origin of all things, as given in Genesis. It is well known that the Brahmins,
to exalt themselves as a priestly, half-divine caste, to whom all others ought
to bow down, have for many ages taught that, while the other castes came from
the arms, and body and feet of Brahma–the visible representative and
manifestation of the invisible Brahm, and identified with him–they alone came
from the mouth of the creative God. Now we find statements in their sacred
books which prove that once a very different doctrine must have been taught.
Thus, in one of the Vedas, speaking of Brahma, it is expressly stated that ”ALL
beings” ”are created from his MOUTH.” In the passage in question an attempt is
made to mystify the matter; but, taken in connection with the meaning of the
name Brahm, as already given, who can doubt what was the real meaning of the
statement, opposed though it be to the lofty and exclusive pretensions of the
Brahmins? It evidently meant that He who, ever since the fall, has been
revealed to man as the ”Merciful and Gracious One” (Exo 34:6), was known at the
same time as the Almighty One, who in the beginning ”spake and it was done,”
”commanded and all things stood fast,” who made all things by the ”Word of His
power.” After what has now been said, any one who consults the ”Asiatic
Researches,” may see that it is in a great measure from a wicked perversion of
this Divine title of the One Living and True God, a title that ought to have
been so dear to sinful men, that all those moral abominations have come that
make the symbols of the pagan temples of India so offensive to the eye of
purity. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* While such is the meaning of Brahm, the meaning of Deva, the generic name
for ”God” in India, is near akin to it. That name is commonly derived from the
Sanscrit, Div, ”to shine,”–only a different form of Shiv, which has the same
meaning, which again comes from the Chaldee Ziv, ”brightness or splendour” (Dan
2:31); and, no doubt, when sun-worship was engrafted on the Patriarchal faith,
the visible splendour of the deified luminary might be suggested by the name.
But there is reason to believe that ”Deva” has a much more honourable origin,
and that it really came originally from the Chaldee, Thav, ”good,” which is
also legitimately pronounced Thev, and in the emphatic form is Theva or Thevo,
”The Good.” The first letter, represented by Th, as shown by Donaldson in his
New Cratylus, is frequently pronounced Dh. Hence, from Dheva or Theva, ”The
Good,” naturally comes the Sanscrit, Deva, or, without the digamma, as it
frequently is, Deo, ”God,” the Latin, Deus, and the Greek, Theos, the digamma
in the original Thevo-s being also dropped, as novus in Latin is neos in Greek.
This view of the matter gives an emphasis to the saying of our Lord (Matt
19:17): ”There is none good but One, that is (Theos) God”–”The Good.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">So utterly idolatrous was the Babylonian recognition of the Divine unity,
that Jehovah, the Living God, severely condemned His own people for giving any
countenance to it: ”They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the
gardens, after the rites of the ONLY ONE, * eating swine’s flesh, and the
abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together” (Isa 66:17).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The words in our translation are, ”behind one tree,” but there is no word
in the original for ”tree”; and it is admitted by Lowth, and the best
orientalists, that the rendering should be, ”after the rites of Achad,” i.e.
”The Only One.” I am aware that some object to making ”Achad” signify, ”The
Only One,” on the ground that it wants the article. But how little weight is in
this, may be seen from the fact that it is this very term ”Achad,” and that
without the article, that is used in Deuteronomy, when the Unity of the Godhead
is asserted in the most emphatic manner, ”Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is
one Jehovah,” i.e., ”only Jehovah.” When it is intended to assert the Unity of
the Godhead in the strongest possible manner, the Babylonians used the term
”Adad.” Macrobii Saturnalia.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In the unity of that one Only God of the Babylonians, there were three
persons, and to symbolise that doctrine of the Trinity, they employed, as the
discoveries of Layard prove, the equilateral triangle, just as it is well known
the Romish Church does at this day. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* LAYARD’s Babylon and Nineveh. The Egyptians also used the triangle as a
symbol of their ”triform divinity.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In both cases such a comparison is most degrading to the King Eternal, and
is fitted utterly to pervert the minds of those who contemplate it, as if there
was or could be any similitude between such a figure and Him who hath said, ”To
whom will ye liken God, and what likeness will ye compare unto Him?”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Papacy has in some of its churches, as, for instance, in the monastery
of the so-called Trinitarians of Madrid, an image of the Triune God, with three
heads on one body. * The Babylonians had something of the same. Mr. Layard, in
his last work, has given a specimen of such a triune divinity, worshipped in
ancient Assyria. **</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* PARKHURST’S Hebrew Lexicon, ”Cherubim.” From the following extract from
the Dublin Catholic Layman, a very able Protestant paper, describing a Popish
picture of the Trinity, recently published in that city, it will be seen that
something akin to this mode of representing the Godhead is appearing nearer
home: ”At the top of the picture is a representation of the Holy Trinity. We
beg to speak of it with due reverence. God the Father and God the Son are
represented as a MAN with two heads, one body, and two arms. One of the heads
is like the ordinary pictures of our Saviour. The other is the head of an old
man, surmounted by a triangle. Out of the middle of this figure is proceeding
the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. We think it must be painful to any
Christian mind, and repugnant to Christian feeling, to look at this figure.”
(17th July, 1856)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** Babylon and Nineveh. Some have said that the plural form of the name of
God, in the Hebrew of Genesis, affords no argument of the doctrine of plurality
of persons in the Godhead, because the same word in the plural is applied to
heathen divinities. But if the supreme divinity in almost all ancient heathen
nations was triune, the futility of this objection must be manifest.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In India, the supreme divinity, in like manner, in one of the most ancient
cave-temples, is represented with three heads on one body, under the name of
”Eko Deva Trimurtti,” ”One God, three forms.” *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Col. KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology. Col. Kennedy objects to the application
of the name ”Eko Deva” to the triform image in the cave-temple at Elephanta, on
the ground that that name belongs only to the supreme Brahm. But in so doing he
is entirely inconsistent, for he admits that Brahma, the first person in that
triform image, is identified with the supreme Brahm; and further, that a curse
is pronounced upon all who distinguish between Brahma, Vishnu, and Seva, the
three divinities represented by that image.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In Japan, the Buddhists worship their great divinity, Buddha, with three
heads, in the very same form, under the name of ”San Pao Fuh.” All these have
existed from ancient times. While overlaid with idolatry, the recognition of a
Trinity was universal in all the ancient nations of the world, proving how
deep-rooted in the human race was the primeval doctrine on this subject, which
comes out so distinctly in Genesis. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The threefold invocation of the sacred name in the blessing of Jacob
bestowed on the sons of Joseph is very striking: ”And he blessed Joseph, and
said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk the God which fed
me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil,
bless the lads” (Gen 48:15,16). If the angel here referred to had not been God,
Jacob could never have invoked him as on an equality with God. In Hosea 12:3-5,
”The Angel who redeemed” Jacob is expressly called God: ”He (Jacob) had power
with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, and prevailed; he wept and made
supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us; even
the Lord God of Hosts; The Lord is his memorial.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When we look at the symbols in the triune figure of Layard, already
referred to, and minutely examine them, they are very instructive. Layard
regards the circle in that figure as signifying ”Time without bounds.” But the
hieroglyphic meaning of the circle is evidently different. A circle in Chaldea
was zero; * and zero also signified ”the seed.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* In our own language we have evidence that Zero had signified a circle
among the Chaldeans; for what is Zero, the name of the cypher, but just a
circle? And whence can we have derived this term but from the Arabians, as
they, without doubt, had themselves derived it from the Chaldees, the grand
original cultivators at once of arithmetic, geometry, and idolatry? Zero, in
this sense, had evidently come from the Chaldee, zer, ”to encompass,” from
which, also, no doubt, was derived the Babylonian name for a great cycle of
time, called a ”saros.” (BUNSEN) As he, who by the Chaldeans was regarded as
the great ”Seed,” was looked upon as the sun incarnate, and as the emblem of
the sun was a circle (BUNSEN), the hieroglyphical relation between zero, ”the
circle,” and zero, ”the seed,” was easily established.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Therefore, according to the genius of the mystic system of Chaldea, which
was to a large extent founded on double meanings, that which, to the eyes of
men in general, was only zero, ”a circle,” was understood by the initiated to
signify zero, ”the seed.” Now, viewed in this light, the triune emblem of the
supreme Assyrian divinity shows clearly what had been the original patriarchal
faith. First, there is the head of the old man; next, there is the zero, or
circle, for ”the seed”; and lastly, the wings and tail of the bird or dove; *
showing, though blasphemously, the unity of Father, Seed, or Son, and Holy
Ghost.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* From the statement in Genesis 1:2, that ”the Spirit of God fluttered on
the face of the deep” (for that is the expression in the original), it is
evident that the dove had very early been a Divine emblem for the Holy Spirit.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">While this had been the original way in which Pagan idolatry had
represented the Triune God, and though this kind of representation had survived
to Sennacherib’s time, yet there is evidence that, at a very early period, an
important change had taken place in the Babylonian notions in regard to the
divinity; and that the three persons had come to be, the Eternal Father, the
Spirit of God incarnate in a human mother, and a Divine Son, the fruit of that
incarnation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
The Mother and Child, and the Original of the Child</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">While this was the theory, the first perons in the Godhead was practically
overlooked. As the Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs,
he was ”to be worshipped through silence alone,” that is, in point of fact, he
was not worshipped by the multitude at all. The same thing is strikingly
illustrated in India at this day. Though Brahma, according to the sacred books,
is the first person of the Hindoo Triad, and the religiion of Hindostan is
callec by his name, yet he is never worshipped, and there is scarcely a single
Temple in all India now in existence of those that were formerly erected to his
honour. So also is it in those countries of Europe where the Papal system is
most completely developed. In Papal Italy, as travellers universally admit
(except where the Gospel has recently entered), all appearance of worshipping
the King Eternal and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and the
Child are the grand objects of worship. Exactly so, in this latter respect,
also was it in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians, in their popular religion,
supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in
pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother’s arms. From
Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the
earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of
Isis and Osiris. * In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; ** in Asia,
as Cybele and Deoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter,
the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or
as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; and even in
Thibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astronished to find
the counterpart of Madonna *** and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal
Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a
child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic
artist had been employed to set her up. ****</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Osiris, as the child called most frequently Horus. BUNSEN.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology. Though Iswara is the husband of Isi, he is
also represnted as an infant at her breast.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">*** The very name by which the Italians commonly designate the Virgin, is
just the translation of one of the titles of the Babylonian goddess. As Baal or
Belus was the name of the great male divinity of Babylon, so the female
divinity was called Beltis. (HESYCHIUS, Lexicon) This name has been found in
Nineveh applied to the ”Mother of the gods” (VAUX’S Nineveh and Persepolis);
and in a speech attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, preserved in EUSEBII Proeparatio
Evangelii, both titles ”Belus and Beltis” are conjoined as the titles of the
great Babylonian god and goddess. The Greek Belus, as representing the highest
title of the Babylonian god, was undoubtedly Baal, ”The Lord.” Beltis,
therefore, as the title of the female divinity, was equivalent to ”Baalti,”
which, in English, is ”My Lady,” in Latin, ”Mea Domina,” and, in Italina, is
corrupted into the well known ”Madonna.” In connection with this, it may be
observed, that the name of Juno, the classical ”Queen of Heaven,” which, in
Greek, was Hera, also signified ”The Lady”; and that the peculiar title of
Cybele or Rhea at Rome, was Domina or ”The Lady.” (OVID, Fasti) Further, there
is strong reason to believe, that Athena, the well known name of Minerva at
Athens, had the very same meaning. The Hebrew Adon, ”The Lord,” is, with the
points, pronounced Athon. We have evidence that this name was known to the
Asiatic Greeks, from whom idolatry, in a large measure, came into European
Greece, as a name of God under the form of ”Athan.” Eustathius, in a note on
the Periergesis of Dionysius, speaking of local names in the district of
Laodicea, says the ”Athan is god.” The feminine of Athan, ”The Lord,” is Athan,
”The Lady,” which in the Attic dialect, is Athena. No doubt, Minerva is
commonly represented as a virgin; but, for all that, we learn from Strabo that
at Hierapytna in Crete (the coins of which city, says Muller, Dorians have the
Athenian symbols of Minerva upon them), she was said to be the mother of the
Corybantes by Helius, or ”The Sun.” It is certain that the Egyptian Minerva,
who was the prototype of the Athenian goddess, was a mother, and was styled
”Goddess Mother,” or ”Mother of the Gods.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">**** CRABB’S Mythology. Gutzlaff thought that Shing Moo must have been
borrowed from a Popish source; and there can be no doubt, that in the
individual case to which he refers, the Pagan and the Christian stories had
been amalgamated. But Sir. J. F. Davis shows that the Chinese of Canton find
such an analogy between their own Pagan goddess Kuanyin and the Popish Madonna,
that, in conversing with Europeans, they frequently call either of them
indifferently by the same title. DAVIS’ China. The first Jesuit missionaries to
China also wrote home to Europe, that they found mention in the Chinese sacred
books–books unequivocally Pagan–of a mother and child, very similar to their
own Madonna and child at home.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">One of the names of the Chinese Holy Mother is Ma Tsoopo; in regard to
which, see note below.</span></div>
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</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Note</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Shing Moo and Ma Tsoopo of
China</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The name of Shing Moo, applied by the Chinese to their ”Holy Mother,”
compared with another name of the same goddess in another province of China,
strongly favours the conclusion that Shing Moo is just a synonym for one of the
well known names of the goddess-mother of Babylon. Gillespie (in his Land of
Sinim) states that the Chinese goddess-mother, or ”Queen of Heaven,” in the
province of Fuh-kien, is worshipped by seafaring people under the name of Ma
Tsoopo. Now, ”Ama Tzupah” signifies the ”Gazing Mother”; and there is much reason
to believe that Shing Moo signifies the same; for Mu was one of the forms in
which Mut or Maut, the name of the great mother, appeared in Egypt (BUNSEN’S
Vocabulary); and Shngh, in Chaldee, signifies ”to look” or ”gaze.” The Egyptian
Mu or Maut was symbolised either by a vulture, or an eye surrounded by a
vulture’s wings (WILKINSON). The symbolic meaning of the vulture may be learned
from the Scriptural expression: ”There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and
which the vulture’s eye hath not seen” (Job 28:7). The vulture was noted for
its sharp sight, and hence, the eye surrounded by the vulture’s wings showed
that, for some reason or other, the great mother of the gods in Egypt had been
known as ”The gazer.” But the idea contained in the Egyptian symbol had
evidently been borrowed from Chaldea; for Rheia, one of the most noted names of
the Babylonian mother of the gods, is just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew
Rhaah, which signifies at once ”a gazing woman” and a ”vulture.” The Hebrew
Rhaah itself is also, according to a dialectical variation, legitimately
pronounced Rheah; and hence the name of the great goddess-mother of Assyria was
sometimes Rhea, and sometimes Rheia. In Greece, the same idea was evidently
attached to Athena or Minerva, whom we have seen to have been by some regarded
as the Mother of the children of the sun. For one of her distinguishing titles
was Ophthalmitis (SMITH’S Classical Dictionary, ”Athena”), thereby pointing her
out as the goddess of ”the eye.” It was no doubt to indicate the same thing
that, as the Egyptian Maut wore a vulture on her head, so the Athenian Minerva
was represented as wearing a helmet with two eyes, or eye-holes, in the front
of the helmet. (VAUX’S Antiquities)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Having thus traced the gazing mother over the earth, is it asked, What can
have given origin to such a name as applied to the mother of the gods? A
fragment of Sanchuniathon, in regard to the Phoenician mythology, furnishes us
with a satisfactory reply. There it is said that Rheia conceived by Kronos, who
was her own brother, and yet was known as the father of the gods, and in
consequence brought forth a son who was called Muth, that is, as Philo-Byblius
correctly interprets the word, ”Death.” As Sanchuniathon expressly
distinguishes this ”father of the gods” from ”Hypsistos,” The Most High, * we
naturally recall what Hesiod says in regard to his Kronos, the father of the
gods, who, for a certain wicked deed, was called Titan, and cast down to hell.
(Theogonia)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* In reading Sanchuniathon, it is necessary to bear in mind what
Philo-Byblius, his translator, states at the end of the Phenician History–viz.,
that history and mythology were mingled together in that work.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The Kronos to whom Hesiod refers is evidently at bottom a different Kronos
from the human father of the gods, or Nimrod, whose history occupies so large a
place in this work. He is plainly none other than Satan himself; the name
Titan, or Teitan, as it is sometimes given, being, as we have elsewhere
concluded, only the Chaldee form of Sheitan, the common name of the grand
Adversary among the Arabs, in the very region where the Chaldean Mysteries were
originally concocted,–that Adversary who was ultimately the real father of all
the Pagan gods,–and who (to make the title of Kronos, ”the Horned One,” appropriate
to him also) was symbolised by the Kerastes, or Horned serpent. All ”the
brethren” of this father of the gods, who were implicated in his rebellion
against his own father, the ”God of Heaven,” were equally called by the
”reproachful” name ”Titans”; but, inasmuch as he was the ringleader in the
rebellion, he was, of course, Titan by way of eminence. In this rebellion of
Titan, the goddess of the earth was concerned, and the result was that
(removing the figure under which Hesiod has hid the fact) it became naturally
impossible that the God of Heaven should have children upon earth–a plain
allusion to the Fall.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, assuming that this is the ”Father of the gods,” by whom Rhea, whose
common title is that of the Mother of the gods, and who is also identified with
Ge, or the Earth-goddess, had the child called Muth, or Death, who could this
”Mother of the gods” be, but just our Mother Eve? And the name Rhea, or ”The
Gazer,” bestowed on her, is wondrously significant. It was as ”the gazer” that
the mother of mankind conceived by Satan, and brought forth that deadly birth,
under which the world has hitherto groaned. It was through her eyes that the
fatal connection was first formed between her and the grand Adversary, under
the form of a serpent, whose name, Nahash, or Nachash, as it stands in the
Hebrew of the Old Testament, also signifies ”to view attentively,” or ”to gaze”
(Gen 3:6) ”And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant
to the eyes,” &c., ”she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave
also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.” Here, then, we have the
pedigree of sin and death; ”Lust, when it had conceived, brought forth sin; and
sin, when it was finished, brought forth death” (James 1:15). Though Muth, or
Death, was the son of Rhea, this progeny of hers came to be regarded, not as
Death in the abstract, but as the god of death; therefore, says Philo-Byblius,
Muth was interpreted not only as death, but as Pluto. (SANCHUN) In the Roman
mythology, Pluto was regarded as on a level, for honour, with Jupiter (OVID,
Fasti); and in Egypt, we have evidence that Osiris, ”the seed of the woman,”
was the ”Lord of heaven,” and king of hell, or ”Pluto” (WILKINSON; BUNSEN); and
it can be shown by a large induction of particulars (and the reader has
somewhat of the evidence presented in this volume), that he was none other than
the Devil himself, supposed to have become incarnate; who, though through the
first transgression, and his connection with the woman, he had brought sin and
death into the world, had, nevertheless, by means of them, brought innumerable
benefits to mankind. As the name Pluto has the very same meaning as Saturn,
”The hidden one,” so, whatever other aspect this name had, as applied to the
father of the gods, it is to Satan, the Hidden Lord of hell, ultimately that
all came at last to be traced back; for the different myths about Saturn, when
carefully examined, show that he was at once the Devil, the father of all sin
and idolatry, who hid himself under the disguise of the serpent,–and Adam, who
hid himself among the trees of the garden,–and Noah, who lay hid for a whole
year in the ark,–and Nimrod, who was hid in the secrecy of the Babylonian
Mysteries. It was to glorify Nimrod that the whole Chaldean system of iniquity
was formed. He was known as Nin, ”the son,” and his wife as Rhea, who was
called Ammas, ”The Mother.” The name Rhea, as applied to Semiramis, had another
meaning from what it had when applied to her, who was really the primeval
goddess, the ”mother of gods and men.” But yet, to make out the full majesty of
her character, it was necessary that she should be identified with that
primeval goddess; and, therefore, although the son she bore in her arms was
represented as he who was born to destroy death, yet she was often represented
with the very symbols of her who brought death into the world. And so was it
also in the different countries where the Babylonian system spread.</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section I<br />
The Child in Assyria</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The original of that mother, so widely worshipped, there is reason to
believe, was Semiramis, * already referred to, who, it is well known, was
worshipped by the Babylonians, and other eastern nations, and that under the
name of Rhea, the great Goddess ”Mother.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Sir H. Rawlinson having found evidence at Nineveh, of the existence of a
Semiramis about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, seems inclined
to regard her as the only Semiramis that ever existed. But this is subversive
of all history. The fact that there was a Semiramis in the primeval ages of the
world, is beyond all doubt, although some of the exploits of the latter queen
have evidently been attributed to her predecessor. Mr. Layard dissents from
Sir. H. Rawlinson’s opinion.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">It was from the son, however, that she derived all her glory and her claims
to deification. That son, though represented as a child in his mother’s arms,
was a person of great stature and immense bodily powers, as well as most
fascinating manners. In Scripture he is referred to (Eze 8:14) under the name
of Tammuz, but he is commonly known among classical writers under the name of
Bacchus, that is, ”The Lamented one.” *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* From Bakhah ”to weep” or ”lament.” Among the Phoenicians, says Hesychius,
”Bacchos means weeping.” As the women wept for Tammuz, so did they for Bacchus.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">To the ordinary reader the name of Bacchus suggests nothing more than
revelry and drunkenness, but it is now well known, that amid all the
abominations that attended his orgies, their grand design was professedly ”the
purification of souls,” and that from the guilt and defilement of sin. This
lamented one, exhibited and adored as a little child in his mother’s arms,
seems, in point of fact, to have been the husband of Semiramis, whose name,
Ninus, by which he is commonly known in classical history, literally signified
”The Son.” As Semiramis, the wife, was worshipped as Rhea, whose grand
distinguishing character was that of the great goddess ”Mother,” * the
conjunction with her of her husband, under the name of Ninus, or ”The Son,” was
sufficient to originate the peculiar worship of the ”Mother and Son,” so
extensively diffused among the nations of antiquity; and this, no doubt, is the
explanation of the fact which has so much puzzled the inquirers into ancient
history, that Ninus is sometimes called the husband, and sometimes the son of
Semiramis.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* As such Rhea was called by the Greeks, Ammas. Ammas is evidently the
Greek form of the Chaldee Ama, ”Mother.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">This also accounts for the origin of the very same confusion of
relationship between Isis and Osiris, the mother and child of the Egyptians;
for as Bunsen shows, Osiris was represented in Egypt as at once the son and
husband of his mother; and actually bore, as one of his titles of dignity and
honour, the name ”Husband of the Mother.” * This still further casts light on
the fact already noticed, that the Indian God Iswara is represented as a babe
at the breast of his own wife Isi, or Parvati.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* BUNSEN. It may be observed that this very name ”Husband of the Mother,”
given to Osiris, seems even at this day to be in common use among ourselves,
although there is not the least suspicion of the meaning of the term, or whence
it has come. Herodotus mentions that when in Egypt, he was astonished to hear
the very same mournful but ravishing ”Song of Linus,” sung by the Egyptians
(although under another name), which he had been accustomed to hear in his own
native land of Greece. Linus was the same god as the Bacchus of Greece, or
Osiris of Egypt; for Homer introduces a boy singing the song of Linus, while
the vintage is going on (Ilias), and the Scholiast says that this son was sung
in memory of Linus, who was torn in pieces by dogs. The epithet ”dogs,” applied
to those who tore Linus in pieces, is evidently used in a mystical sense, and
it will afterwards been seen how thoroughly the other name by which he is
known–Narcissus–identifies him with the Greek Bacchus and Egyptian Osiris. In
some places in Egypt, for the song of Linus or Osiris, a peculiar melody seems
to have been used. Savary says that, in the temple of Abydos, ”the priest
repeated the seven vowels in the form of hymns, and that musicians were forbid
to enter it.” (Letters) Strabo, whom Savary refers to, calls the god of that
temple Memnon, but we learn from Wilkinson that Osiris was the great god of
Abydos, whence it is evident that Memnon and Osiris were only different names
of the same divinity. Now the name of Linus or Osiris, as the ”husband of his
mother,” in Egypt, was Kamut (BUNSEN). When Gregory the Great introduced into
the Church of Rome what are now called the Gregorian Chants, he got them from
the Chaldean mysteries, which had long been established in Rome; for the Roman
Catholic priest, Eustace, admits that these chants were largely composed of
”Lydian and Phrygian tunes” (Classical Tour), Lydia and Phrygia being among the
chief seats in later times of those mysteries, of which the Egyptian mysteries
were only a branch. These tunes were sacred–the music of the great god, and in
introducing them Gregory introduced the music of Kamut. And thus, to all
appearance, has it come to pass, that the name of Osiris or Kamut, ”the husband
of the mother,” is in every-day use among ourselves as the name of the musical
scale; for what is the melody of Osiris, consisting of the ”seven vowels”
formed into a hymn, but–the Gamut?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, this Ninus, or ”Son,” borne in the arms of the Babylonian Madonna, is
so described as very clearly to identify him with Nimrod. ”Ninus, king of the
Assyrians,” * says Trogus Pompeius, epitomised by Justin, ”first of all changed
the contented moderation of the ancient manners, incited by a new passion, the
desire of conquest. He was the first who carried on war against his neighbours,
and he conquered all nations from Assyria to Lybia, as they were yet
unacquainted with the arts of war.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The name, ”Assyrians,” as has already been noticed, has a wide latitude
of meaning among the classic authors, taking in the Babylonians as well as the
Assyrians proper.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">This account points directly to Nimrod, and can apply to no other. The
account of Diodorus Siculus entirely agrees with it, and adds another trait
that goes still further to determine the identity. That account is as follows:
”Ninus, the most ancient of the Assyrian kings mentioned in history, performed
great actions. Being naturally of a warlike disposition, and ambitious of glory
that results from valour, he armed a considerable number of young men that were
brave and vigorous like himself, trained them up a long time in laborious
exercises and hardships, and by that means accustomed them to bear the fatigues
of war, and to face dangers with intrepidity.” As Diodorus makes Ninus ”the
most ancient of the Assyrian kings,” and represents him as beginning those wars
which raised his power to an extraordinary height by bringing the people of
Babylonia under subjection to him, while as yet the city of Babylon was not in
existence, this shows that he occupied the very position of Nimrod, of whom the
Scriptural account is, that he first ”began to be mighty on the earth,” and
that the ”beginning of his kingdom was Babylon.” As the Babel builders, when
their speech was confounded, were scattered abroad on the face of the earth,
and therefore deserted both the city and the tower which they had commenced to
build, Babylon as a city, could not properly be said to exist till Nimrod, by
establishing his power there, made it the foundation and starting-point of his
greatness. In this respect, then, the story of Ninus and of Nimrod exactly
harmonise. The way, too, in which Ninus gained his power is the very way in
which Nimrod erected his. There can be no doubt that it was by inuring his
followers to the toils and dangers of the chase, that he gradually formed them
to the use of arms, and so prepared them for aiding him in establishing his
dominions; just as Ninus, by training his companions for a long time ”in
laborious exercises and hardships,” qualified them for making him the first of
the Assyrian kings.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The conclusions deduced from these testimonies of ancient history are
greatly strengthened by many additional considerations. In Genesis 10:11, we
find a passage, which, when its meaning is properly understood, casts a very
steady light on the subject. That passage, as given in the authorised version,
runs thus: ”Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh.” This
speaks of it as something remarkable, that Asshur went out of the land of
Shinar, while yet the human race in general went forth from the same land. It
goes upon the supposition that Asshur had some sort of divine right to that
land, and that he had been, in a manner, expelled from it by Nimrod, while no
divine right is elsewhere hinted at in the context, or seems capable of proof.
Moreover, it represents Asshur as setting up in the IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURHOOD of
Nimrod as mighty a kingdom as Nimrod himself, Asshur building four cities, one
of which is emphatically said to have been ”great” (v 12); while Nimrod, on
this interpretation, built just the same number of cities, of which none is
specially characterised as ”great.” Now, it is in the last degree improbable
that Nimrod would have quietly borne so mighty a rival so near him. To obviate
such difficulties as these, it has been proposed to render the words, ”out of
that land he (Nimrod) went forth into Asshur, or Assyria.” But then, according
to ordinary usage of grammar, the word in the original should have been
”Ashurah,” with the sign of motion to a place affixed to it, whereas it is
simply Asshur, without any such sign of motion affixed. I am persuaded that the
whole perplexity that commentators have hitherto felt in considering this
passage, has arisen from supposing that there is a proper name in the passage,
where in reality no proper name exists. Asshur is the passive participle of a
verb, which, in its Chaldee sense, signifies ”to make strong,” and,
consequently, signifies ”being strengthened,” or ”made strong.” Read thus, the
whole passage is natural and easy (v 10), ”And the beginning of his (Nimrod’s)
kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh.” A beginning naturally
implies something to succeed, and here we find it (v 11): ”Out of that land he
went forth, being made strong, or when he had been made strong (Ashur), and
builded Nineveh,” &c. Now, this exactly agrees with the statement in the
ancient history of Justin: ”Ninus strengthened the greatness of his acquired
dominion by continued possession. Having subdued, therefore, his neighbours,
when, by an accession of forces, being still further strengthened, he went
forth against other tribes, and every new victory paved the way for another, he
subdued all the peoples of the East.” Thus, then, Nimrod, or Ninus, was the
builder of Nineveh; and the origin of the name of that city, as ”the habitation
of Ninus,” is accounted for, * and light is thereby, at the same time, cast on
the fact, that the name of the chief part of the ruins of Nineveh is Nimroud at
this day.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Nin-neveh, ”The habitation of Ninus.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, assuming that Ninus is Nimrod, the way in which that assumption
explains what is otherwise inexplicable in the statements of ancient history
greatly confirms the truth of that assumption itself. Ninus is said to have
been the son of Belus or Bel, and Bel is said to have been the founder of
Babylon. If Ninus was in reality the first king of Babylon, how could Belus or
Bel, his father, be said to be the founder of it? Both might very well be, as
will appear if we consider who was Bel, and what we can trace of his doings. If
Ninus was Nimrod, who was the historical Bel? He must have been Cush; for ”Cush
begat Nimrod” (Gen 10:8); and Cush is generally represented as having been a
ringleader in the great apostacy. * But again, Cush, as the son of Ham, was
Her-mes or Mercury; for Hermes is just an Egyptian synonym for the ”son of
Ham.” **</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* See GREGORIUS TURONENSIS, De rerum Franc. Gregory attributes to Cush what
was said more generally to have befallen his son; but his statement shows the
belief in his day, which is amply confirmed from other sources, that Cush had a
pre-eminent share in leading mankind away from the true worship of God.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** The composition of Her-mes is, first, from ”Her,” which, in Chaldee, is
synonymous with Ham, or Khem, ”the burnt one.” As ”her” also, like Ham,
signified ”The hot or burning one,” this name formed a foundation for covertly
identifying Ham with the ”Sun,” and so deifying the great patriarch, after
whose name the land of Egypt was called, in connection with the sun. Khem, or
Ham, in his own name was openly worshipped in later ages in the land of Ham
(BUNSEN); but this would have been too daring at first. By means of ”Her,” the
synonym, however, the way was paved for this. ”Her” is the name of Horus, who
is identified with the sun (BUNSEN), which shows the real etymology of the name
to be from the verb to which I have traced it. Then, secondly, ”Mes,” is from
Mesheh (or, without the last radical, which is omissible), Mesh, ”to draw
forth.” In Egyptian, we have Ms in the sense of ”to bring forth” (BUNSEN,
Hieroglyphical Signs), which is evidently a different form of the same word. In
the passive sense, also, we find Ms used (BUNSEN, Vocabulary). The radical
meaning of Mesheh in Stockii Lexicon, is given in Latin ”Extraxit,” and our
English word ”extraction,” as applied to birth or descent, shows that there is
a connection between the generic meaning of this word and birth. This
derivation will be found to explain the meaning of the names of the Egyptian
kings, Ramesses and Thothmes, the former evidently being ”The son of Ra,” or
the Sun; the latter in like manner, being ”The son of Thoth.” For the very same
reason Her-mes is the ”Son of Her, or Ham,” the burnt one–that is, Cush.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, Hermes was the great original prophet of idolatry; for he was
recognised by the pagans as the author of their religious rites, and the
interpreter of the gods. The distinguished Gesenius identifies him with the
Babylonian Nebo, as the prophetic god; and a statement of Hyginus shows that he
was known as the grand agent in that movement which produced the division of
tongues. His words are these: ”For many ages men lived under the government of
Jove [evidently not the Roman Jupiter, but the Jehovah of the Hebrews], without
cities and without laws, and all speaking one language. But after that Mercury
interpreted the speeches of men (whence an interpreter is called Hermeneutes),
the same individual distributed the nations. Then discord began.” *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* HYGINUS, Fab. Phoroneus is represented as king at this time.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Here there is a manifest enigma. How could Mercury or Hermes have any need
to interpret the speeches of mankind when they ”all spake one language”? To
find out the meaning of this, we must go to the language of the Mysteries.
Peresh, in Chaldee, signifies ”to interpret”; but was pronounced by old
Egyptians and by Greeks, and often by the Chaldees themselves, in the same way
as ”Peres,” to ”divide.” Mercury, then, or Hermes, or Cush, ”the son of Ham,”
was the ”DIVIDER of the speeches of men.” He, it would seem, had been the
ringleader in the scheme for building the great city and tower of Babel; and,
as the well known title of Hermes,–”the interpreter of the gods,” would
indicate, had encouraged them, in the name of God, to proceed in their
presumptuous enterprise, and so had caused the language of men to be divided,
and themselves to be scattered abroad on the face of the earth. Now look at the
name of Belus or Bel, given to the father of Ninus, or Nimrod, in connection
with this. While the Greek name Belus represented both the Baal and Bel of the
Chaldees, these were nevertheless two entirely distinct titles. These titles
were both alike often given to the same god, but they had totally different
meanings. Baal, as we have already seen, signified ”The Lord”; but Bel
signified ”The Confounder.” When, then, we read that Belus, the father of
Ninus, was he that built or founded Babylon, can there be a doubt, in what
sense it was that the title of Belus was given to him? It must have been in the
sense of Bel the ”Confounder.” And to this meaning of the name of the Babylonian
Bel, there is a very distinct allusion in Jeremiah 1:2, where it is said ”Bel
is confounded,” that is, ”The Confounder is brought to confusion.” That Cush
was known to Pagan antiquity under the very character of Bel, ”The Confounder,”
a statement of Ovid very clearly proves. The statement to which I refer is that
in which Janus ”the god of gods,” * from whom all the other gods had their
origin, is made to say of himself: ”The ancients…called me Chaos.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Janus was so called in the most ancient hymns of the Salii. (MACROB,
Saturn.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, first this decisively shows that Chaos was known not merely as a state
of confusion, but as the ”god of Confusion.” But, secondly, who that is at all
acquainted with the laws of Chaldaic pronunciation, does not know that Chaos is
just one of the established forms of the name of Chus or Cush? * Then, look at
the symbol of Janus, ** whom ”the ancients called Chaos,” and it will be seen
how exactly it tallies with the doings of Cush, when he is identified with Bel,
”The Confounder.” That symbol is a club; and the name of ”a club” in Chaldee
comes from the very word which signifies ”to break in pieces, or scatter
abroad.” ***</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The name of Cush is also Khus, for sh frequently passes in Chaldee into
s; and Khus, in pronunciation, legitimately becomes Khawos, or, without the
digamma, Khaos.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** From Sir WM. BETHAM’S Etruscan Literature and Antiquities Investigated,
1842. The Etruscan name on the reverse of a medal–Bel-athri, ”Lord of spies,”
is probably given to Janus, in allusion to his well known title ”Janus Tuens,”
which may be rendered ”Janus the Seer,” or ”All-seeing Janus.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">*** In Proverbs 25:18, a maul or club is ”Mephaitz.” In Jeremiah 51:20, the
same word, without the Jod, is evidently used for a club (though, in our
version, it is rendered battle-axe); for the use of it is not to cut asunder,
but to ”break in pieces.” See the whole passage.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">He who caused the confusion of tongues was he who ”broke” the previously
united earth (Gen 11:1) ”in pieces,” and ”scattered” the fragments abroad. How
significant, then, as a symbol, is the club, as commemorating the work of Cush,
as Bel, the ”Confounder”? And that significance will be all the more apparent
when the reader turns to the Hebrew of Genesis 11:9, and finds that the very
word from which a club derives its name is that which is employed when it is
said, that in consequence of the confusion of tongues, the children of men were
”scattered abroad on the face of all the earth.” The word there used for
scattering abroad is Hephaitz, which, in the Greek form becomes Hephaizt, * and
hence the origin of the well known but little understood name of Hephaistos, as
applied to Vulcan, ”The father of the gods.” **</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* There are many instances of a similar change. Thus Botzra becomes in
Greek, Bostra; and Mitzraim, Mestraim.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">** Vulcan, in the classical Pantheon, had not commonly so high a place, but
in Egypt Hephaistos, or Vulcan, was called ”Father of the gods.” (AMMIANUS
MARCELLINUS)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Hephaistos is the name of the ringleader in the first rebellion, as ”The
Scatterer abroad,” as Bel is the name of the same individual as the ”Confounder
of tongues.” Here, then, the reader may see the real origin of Vulcan’s Hammer,
which is just another name for the club of Janus or Chaos, ”The god of
Confusion”; and to this, as breaking the earth in pieces, there is a covert
allusion in Jeremiah 1:23, where Babylon, as identified with its primeval god,
is thus apostrophised: ”How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and
broken”! Now, as the tower-building was the first act of open rebellion after
the flood, and Cush, as Bel, was the ringleader in it, he was, of course, the
first to whom the name Merodach, ”The great Rebel,” * must have been given,
and, therefore, according to the usual parallelism of the prophetic language,
we find both names of the Babylonian god referred to together, when the
judgment on Babylon is predicted: ”Bel is confounded: Merodach is broken in
pieces” (Jer 1:2).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Merodach comes from Mered, to rebel; and Dakh, the demonstrative pronoun
affixed, which makes it emphatic, signifying ”That” or ”The great.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The judgment comes upon the Babylonian god according to what he had done.
As Bel, he had ”confounded” the whole earth, therefore he is ”confounded.” As
Merodach, by the rebellion he had stirred up, he had ”broken” the united world
in pieces; therefore he himself is ”broken in pieces.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">So much for the historical character of Bel, as identified with Janus or
Chaos, the god of confusion, with his symbolical club. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* While the names Bel and Hephaistos had the origin above referred to, they
were not inappropriate names also, though in a different sense, for the
war-gods descending from Cush, from whom Babylon derived its glory among the
nations. The warlike deified kings of the line of Cush gloried in their power
to carry confusion among their enemies, to scatter their armies, and to ”break
the earth in pieces” by their resistless power. To this, no doubt, as well as
to the acts of the primeval Bel, there is allusion in the inspired denunciations
of Jeremiah on Babylon. The physical sense also of these names was embodied in
the club given to the Grecian Hercules–the very club of Janus–when, in a
character quite different from that of the original Hercules, he was set up as
the great reformer of the world, by mere physical force. When two-headed Janus
with the club is represented, the two-fold representation was probably intended
to represent old Cush, and young Cush or Nimrod, as combined. But the two-fold
representation with other attributes, had reference also to another ”Father of
the gods,” afterwards to be noticed, who had specially to do with water.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Proceeding, then, on these deductions, it is not difficult to see how it
might be said that Bel or Belus, the father of Ninus, founded Babylon, while,
nevertheless, Ninus or Nimrod was properly the builder of it. Now, though Bel
or Cush, as being specially concerned in laying the first foundations of
Babylon, might be looked upon as the first king, as in some of the copies of
”Eusebius’ Chronicle” he is represented, yet it is evident, from both sacred
history and profane, that he could never have reigned as king of the Babylonian
monarchy, properly so called; and accordingly, in the Armenian version of the
”Chronicle of Eusebius,” which bears the undisputed palm for correctness and
authority, his name is entirely omitted in the list of Assyrian kings, and that
of Ninus stands first, in such terms as exactly correspond with the Scriptural
account of Nimrod. Thus, then, looking at the fact that Ninus is currently made
by antiquity the son of Belus, or Bel, when we have seen that the historical
Bel is Cush, the identity of Ninus and Nimrod is still further confirmed.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">But when we look at what is said of Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, the
evidence receives an additional development. That evidence goes conclusively to
show that the wife of Ninus could be none other than the wife of Nimrod, and,
further, to bring out one of the grand characters in which Nimrod, when
deified, was adored. In Daniel 11:38, we read of a god called Ala Mahozine
*–i.e., the ”god of fortifications.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* In our version, Ala Mahozim is rendered alternatively ”god of forces,” or
”gods protectors.” To the latter interpretation, there is this insuperable
objection, that Ala is in the singular. Neither can the former be admitted; for
Mahozim, or Mauzzim, does not signify ”forces,” or ”armies,” but ”munitions,”
as it is also given in the margin–that is ”fortifications.” Stockius, in his
Lexicon, gives us the definition of Mahoz in the singular, rober, arx, locus
munitus, and in proof of the definition, the following examples:–Judges 6:26,
”And build an altar to the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock” (Mahoz, in
the margin ”strong place”); and Daniel 11:19, ”Then shall he turn his face to the
fort (Mahoz) of his own land.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Who this god of fortifications could be, commentators have found themselves
at a loss to determine. In the records of antiquity the existence of any god of
fortifications has been commonly overlooked; and it must be confessed that no
such god stands forth there with any prominence to the ordinary reader. But of
the existence of a goddess of fortifications, every one knows that there is the
amplest evidence. That goddess is Cybele, who is universally represented with a
mural or turreted crown, or with a fortification, on her head. Why was Rhea or
Cybele thus represented? Ovid asks the question and answers it himself; and the
answer is this: The reason he says, why the statue of Cybele wore a crown of
towers was, ”because she first erected them in cities.” The first city in the
world after the flood (from whence the commencement of the world itself was
often dated) that had towers and encompassing walls, was Babylon; and Ovid
himself tells us that it was Semiramis, the first queen of that city, who was
believed to have ”surrounded Babylon with a wall of brick.” Semiramis, then,
the first deified queen of that city and tower whose top was intended to reach
to heaven, must have been the prototype of the goddess who ”first made towers
in cities.” When we look at the Ephesian Diana, we find evidence to the very
same effect. In general, Diana was depicted as a virgin, and the patroness of
virginity; but the Ephesian Diana was quite different. She was represented with
all the attributes of the Mother of the gods, and, as the Mother of the gods,
she wore a turreted crown, such as no one can contemplate without being
forcibly reminded of the tower of Babel. Now this tower-bearing Diana is by an
ancient scholiast expressly identified with Semiramis. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* A scholiast on the Periergesis of Dionysius, says Layard (Nineveh and its
Remains), makes Semiramis the same as the goddess Artemis or Despoina. Now,
Artemis was Diana, and the title of Despoina given to her, shows that it was in
the character of the Ephesian Diana she was identified with Semiramis; for
Despoina is the Greek for Domina, ”The Lady,” the peculiar title of Rhea or
Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, in ancient Rome. (OVID, Fasti)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When, therefore, we remember that Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing
goddess, was, in point of fact, a Babylonian goddess, and that Semiramis, when
deified, was worshipped under the name of Rhea, there will remain, I think, no
doubt as to the personal identity of the ”goddess of fortifications.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now there is no reason to believe that Semiramis alone (though some have
represented the matter so) built the battlements of Babylon. We have the
express testimony of the ancient historian, Megasthenes, as preserved by
Abydenus, that it was ”Belus” who ”surrounded Babylon with a wall.” As ”Bel,”
the Confounder, who began the city and tower of Babel, had to leave both
unfinished, this could not refer to him. It could refer only to his son Ninus,
who inherited his father’s title, and who was the first actual king of the
Babylonian empire, and, consequently Nimrod. The real reason that Semiramis,
the wife of Ninus, gained the glory of finishing the fortifications of Babylon,
was, that she came in the esteem of the ancient idolaters to hold a
preponderating position, and to have attributed to her all the different
characters that belonged, or were supposed to belong, to her husband. Having
ascertained, then, one of the characters in which the deified wife was
worshipped, we may from that conclude what was the corresponding character of
the deified husband. Layard distinctly indicates his belief that Rhea or
Cybele, the ”tower-crown” goddess, was just the female counterpart of the
”deity presiding over bulwarks or fortresses” and that this deity was Ninus, or
Nimrod, we have still further evidence from what the scattered notices of
antiquity say of the first deified king of Babylon, under a name that
identifies him as the husband of Rhea, the ”tower-bearing” goddess. That name
is Kronos or Saturn. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* In the Greek mythology, Kronos and Rhea are commonly brother and sister.
Ninus and Semiramis, according to history, are not represented as standing in
any such relation to one another; but this is no objection to the real identity
of Ninus and Kronos; for, 1st, the relationships of the divinities, in most
countries, are peculiarly conflicting–Osiris, in Egypt, is represented at
different times, not only as the son and husband of Isis, but also as her
father and brother (BUNSEN); then, secondly, whatever the deified mortals might
be before deification, on being deified they came into new relationships. On
the apotheosis of husband and wife, it was necessary for the dignity of both
that both alike should be represented as of the same celestial origin–as both
supernaturally the children of God. Before the flood, the great sin that
brought ruin on the human race was, that the ”Sons of God” married others than
the daughters of God,–in other words, those who were not spiritually their
”sisters.” (Gen 6:2,3) In the new world, while the influence of Noah prevailed,
the opposite practice must have been strongly inculcated; for a ”son of God” to
marry any one but a daughter of God, or his own ”sister” in the faith, must
have been a misalliance and a disgrace. Hence, from a perversion of a spiritual
idea, came, doubtless, the notion of the dignity and purity of the royal line
being preserved the more intact through the marriage of royal brothers and
sisters. This was the case in Peru (PRESCOTT), in India (HARDY), and in Egypt
(WILKINSON). Hence the relation of Jupiter to Juno, who gloried that she was
”soror et conjux”–”sister and wife”–of her husband. Hence the same relation
between Isis and her husband Osiris, the former of whom is represented as
”lamenting her brother Osiris.” (BUNSEN) For the same reason, no doubt, was
Rhea, made the sister of her husband Kronos, to show her divine dignity and
equality.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">It is well known that Kronos, or Saturn, was Rhea’s husband; but it is not
so well known who was Kronos himself. Traced back to his original, that
divinity is proved to have been the first king of Babylon. Theophilus of
Antioch shows that Kronos in the east was worshipped under the names of Bel and
Bal; and from Eusebius we learn that the first of the Assyrian kings, whose
name was Belus, was also by the Assyrians called Kronos. As the genuine copies
of Eusebius do not admit of any Belus, as an actual king of Assyria, prior to
Ninus, king of the Babylonians, and distinct from him, that shows that Ninus,
the first king of Babylon, was Kronos. But, further, we find that Kronos was
king of the Cyclops, who were his brethren, and who derived that name from him,
* and that the Cyclops were known as ”the inventors of tower-building.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The scholiast upon EURIPIDES, Orest, says that ”the Cyclops were so called
from Cyclops their king.” By this scholiast the Cyclops are regarded as a
Thracian nation, for the Thracians had localised the tradition, and applied it
to themselves; but the following statement of the scholiast on the Prometheus
of Aeschylus, shows that they stood in such a relation to Kronos as proves that
he was their king: ”The Cyclops…were the brethren of Kronos, the father of
Jupiter.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The king of the Cyclops, ”the inventors of tower-building,” occupied a
position exactly correspondent to that of Rhea, who ”first erected (towers) in
cities.” If, therefore, Rhea, the wife of Kronos, was the goddess of
fortifications, Kronos or Saturn, the husband of Rhea, that is, Ninus or
Nimrod, the first king of Babylon, must have been Ala mahozin, ”the god of
fortifications.” (see <u><span style="color: blue;">note</span></u></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">below)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The name Kronos itself goes not a little to confirm the argument. Kronos
signifies ”The Horned one.” As a horn is a well known Oriental emblem for power
or might, Kronos, ”The Horned one,” was, according to the mystic system, just a
synonym for the Scriptural epithet applied to Nimrod–viz., Gheber, ”The mighty
one” (Gen 10:8), ”He began to be mighty on the earth.” The name Kronos, as the
classical reader is well aware, is applied to Saturn as the ”Father of the
gods.” We have already had another ”father of the gods” brought under our
notice, even Cush in his character of Bel the Confounder, or Hephaistos, ”The
Scatterer abroad”; and it is easy to understand how, when the deification of
mortals began, and the ”mighty” Son of Cush was deified, the father, especially
considering the part which he seems to have had in concocting the whole
idolatrous system, would have to be deified too, and of course, in his
character as the Father of the ”Mighty one,” and of all the ”immortals” that
succeeded him. But, in point of fact, we shall find, in the course of our
inquiry, that Nimrod was the actual Father of the gods, as being the first of
deified mortals; and that, therefore, it is in exact accordance with historical
fact that Kronos, the Horned, or Mighty one, is, in the classic Pantheon, known
by that title.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The meaning of this name Kronos, ”The Horned one,” as applied to Nimrod,
fully explains the origin of the remarkable symbol, so frequently occurring
among the Nineveh sculptures, the gigantic HORNED man-bull, as representing the
great divinities in Assyria. The same word that signified a bull, signified
also a ruler or prince. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The name for a bull or ruler, is in Hebrew without points, Shur, which in
Chaldee becomes Tur. From Tur, in the sense of a bull, comes the Latin Taurus;
and from the same word, in the sense of a ruler, Turannus, which originally had
no evil meaning. Thus, in these well known classical words, we have evidence of
the operation of the very principle which caused the deified Assyrian kings to
be represented under the form of the man-bull.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Hence the ”Horned bull” signified ”The Mighty Prince,” thereby pointing
back to the first of those ”Mighty ones,” who, under the name of Guebres,
Gabrs, or Cabiri, occupied so conspicuous a place in the ancient world, and to
whom the deified Assyrian monarchs covertly traced back the origin of their
greatness and might. This explains the reason why the Bacchus of the Greeks was
represented as wearing horns, and why he was frequently addressed by the
epithet ”Bull-horned,” as one of the high titles of his dignity. Even in
comparatively recent times, Togrul Begh, the leader of the Seljukian Turks, who
came from the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, was in a similar manner represented
with three horns growing out of his head, as the emblem of his sovereignty.
This, also, in a remarkable way accounts for the origin of one of the
divinities worshipped by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors under the name of
Zernebogus. This Zernebogus was ”the black, malevolent, ill-omened divinity,”
in other words, the exact counterpart of the popular idea of the Devil, as
supposed to be black, and equipped with horns and hoofs. This name analysed
casts a very singular light on the source from whence has come the popular
superstition in regard to the grand Adversary. The name Zer-Nebo-Gus is almost
pure Chaldee, and seems to unfold itself as denoting ”The seed of the prophet
Cush.” We have seen reason already to conclude that, under the name Bel, as
distinguished from Baal, Cush was the great soothsayer or false prophet
worshipped at Babylon. But independent inquirers have been led to the
conclusion that Bel and Nebo were just two different titles for the same god,
and that a prophetic god. Thus does Kitto comment on the words of Isaiah 46:1
”Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth,” with reference to the latter name: ”The word
seems to come from Nibba, to deliver an oracle, or to prophesy; and hence would
mean an ‘oracle,’ and may thus, as Calmet suggests (‘Commentaire Literal’), be
no more than another name for Bel himself, or a characterising epithet applied
to him; it being not unusual to repeat the same thing, in the same verse, in
equivalent terms.” ”Zer-Nebo-Gus,” the great ”seed of the prophet Cush,” was,
of course, Nimrod; for Cush was Nimrod’s father. Turn now to Layard, and see
how this land of ours and Assyria are thus brought into intimate connection. In
a woodcut, first we find ”the Assyrian Hercules,” that is ”Nimrod the giant,”
as he is called in the Septuagint version of Genesis, without club, spear, or
weapons of any kind, attacking a bull. Having overcome it, he sets the bull’s
horns on his head, as a trophy of victory and a symbol of power; and
thenceforth the hero is represented, not only with the horns and hoofs above,
but from the middle downwards, with the legs and cloven feet of the bull. Thus
equipped he is represented as turning next to encounter a lion. This, in all
likelihood, is intended to commemorate some event in the life of him who first began
to be mighty in the chase and in war, and who, according to all ancient
traditions, was remarkable also for bodily power, as being the leader of the
Giants that rebelled against heaven. Now Nimrod, as the son of Cush, was black,
in other words, was a Negro. ”Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” is in the
original, ”Can the Cushite” do so? Keeping this, then, in mind, it will be seen
that in that figure disentombed from Nineveh, we have both the prototype of the
Anglo-Saxon Zer-Nebo-Gus, ”the seed of the prophet Cush,” and the real original
of the black Adversary of mankind, with horns and hoofs. It was in a different
character from that of the Adversary that Nimrod was originally worshipped; but
among a people of a fair complexion, as the Anglo-Saxons, it was inevitable
that, if worshipped at all, it must generally be simply as an object of fear;
and so Kronos, ”The Horned one,” who wore the ”horns,” as the emblem both of
his physical might and sovereign power, has come to be, in popular
superstition, the recognised representative of the Devil.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">In many and far-severed countries, horns became the symbols of sovereign
power. The corona or crown, that still encircles the brows of European
monarchs, seems remotely to be derived from the emblem of might adopted by
Kronos, or Saturn, who, according to Pherecydes, was ”the first before all
others that ever wore a crown.” The first regal crown appears to have been only
a band, in which the horns were set. From the idea of power contained in the
”horn,” even subordinate rulers seem to have worn a circlet adorned with a
single horn, in token of their derived authority. Bruce, the Abyssinian
traveller gives examples of Abyssinian chiefs thus decorated, in regard to whom
he states that the horn attracted his particular attention, when he perceived
that the governors of provinces were distinguished by this head-dress. In the
case of sovereign powers, the royal head-band was adorned sometimes with a
double, sometimes with a triple horn. The double horn had evidently been the
original symbol of power or might on the part of sovereigns; for, on the
Egyptian monuments, the heads of the deified royal personages have generally no
more than the two horns to shadow forth their power. As sovereignty in Nimrod’s
case was founded on physical force, so the two horns of the bull were the
symbols of that physical force. And, in accordance with this, we read in
Sanchuniathon that ”Astarte put on her own head a bull’s head as the ensign of
royalty.” By-and-by, however, another and a higher idea came in, and the
expression of that idea was seen in the symbol of the three horns. A cap seems
in course of time to have come to be associated with the regal horns. In
Assyria the three-horned cap was one of the ”sacred emblems,” in token that the
power connected with it was of celestial origin,–the three horns evidently
pointing at the power of the trinity. Still, we have indications that the
horned band, without any cap, was anciently the corona or royal crown. The
crown borne by the Hindoo god Vishnu, in his avatar of the Fish, is just an
open circle or band, with three horns standing erect from it, with a knob on
the top of each horn. All the avatars are represented as crowned with a crown
that seems to have been modelled from this, consisting of a coronet with three
points, standing erect from it, in which Sir William Jones recognises the
Ethiopian or Parthian coronet. The open tiara of Agni, the Hindoo god of fire,
shows in its lower round the double horn, made in the very same way as in Assyria,
proving at once the ancient custom, and whence that custom had come. Instead of
the three horns, three horn-shaped leaves came to be substituted; and thus the
horned band gradually passed into the modern coronet or crown with the three
leaves of the fleur-de-lis, or other familiar three-leaved adornings.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Among the Red Indians of America there had evidently been something
entirely analogous to the Babylonian custom of wearing the horns; for, in the
”buffalo dance” there, each of the dancers had his head arrayed with buffalo’s
horns; and it is worthy of especial remark, that the ”Satyric dance,” * or
dance of the Satyrs in Greece, seems to have been the counterpart of this Red
Indian solemnity; for the satyrs were horned divinities, and consequently those
who imitated their dance must have had their heads set off in imitation of
theirs.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* BRYANT. The Satyrs were the companions of Bacchus, and ”danced along with
him” (Aelian Hist.) When it is considered who Bacchus was, and that his
distinguishing epithet was ”Bull-horned,” the horns of the ”Satyrs” will appear
in their true light. For a particular mystic reason the Satyr’s horn was
commonly a goat’s horn, but originally it must have been the same as Bacchus’.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When thus we find a custom that is clearly founded on a form of speech that
characteristically distinguished the region where Nimrod’s power was wielded,
used in so many different countries far removed from one another, where no such
form of speech was used in ordinary life, we may be sure that such a custom was
not the result of mere accident, but that it indicates the wide-spread
diffusion of an influence that went forth in all directions from Babylon, from
the time that Nimrod first ”began to be mighty on the earth.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">There was another way in which Nimrod’s power was symbolised besides by the
”horn.” A synonym for Gheber, ”The mighty one,” was ”Abir,” while ”Aber” also
signified a ”wing.” Nimrod, as Head and Captain of those men of war, by whom he
surrounded himself, and who were the instruments of establishing his power, was
”Baal-aberin,” ”Lord of the mighty ones.” But ”Baal-abirin” (pronounced nearly
in the same way) signified ”The winged one,” * and therefore in symbol he was
represented, not only as a horned bull, but as at once a horned and winged bull–as
showing not merely that he was mighty himself, but that he had mighty ones
under his command, who were ever ready to carry his will into effect, and to
put down all opposition to his power; and to shadow forth the vast extent of
his might, he was represented with great and wide-expanding wings.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* This is according to a peculiar Oriental idiom, of which there are many
examples. Thus, Baal-aph, ”lord of wrath,” signifies ”an angry man”;
Baal-lashon, ”lord of tongue,” ”an eloquent man”; Baal-hatsim, ”lord of
arrows,” ”an archer”; and in like manner, Baal-aberin, ”lord of wings,”
signifies ”winged one.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who
imitated Nimrod and his successors, there is manifest allusion in Isaiah 8:6-8
”Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and
rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth
up upon them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, even the king of
Assyria, and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his banks. And he
shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even
unto the neck; and the STRETCHING OUT OF HIS WINGS shall FILL the breadth of
thy land, O Immanuel.” When we look at such figures, with their great extent of
expanded wing, as symbolising an Assyrian king, what a vividness and force does
it give to the inspired language of the prophet! And how clear is it, also,
that the stretching forth of the Assyrian monarch’s WINGS, that was to ”fill
the breadth of Immanuel’s land,” has that very symbolic meaning to which I have
referred–viz., the overspreading of the land by his ”mighty ones,” or hosts of
armed men, that the king of Babylon was to bring with him in his overflowing
invasion! The knowledge of the way in which the Assyrian monarchs were
represented, and of the meaning of that representation, gives additional force
to the story of the dream of Cyrus the Great, as told by Herodotus. Cyrus, says
the historian, dreamt that he saw the son of one of his princes, who was at the
time in a distant province, with two great ”wings on his shoulders, the one of
which overshadowed Asia, and the other Europe,” from which he immediately
concluded that he was organising rebellion against him. The symbols of the
Babylonians, whose capital Cyrus had taken, and to whose power he had
succeeded, were entirely familiar to him; and if the ”wings” were the symbols
of sovereign power, and the possession of them implied the lordship over the
might, or the armies of the empire, it is easy to see how very naturally any
suspicions of disloyalty affecting the individual in question might take shape
in the manner related, in the dreams of him who might harbour these suspicions.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, the understanding of this equivocal sense of ”Baal-aberin” can alone
explain the remarkable statement of Aristophanes, that at the beginning of the
world ”the birds” were first created, and then after their creation, came the
”race of the blessed immortal gods.” This has been regarded as either an
atheistical or nonsensical utterance on the part of the poet, but, with the
true key applied to the language, it is found to contain an important
historical fact. Let it only be borne in mind that ”the birds”–that is, the
”winged ones”–symbolised ”the Lords of the mighty ones,” and then the meaning
is clear, viz., that men first ”began to be mighty on the earth”; and then,
that the ”Lords” or Leaders of ”these mighty ones” were deified. The knowledge
of the mystic sense of this symbol accounts also for the origin of the story of
Perseus, the son of Jupiter, miraculously born of Danae, who did such wondrous
things, and who passed from country to country on wings divinely bestowed on
him. This equally casts light on the symbolic myths in regard to Bellerophon,
and the feats which he performed on his winged horse, and their ultimate
disastrous issue; how high he mounted in the air, and how terrible was his
fall; and of Icarus, the son of Daedalus, who, flying on wax-cemented wings
over the Icarian Sea, had his wings melted off through his too near approach to
the sun, and so gave his name to the sea where he was supposed to have fallen.
The fables all referred to those who trode, or were supposed to have trodden,
in the steps of Nimrod, the first ”Lord of the mighty ones,” and who in that
character was symbolised as equipped with wings.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, it is remarkable that, in the passage of Aristophanes already referred
to, that speaks of the birds, or ”the winged ones,” being produced before the
gods, we are informed that he from whom both ”mighty ones” and gods derived
their origin, was none other than the winged boy Cupid. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Aristophanes says that Eros or Cupid produced the ”birds” and ”gods” by
”mingling all things.” This evidently points to the meaning of the name Bel,
which signifies at once ”the mingler” and ”the confounder.” This name properly
belonged to the father of Nimrod, but, as the son was represented as identified
with the father, we have evidence that the name descended to the son and others
by inheritance.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Cupid, the son of Venus, occupied, as will afterwards be proved, in the
mystic mythology the very same position as Nin, or Ninus, ”the son,” did to
Rhea, the mother of the gods. As Nimrod was unquestionably the first of ”the
mighty ones” after the Flood, this statement of Aristophanes, that the boy-god
Cupid, himself a winged one, produced all the birds or ”winged ones,” while
occupying the very position of Nin or Ninus, ”the son,” shows that in this
respect also Ninus and Nimrod are identified. While this is the evident meaning
of the poet, this also, in a strictly historical point of view, is the
conclusion of the historian Apollodorus; for he states that ”Ninus is Nimrod.”
And then, in conformity with this identity of Ninus and Nimrod, we find, in one
of the most celebrated sculptures of ancient Babylon, Ninus and his wife
Semiramis represented as actively engaged in the pursuits of the chase,–”the
quiver-bearing Semiramis” being a fit companion for ”the mighty Hunter before
the Lord.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Note</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Ala-Mahozim</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The name ”Ala-Mahozim” is never, as far as I know, found in any ancient
uninspired author, and in the Scripture itself it is found only in a prophecy.
Considering that the design of prophecy is always to leave a certain obscurity
before the event, though giving enough of light for the practical guidance of
the upright, it is not to be wondered at that an unusual word should be
employed to describe the divinity in question. But, though this precise name be
not found, we have a synonym that can be traced home to Nimrod. In
Sanchuniathon, ”Astarte, traveling about the habitable world,” is said to have
found ”a star falling through the air, which she took up and consecrated in the
holy island Tyre.” Now what is this story of the falling star but just another
version of the fall of Mulciber from heaven, or of Nimrod from his high estate?
for as we have already seen, Macrobius shows (Saturn.) that the story of
Adonis–the lamented one–so favourite a theme in Phoenicia, originally came from
Assyria. The name of the great god in the holy island of Tyre, as is well
known, was Melkart (KITTO’S Illus. Comment.), but this name, as brought from
Tyre to Carthage, and from thence to Malta (which was colonised from Carthage),
where it is found on a monument at this day, cast no little light on the
subject. The name Melkart is thought by some to have been derived from
Melek-eretz, or ”king of the earth” (WILKINSON); but the way in which it is
sculptured in Malta shows that it was really Melek-kart, ”king of the walled
city.” Kir, the same as the Welsh Caer, found in Caer-narvon, &c.,
signifies ”an encompassing wall,” or a ”city completely walled round”; and Kart
was the feminine form of the same word, as may be seen in the different forms
of the name of Carthage, which is sometimes Car-chedon, and sometimes Cart-hada
or Cart-hago. In the Book of Proverbs we find a slight variety of the feminine
form of Kart, which seems evidently used in the sense of a bulwark or a
fortification. Thus (Prov 10:15) we read: ”A rich man’s wealth is his strong
city (Karit), that is, his strong bulwark or defence.” Melk-kart, then, ”king
of the walled city,” conveys the very same idea as Ala-Mahozim. In GRUTER’S
Inscriptions, as quoted by Bryant, we find a title also given to Mars, the
Roman war-god, exactly coincident in meaning with that of Melkart. We have
elsewhere seen abundant reason to conclude that the original of Mars was
Nimrod. The title to which I refer confirms this conclusion, and is contained
in a Roman inscription on an ancient temple in Spain. This title shows that the
temple was dedicated to ”Mars Kir-aden,” the lord of ”The Kir,” or ”walled
city.” The Roman C, as is well known, is hard, like K; and Adon, ”Lord,” is
also Aden. Now, with this clue to guide us, we can unravel at once what has
hitherto greatly puzzled mythologists in regard to the name of Mars Quirinus as
distinguished from Mars Gradivus. The K in Kir is what in Hebrew or Chaldee is
called Koph, a different letter from Kape, and is frequently pronounced as a Q.
Quir-inus, therefore, signifies ”belonging to the 93 walled city,” and refers
to the security which was given to cities by encompassing walls. Gradivus, on
the other hand, comes from ”Grah,” ”conflict,” and ”divus,” ”god”–a different
form of Deus, which has been already shown to be a Chaldee term; and therefore
signifies ”God of battle.” Both these titles exactly answer to the two
characters of Nimrod as the great city builder and the great warrior, and that
both these distinctive characters were set forth by the two names referred to,
we have distinct evidence in FUSS’S Antiquities. ”The Romans,” says he,
”worshipped two idols of the kind [that is, gods under the name of Mars], the
one called Quirinus, the guardian of the city and its peace; the other called
Gradivus, greedy of war and slaughter, whose temple stood beyond the city’s
boundaries.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
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</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section II<br />
The Child In Egypt</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">When we turn to Egypt we find remarkable evidence of the same thing there
also. Justin, as we have already seen, says that ”Ninus subdued all nations, as
far as Lybia,” and consequently Egypt. The statement of Diodorus Siculus is to
the same effect, Egypt being one of the countries that, according to him, Ninus
brought into subjection to himself. In exact accordance with these historical
statements, we find that the name of the third person in the primeval triad of
Egypt was Khons. But Khons, in Egyptian, comes from a word that signifies ”to
chase.” Therefore, the name of Khons, the son of Maut, the goddess-mother, who
was adorned in such a way as to identify her with Rhea, the great
goddess-mother of Chaldea, * properly signifies ”The Huntsman,” or god of the
chase.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The distinguishing decoration of Maut was the vulture head-dress. Now the
name of Rhea, in one of its meanings, signifies a vulture.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">As Khons stands in the very same relation to the Egyptian Maut as Ninus
does to Rhea, how does this title of ”The Huntsman” identify the Egyptian god
with Nimrod? Now this very name Khons, brought into contact with the Roman
mythology, not only explains the meaning of a name in the Pantheon there, that
hitherto has stood greatly in need of explanation, but causes that name, when
explained, to reflect light back again on this Egyptian divinity, and to
strengthen the conclusion already arrived at. The name to which I refer is the
name of the Latin god Consus, who was in one aspect identified with Neptune,
but who was also regarded as ”the god of hidden counsels,” or ”the concealer of
secrets,” who was looked up to as the patron of horsemanship, and was said to
have produced the horse. Who could be the ”god of hidden counsels,” or the
”concealer of secrets,” but Saturn, the god of the ”mysteries,” and whose name
as used at Rome, signified ”The hidden one”? The father of Khons, or Ohonso (as
he was also called), that is, Amoun, was, as we are told by Plutarch, known as
”The hidden God”; and as father and son in the same triad have ordinarily a
correspondence of character, this shows that Khons also must have been known in
the very same character of Saturn, ”The hidden one.” If the Latin Consus, then,
thus exactly agreed with the Egyptian Khons, as the god of ”mysteries,” or
”hidden counsels,” can there be a doubt that Khons, the Huntsman, also agreed with
the same Roman divinity as the supposed producer of the horse? Who so likely to
get the credit of producing the horse as the great huntsman of Babel, who no
doubt enlisted it in the toils of the chase, and by this means must have been
signally aided in his conflicts with the wild beasts of the forest? In this
connection, let the reader call to mind that fabulous creature, the Centaur,
half-man, half-horse, that figures so much in the mythology of Greece. That
imaginary creation, as is generally admitted, was intended to commemorate the
man who first taught the art of horsemanship. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* In illustration of the principle that led to the making of the image of
the Centaur, the following passage may be given from PRESCOTT’S Mexico, as
showing the feelings of the Mexicans on first seeing a man on horseback: ”He
[Cortes] ordered his men [who were cavalry] to direct their lances at the faces
of their opponents, who, terrified at the monstrous apparition–for they
supposed the rider and the horse, which they had never before seen, to be one
and the same–were seized with a panic.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">But that creation was not the offspring of Greek fancy. Here, as in many
other things, the Greeks have only borrowed from an earlier source. The Centaur
is found on coins struck in Babylonia, showing that the idea must have
originally come from that quarter. The Centaur is found in the Zodiac, the
antiquity of which goes up to a high period, and which had its origin in
Babylon. The Centaur was represented, as we are expressly assured by Berosus,
the Babylonian historian, in the temple of Babylon, and his language would seem
to show that so also it had been in primeval times. The Greeks did themselves
admit this antiquity and derivation of the Centaur; for though Ixion was
commonly represented as the father of the Centaurs, yet they also acknowledge
that the primitive Centaurus was the same as Kronos, or Saturn, the father of
the gods. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Scholiast in Lycophron, BRYANT. The Scholiast says that Chiron was the
son of ”Centaurus, that is, Kronos.” If any one objects that, as Chiron is said
to have lived in the time of the Trojan war, this shows that his father Kronos
could not be the father of gods and men, Xenophon answers by saying ”that
Kronos was the brother of Jupiter.” De Venatione</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">But we have seen that Kronos was the first King of Babylon, or Nimrod;
consequently, the first Centaur was the same. Now, the way in which the Centaur
was represented on the Babylonian coins, and in the Zodiac, viewed in this
light, is very striking. The Centaur was the same as the sign Sagittarius, or
”The Archer.” If the founder of Babylon’s glory was ”The mighty Hunter,” whose
name, even in the days of Moses, was a proverb–(Gen 10:9, ”Wherefore, it is
said, Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord”)–when we find the
”Archer” with his bow and arrow, in the symbol of the supreme Babylonian
divinity, and the ”Archer,” among the signs of the Zodiac that originated in
Babylon, I think we may safely conclude that this Man-horse or Horse-man Archer
primarily referred to him, and was intended to perpetuate the memory at once of
his fame as a huntsman and his skill as a horse-breaker. (see <u><span style="color: blue;">note</span></u> below)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Now, when we thus compare the Egyptian Khons, the ”Huntsman,” with the
Latin Consus, the god of horse-races, who ”produced the horse,” and the Centaur
of Babylon, to whom was attributed the honour of being the author of
horsemanship, while we see how all the lines converge in Babylon, it will be
very clear, I think, whence the primitive Egyptian god Khons has been derived.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Khons, the son of the great goddess-mother, seems to have been generally
represented as a full-grown god. The Babylonian divinity was also represented
very frequently in Egypt in the very same way as in the land of his
nativity–i.e., as a child in his mother’s arms. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* One of the symbols with which Khons was represented, shows that even he
was identified with the child-god; ”for,” says Wilkinson, ”at the side of his
head fell the plaited lock of Harpocrates, or childhood.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">This was the way in which Osiris, ”the son, the husband of his mother,” was
often exhibited, and what we learn of this god, equally as in the case of
Khons, shows that in his original he was none other than Nimrod. It is admitted
that the secret system of Free Masonry was originally founded on the Mysteries
of the Egyptian Isis, the goddess-mother, or wife of Osiris. But what could
have led to the union of a Masonic body with these Mysteries, had they not had
particular reference to architecture, and had the god who was worshipped in them
not been celebrated for his success in perfecting the arts of fortification and
building? Now, if such were the case, considering the relation in which, as we
have already seen, Egypt stood to Babylon, who would naturally be looked up to
there as the great patron of the Masonic art? The strong presumption is, that
Nimrod must have been the man. He was the first that gained fame in this way.
As the child of the Babylonian goddess-mother, he was worshipped, as we have
seen, in the character of Ala mahozim, ”The god of fortifications.” Osiris, in
like manner, the child of the Egyptian Madonna, was equally celebrated as ”the
strong chief of the buildings.” This strong chief of the buildings was
originally worshipped in Egypt with every physical characteristic of Nimrod. I
have already noticed the fact that Nimrod, as the son of Cush, was a Negro.
Now, there was a tradition in Egypt, recorded by Plutarch, that ”Osiris was
black,” which, in a land where the general complexion was dusky, must have
implied something more than ordinary in its darkness. Plutarch also states that
Horus, the son of Osiris, ”was of a fair complexion,” and it was in this way,
for the most part, that Osiris was represented. But we have unequivocal
evidence that Osiris, the son and husband of the great goddess-queen of Egypt,
was also represented as a veritable Negro. In Wilkinson may be found a
representation of him with the unmistakable features of the genuine Cushite or
Negro. Bunsen would have it that this is a mere random importation from some of
the barbaric tribes; but the dress in which this Negro god is arrayed tells a
different tale. That dress directly connects him with Nimrod. This
Negro-featured Osiris is clothed from head to foot in a spotted dress, the
upper part being a leopard’s skin, the under part also being spotted to
correspond with it. Now the name Nimrod * signifies ”the subduer of the
leopard.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* ”Nimr-rod”; from Nimr, a ”leopard,” and rada or rad ”to subdue.”
According to invariable custom in Hebrew, when two consonants come together as
the two rs in Nimr-rod, one of them is sunk. Thus Nin-neveh, ”The habitation of
Ninus,” becomes Nineveh. The name Nimrod is commonly derived from Mered, ”to
rebel”; but a difficulty has always been found in regard to this derivation, as
that would make the name Nimrod properly passive not ”the rebel,” but ”he who
was rebelled against.” There is no doubt that Nimrod was a rebel, and that his
rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was
not Nimrod, but Merodach, or, as among the Romans, Mars, ”the rebel”; or among
the Oscans of Italy, Mamers (SMITH), ”The causer of rebellion.” That the Roman
Mars was really, in his original, the Babylonian god, is evident from the name
given to the goddess, who was recognised sometimes as his ”sister,” and
sometimes as his ”wife”–i.e., Bellona, which, in Chaldee, signifies, ”The
Lamenter of Bel” (from Bel and onah, to lament). The Egyptian Isis, the sister
and wife of Osiris, is in like manner represented, as we have seen, as
”lamenting her brother Osiris.” (BUNSEN)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">This name seems to imply, that as Nimrod had gained fame by subduing the
horse, and so making use of it in the chase, so his fame as a huntsman rested
mainly on this, that he found out the art of making the leopard aid him in
hunting the other wild beasts. A particular kind of tame leopard is used in
India at this day for hunting; and of Bagajet I, the Mogul Emperor of India, it
is recorded that in his hunting establishment he had not only hounds of various
breeds, but leopards also, whose ”collars were set with jewels.” Upon the words
of the prophet Habakkuk 1:8, ”swifter than leopards,” Kitto has the following
remarks:–”The swiftness of the leopard is proverbial in all countries where it
is found. This, conjoined with its other qualities, suggested the idea in the
East of partially training it, that it might be employed in hunting…Leopards
are now rarely kept for hunting in Western Asia, unless by kings and governors;
but they are more common in the eastern parts of Asia. Orosius relates that one
was sent by the king of Portugal to the Pope, which excited great astonishment
by the way in which it overtook, and the facility with which it killed, deer
and wild boars. Le Bruyn mentions a leopard kept by the Pasha who governed
Gaza, and the other territories of the ancient Philistines, and which he
frequently employed in hunting jackals. But it is in India that the cheetah, or
hunting leopard, is most frequently employed, and is seen in the perfection of
his power.” This custom of taming the leopard, and pressing it into the service
of man in this way, is traced up to the earliest times of primitive antiquity.
In the works of Sir William Jones, we find it stated from the Persian legends,
that Hoshang, the father of Tahmurs, who built Babylon, was the ”first who bred
dogs and leopards for hunting.” As Tahmurs, who built Babylon, could be none
other than Nimrod, this legend only attributes to his father what, as his name
imports, he got the fame of doing himself. Now, as the classic god bearing the
lion’s skin is recognised by that sign as Hercules, the slayer of the Nemean
lion, so in like manner, the god clothed in the leopard’s skin would naturally
be marked out as Nimrod, the ”leopard-subduer.” That this leopard skin, as
appertaining to the Egyptian god, was no occasional thing, we have clearest
evidence. Wilkinson tells us, that on all high occasions when the Egyptian high
priest was called to officiate, it was indispensable that he should do so
wearing, as his robe of office, the leopard’s skin. As it is a universal
principle in all idolatries that the high priest wears the insignia of the god
he serves, this indicates the importance which the spotted skin must have had
attached to it as a symbol of the god himself. The ordinary way in which the
favourite Egyptian divinity Osiris was mystically represented was under the
form of a young bull or calf–the calf Apis–from which the golden calf of the
Israelites was borrowed. There was a reason why that calf should not commonly
appear in the appropriate symbols of the god he represented, for that calf
represented the divinity in the character of Saturn, ”The HIDDEN one,” ”Apis”
being only another name for Saturn. *</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* The name of Apis in Egyptian is Hepi or Hapi, which is evidently from the
Chaldee ”Hap,” ”to cover.” In Egyptian Hap signifies ”to conceal.” (BUNSEN)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The cow of Athor, however, the female divinity corresponding to Apis, is
well known as a ”spotted cow,” (WILKINSON) and it is singular that the Druids
of Britain also worshipped ”a spotted cow” (DAVIES’S Druids). Rare though it
be, however, to find an instance of the deified calf or young bull represented
with the spots, there is evidence still in existence, that even it was
sometimes so represented. When we find that Osiris, the grand god of Egypt,
under different forms, was thus arrayed in a leopard’s skin or spotted dress,
and that the leopard-skin dress was so indispensable a part of the sacred robes
of his high priest, we may be sure that there was a deep meaning in such a
costume. And what could that meaning be, but just to identify Osiris with the
Babylonian god, who was celebrated as the ”Leopard-tamer,” and who was
worshipped even as he was, as Ninus, the CHILD in his mother’s arms?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Note</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Meaning of the Name Centaurus</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">The ordinary classical derivation of this name gives little satisfaction;
for, even though it could be derived from words that signify ”Bull-killers”
(and the derivation itself is but lame), such a meaning casts no light at all
on the history of the Centaurs. Take it as a Chaldee word, and it will be seen
at once that the whole history of the primitive Kentaurus entirely agrees with
the history of Nimrod, with whom we have already identified him. Kentaurus is
evidently derived from Kehn, ”a priest,” and Tor, ”to go round.” ”Kehn-Tor,”
therefore, is ”Priest of the revolver,” that is, of the sun, which, to
appearance, makes a daily revolution round the earth. The name for a priest, as
written, is just Khn, and the vowel is supplied according to the different
dialects of those who pronounce it, so as to make it either Kohn, Kahn, or
Kehn. Tor, ”the revolver,” as applied to the sun, is evidently just another
name for the Greek Zen or Zan applied to Jupiter, as identified with the sun,
which signifies the ”Encircler” or ”Encompasser,”–the very word from which
comes our own word ”Sun,” which, in Anglo-Saxon, was Sunna (MALLET, Glossary),
and of which we find distinct traces in Egypt in the term snnu (BUNSEN’S
Vocab.), as applied to the sun’s orbit. The Hebrew Zon or Zawon, to ”encircle,”
from which these words come, in Chaldee becomes Don or Dawon, and thus we
penetrate the meaning of the name given by the Boeotians to the ”Mighty
hunter,” Orion. That name was Kandaon, as appears from the following words of the
Scholiast on Lycophron, quoted in BRYANT: ”Orion, whom the Boeotians call also
Kandaon.” Kahn-daon, then, and Kehn-tor, were just different names for the same
office–the one meaning ”Priest of the Encircler,” the other, ”Priest of the
revolver”–titles evidently equivalent to that of Bol-kahn, or ”Priest of Baal,
or the Sun,” which, there can be no doubt, was the distinguishing title of
Nimrod. As the title of Centaurus thus exactly agrees with the known position
of Nimrod, so the history of the father of the Centaurs does the same. We have
seen already that, though Ixion was, by the Greeks, made the father of that
mythical race, even they themselves admitted that the Centaurs had a much
higher origin, and consequently that Ixion, which seems to be a Grecian name,
had taken the place of an earlier name, according to that propensity
particularly noticed by Salverte, which has often led mankind ”to apply to
personages known in one time and one country, myths which they have borrowed
from another country and an earlier epoch” (Des Sciences). Let this only be
admitted to be the case here–let only the name of Ixion be removed, and it will
be seen that all that is said of the father of the Centaurs, or
Horsemen-archers, applies exactly to Nimrod, as represented by the different
myths that refer to the first progenitor of these Centaurs. First, then,
Centaurus is represented as having been taken up to heaven (DYMOCK ”Ixion”),
that is, as having been highly exalted through special favour of heaven; then,
in that state of exaltation, he is said to have fallen in love with Nephele,
who passed under the name of Juno, the ”Queen of Heaven.” The story here is
intentionally confused, to mystify the vulgar, and the order of events seems
changed, which can easily be accounted for. As Nephele in Greek signifies ”a
cloud,” so the offspring of Centaurus are said to have been produced by a
”cloud.” But Nephele, in the language of the country where the fable was
originally framed, signified ”A fallen woman,” and it is from that ”fallen
woman,” therefore, that the Centaurs are really said to have sprung. Now, the
story of Nimrod, as Ninus, is, that he fell in love with Semiramis when she was
another man’s wife, and took her for his own wife, whereby she became doubly
fallen–fallen as a woman *– and fallen from the primitive faith in which she
must have been brought up; and it is well known that this ”fallen woman” was,
under the name of Juno, or the Dove, after her death, worshipped among the
Babylonians.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">* Nephele was used, even in Greece, as the name of a woman, the degraded
wife of Athamas being so called. (SMITH’S Class. Dict., ”Athamas”)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">Centaurus, for his presumption and pride, was smitten with lightning by the
supreme God, and cast down to hell (DYMOCK, ”Ixion”). This, then, is just
another version of the story of Phaethon, Aesculapius, and Orpheus, who were
all smitten in like manner and for a similar cause. In the infernal world, the
father of the Centaurs is represented as tied by serpents to a wheel which
perpetually revolves, and thus makes his punishment eternal (DYMOCK). In the
serpents there is evidently reference to one of the two emblems of the
fire-worship of Nimrod. If he introduced the worship of the serpent, as I have
endeavoured to show, there was poetical justice in making the serpent an
instrument of his punishment. Then the revolving wheel very clearly points to
the name Centaurus itself, as denoting the ”Priest of the revolving sun.” To
the worship of the sun in the character of the ”Revolver,” there was a very distinct
allusion not only in the circle which, among the Pagans, was the emblem of the
sun-god, and the blazing wheel with which he was so frequently represented
(WILSON’S Parsi Religion), but in the circular dances of the Bacchanalians.
Hence the phrase, ”Bassaridum rotator Evan”–”The wheeling Evan of the
Bacchantes” (STATIUS, Sylv.). Hence, also, the circular dances of the Druids as
referred to in the following quotation from a Druidic song: ”Ruddy was the sea
beach whilst the circular revolution was performed by the attendants and the
white bands in graceful extravagance” (DAVIES’S Druids). That this circular
dance among the Pagan idolaters really had reference to the circuit of the sun,
we find from the distinct statement of Lucian in his treatise On Dancing,
where, speaking of the circular dance of the ancient Eastern nations, he says,
with express reference to the sun-god, ”it consisted in a dance imitating this
god.” We see then, here, a very specific reason for the circular dance of the
Bacchae, and for the ever-revolving wheel of the great Centaurus in the
infernal regions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: small;">continue in part 2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
</div>
GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-19507837296338684472014-01-16T09:02:00.000-08:002014-02-16T14:07:46.292-08:00Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God. Part 2<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span>
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span>
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Part 2</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section III<br />
The Child in Greece</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus much for Egypt. Coming into Greece, not only do we find evidence there
to the same effect, but increase of that evidence. The god worshipped as a
child in the arms of the great Mother in Greece, under the names of Dionysus,
or Bacchus, or Iacchus, is, by ancient inquirers, expressly identified with the
Egyptian Osiris. This is the case with Herodotus, who had prosecuted his inquiries
in Egypt itself, who ever speaks of Osiris as Bacchus. To the same purpose is
the testimony of Diodorus Siculus. ”Orpheus,” says he, ”introduced from Egypt
the greatest part of the mystical ceremonies, the orgies that celebrate the
wanderings of Ceres, and the whole fable of the shades below. The rites of
Osiris and Bacchus are the same; those of Isis and Ceres exactly resemble each
other, except in name.” Now, as if to identify Bacchus with Nimrod, ”the
Leopard-tamer,” leopards were employed to draw his car; he himself was
represented as clothed with a leopard’s skin; his priests were attired in the
same manner, or when a leopard’s skin was dispensed with, the spotted skin of a
fawn was used as a priestly robe in its stead. This very custom of wearing the
spotted fawn-skin seems to have been imported into Greece originally from
Assyria, where a spotted fawn was a sacred emblem, as we learn from the Nineveh
sculptures; for there we find a divinity bearing a spotted fawn or spotted
fallow-deer, in his arm, as a symbol of some mysterious import. The origin of
the importance attached to the spotted fawn and its skin had evidently come
thus: When Nimrod, as ”the Leopard-tamer,” began to be clothed in the
leopard-skin, as the trophy of his skill, his spotted dress and appearance must
have impressed the imaginations of those who saw him; and he came to be called
not only the ”Subduer of the Spotted one” (for such is the precise meaning of
Nimr–the name of the leopard), but to be called ”The spotted one” himself. We
have distinct evidence to this effect borne by Damascius, who tells us that the
Babylonians called ”the only son” of the great goddess-mother ”Momis, or
Moumis.” Now, Momis, or Moumis, in Chaldee, like Nimr, signified ”The spotted
one.” Thus, then, it became easy to represent Nimrod by the symbol of the
”spotted fawn,” and especially in Greece, and wherever a pronunciation akin to
that of Greece prevailed. The name of Nimrod, as known to the Greeks, was
Nebrod. * The name of the fawn, as ”the spotted one,” in Greece was Nebros; **
and thus nothing could be more natural than that Nebros, the ”spotted fawn,”
should become a synonym for Nebrod himself. When, therefore, the Bacchus of
Greece was symbolised by the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” as we shall find he was
symbolised, what could be the design but just covertly to identify him with
Nimrod?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the name of Nimrod is
”Nebrod.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Nebros, the name of the fawn, signifies ”the spotted one.” Nmr, in
Egypt, would also become Nbr; for Bunsen shows that m and b in that land were
often convertible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">We have evidence that this god, whose emblem was the Nebros, was known as
having the very lineage of Nimrod. From Anacreon, we find that a title of
Bacchus was Aithiopais–i.e., ”the son of Aethiops.” But who was Aethiops? As
the Aethiopians were Cushites, so Aethiops was Cush. ”Chus,” says Eusebius,
”was he from whom came the Aethiopians.” The testimony of Josephus is to the
same effect. As the father of the Aethiopians, Cush was Aethiops, by way of
eminence. Therefore Epiphanius, referring to the extraction of Nimrod, thus
speaks: ”Nimrod, the son of Cush, the Aethiop.” Now, as Bacchus was the son of
Aethiops, or Cush, so to the eye he was represented in that character. As Nin ”the
Son,” he was portrayed as a youth or child; and that youth or child was
generally depicted with a cup in his hand. That cup, to the multitude,
exhibited him as the god of drunken revelry; and of such revelry in his orgies,
no doubt there was abundance; but yet, after all, the cup was mainly a
hieroglyphic, and that of the name of the god. The name of a cup, in the sacred
language, was khus, and thus the cup in the hand of the youthful Bacchus, the
son of Aethiops, showed that he was the young Chus, or the son of Chus. In a
woodcut, the cup in the right hand of Bacchus is held up in so significant a
way, as naturally to suggest that it must be a symbol; and as to the branch in
the other hand, we have express testimony that it is a symbol. But it is worthy
of notice that the branch has no leaves to determine what precise kind of a
branch it is. It must, therefore, be a generic emblem for a branch, or a symbol
of a branch in general; and, consequently, it needs the cup as its complement,
to determine specifically what sort of a branch it is. The two symbols, then,
must be read together, and read thus, they are just equivalent to–the ”Branch
of Chus”–i.e., ”the scion or son of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Everyone knows that Homer’s odzos Areos, or ”Branch of Mars,” is the same
as a ”Son of Mars.” The hieroglyphic above was evidently formed on the same
principle. That the cup alone in the hand of the youthful Bacchus was intended
to designate him ”as the young Chus,” or ”the boy Chus,” we may fairly conclude
from a statement of Pausanias, in which he represents ”the boy Kuathos” as
acting the part of a cup-bearer, and presenting a cup to Hercules (PAUSANIAS
Corinthiaca) Kuathos is the Greek for a ”cup,” and is evidently derived from
the Hebrew Khus, ”a cup,” which, in one of its Chaldee forms, becomes Khuth or
Khuath. Now, it is well known that the name of Cush is often found in the form
of Cuth, and that name, in certain dialects, would be Cuath. The ”boy Kuathos,”
then, is just the Greek form of the ”boy Cush,” or ”the young Cush.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is another hieroglyphic connected with Bacchus that goes not a little
to confirm this–that is, the Ivy branch. No emblem was more distinctive of the
worship of Bacchus than this. Wherever the rites of Bacchus were performed,
wherever his orgies were celebrated, the Ivy branch was sure to appear. Ivy, in
some form or other, was essential to these celebrations. The votaries carried
it in their hands, bound it around their heads, or had the Ivy leaf even
indelibly stamped upon their persons. What could be the use, what could be the
meaning of this? A few words will suffice to show it. In the first place, then,
we have evidence that Kissos, the Greek name for Ivy, was one of the names of
Bacchus; and further, that though the name of Cush, in its proper form, was
known to the priests in the Mysteries, yet that the established way in which
the name of his descendants, the Cushites, was ordinarily pronounced in Greece,
was not after the Oriental fashion, but as ”Kissaioi,” or ”Kissioi.” Thus,
Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of Susa, who were the people of Chusistan,
or the ancient land of Cush, says: ”The Susians are called Kissioi,” * –that is
beyond all question, Cushites.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* STRABO. In Hesychius, the name is Kissaioi. The epithet applied to the
land of Cush in Aeschylus is Kissinos. The above accounts for one of the
unexplained titles of Apollo. ”Kisseus Apollon” is plainly ”The Cushite
Apollo.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if Kissioi be Cushites, then Kissos is Cush. Then, further, the branch
of Ivy that occupied so conspicuous a place in all Bacchanalian celebrations
was an express symbol of Bacchus himself; for Hesychius assures us that
Bacchus, as represented by his priest, was known in the Mysteries as ”The
branch.” From this, then, it appears how Kissos, the Greek name of Ivy, became
the name of Bacchus. As the son of Cush, and as identified with him, he was
sometimes called by his father’s name–Kissos. His actual relation, however, to
his father was specifically brought out by the Ivy branch, for ”the branch of
Kissos,” which to the profane vulgar was only ”the branch of Ivy,” was to the
initiated ”The branch of Cush.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The chaplet, or head-band of Ivy, had evidently a similar hieroglyphical
meaning to the above, for the Greek ”Zeira Kissou” is either a ”band or circlet
of Ivy,” or ”The seed of Cush.” The formation of the Greek ”Zeira,” a zone or
enclosing band, from the Chaldee Zer, to encompass, shows that Zero ”the seed,”
which was also pronounced Zeraa, would, in like manner, in some Greek dialects,
become Zeira. Kissos, ”Ivy,” in Greek, retains the radical idea of the Chaldee
Khesha or Khesa, ”to cover or hide,” from which there is reason to believe the
name of Cush is derived, for Ivy is characteristically ”The coverer or hider.”
In connection with this, it may be stated that the second person of the
Phoenician trinity was Chursorus (WILKINSON), which evidently is Chus-zoro,
”The seed of Cush.” We have already seen that the Phoenicians derived their
mythology from Assyria.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this god, who was recognised as ”the scion of Cush,” was worshipped
under a name, which, while appropriate to him in his vulgar character as the
god of the vintage, did also describe him as the great Fortifier. That name was
Bassareus, which, in its two-fold meaning, signified at once ”The houser of
grapes, or the vintage gatherer,” and ”The Encompasser with a wall,” * in this
latter sense identifying the Grecian god with the Egyptian Osiris, ”the strong
chief of the buildings,” and with the Assyrian ”Belus, who encompassed Babylon
with a wall.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bassareus is evidently from the Chaldee Batzar, to which both Gesenius
and Parkhurst give the two-fold meaning of ”gathering in grapes,” and
”fortifying.” Batzar is softened into Bazzar in the very same way as
Nebuchadnetzar is pronounced Nebuchadnezzar. In the sense of ”rendering a
defence inaccessible,” Gesenius adduces Jeremiah 51:53, ”Though Babylon should
mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify (tabatzar) the height of her
strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord.” Here is
evident reference to the two great elements in Babylon’s strength, first her
tower; secondly, her massive fortifications, or encompassing walls. In making
the meaning of Batzar to be, ”to render inaccessible,” Gesenius seems to have
missed the proper generic meaning of the term. Batzar is a compound verb, from
Ba, ”in,” and Tzar, ”to compass,” exactly equivalent to our English word
”en-compass.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus from Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, we have cumulative and overwhelming
evidence, all conspiring to demonstrate that the child worshipped in the arms
of the goddess-mother in all these countries in the very character of Ninus or
Nin, ”The Son,” was Nimrod, the son of Cush. A feature here, or an incident
there, may have been borrowed from some succeeding hero; but it seems
impossible to doubt, that of that child Nimrod was the prototype, the grand
original.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The amazing extent of the worship of this man indicates something very
extraordinary in his character; and there is ample reason to believe, that in his
own day he was an object of high popularity. Though by setting up as king,
Nimrod invaded the patriarchal system, and abridged the liberties of mankind,
yet he was held by many to have conferred benefits upon them, that amply
indemnified them for the loss of their liberties, and covered him with glory
and renown. By the time that he appeared, the wild beasts of the forest
multiplying more rapidly than the human race, must have committed great
depredations on the scattered and straggling populations of the earth, and must
have inspired great terror into the minds of men. The danger arising to the
lives of men from such a source as this, when population is scanty, is implied
in the reason given by God Himself for not driving out the doomed Canaanites
before Israel at once, though the measure of their iniquity was full (Exo
23:29,30): ”I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the
land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By
little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be
increased.” The exploits of Nimrod, therefore, in hunting down the wild beasts
of the field, and ridding the world of monsters, must have gained for him the
character of a pre-eminent benefactor of his race. By this means, not less than
by the bands he trained, was his power acquired, when he first began to be
mighty upon the earth; and in the same way, no doubt, was that power
consolidated. Then, over and above, as the first great city-builder after the
flood, by gathering men together in masses, and surrounding them with walls, he
did still more to enable them to pass their days in security, free from the
alarms to which they had been exposed in their scattered life, when no one
could tell but that at any moment he might be called to engage in deadly
conflict with prowling wild beasts, in defence of his own life and of those who
were dear to him. Within the battlements of a fortified city no such danger
from savage animals was to be dreaded; and for the security afforded in this
way, men no doubt looked upon themselves as greatly indebted to Nimrod. No
wonder, therefore, that the name of the ”mighty hunter,” who was at the same
time the prototype of ”the god of fortifications,” should have become a name of
renown. Had Nimrod gained renown only thus, it had been well. But not content
with delivering men from the fear of wild beasts, he set to work also to
emancipate them from that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom,
and in which alone true happiness can be found. For this very thing, he seems
to have gained, as one of the titles by which men delighted to honour him, the
title of the ”Emancipator,” or ”Deliverer.” The reader may remember a name that
has already come under his notice. That name is the name of Phoroneus. The era
of Phoroneus is exactly the era of Nimrod. He lived about the time when men had
used one speech, when the confusion of tongues began, and when mankind was
scattered abroad. He is said to have been the first that gathered mankind into
communities, the first of mortals that reigned, and the first that offered
idolatrous sacrifices. This character can agree with none but that of Nimrod.
Now the name given to him in connection with his ”gathering men together,” and
offering idolatrous sacrifice, is very significant. Phoroneus, in one of its
meanings, and that one of the most natural, signifies the ”Apostate.” * That
name had very likely been given him by the uninfected portion of the sons of
Noah. But that name had also another meaning, that is, ”to set free”; and
therefore his own adherents adopted it, and glorified the great ”Apostate” from
the primeval faith, though he was the first that abridged the liberties of
mankind, as the grand ”Emancipator!” ** And hence, in one form or other, this
title was handed down to this deified successors as a title of honour. ***</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Pharo, also pronounced Pharang, or Pharong, ”to cast off, to make
naked, to apostatise, to set free.” These meanings are not commonly given in
this order, but as the sense of ”casting off” explains all the other meanings,
that warrants the conclusion that ”to cast off” is the generic sense of the
word. Now ”apostacy” is very near akin to this sense, and therefore is one of
the most natural.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** The Sabine goddess Feronia had evidently a relation to Phoroneus, as the
”Emancipator.” She was believed to be the ”goddess of liberty,” because at
Terracina (or Anuxur) slaves were emancipated in her temple (Servius, in
Aeneid), and because the freedmen of Rome are recorded on one occasion to have
collected a sum of money for the purpose of offering it in her temple. (SMITH’S
Classical Dictionary, ”Feronia”)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">*** Thus we read of ”Zeus Aphesio” (PAUSANIAS, Attica), that is ”Jupiter
Liberator” and of ”Dionysus Eleuthereus” (PAUSANIAS), or ”Bacchus the
Deliverer.” The name of Theseus seems to have had the same origin, from nthes
”to loosen,” and so to set free (the n being omissible). ”The temple of
Theseus” [at Athens] says POTTER ”…was allowed the privilege of being a
Sanctuary for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fled from the
persecution of men in power, in memory that Theseus, while he lived, was an
assister and protector of the distressed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">All tradition from the earliest times bears testimony to the apostacy of
Nimrod, and to his success in leading men away from the patriarchal faith, and
delivering their minds from that awe of God and fear of the judgments of heaven
that must have rested on them while yet the memory of the flood was recent. And
according to all the principles of depraved human nature, this too, no doubt,
was one grand element in his fame; for men will readily rally around any one
who can give the least appearance of plausibility to any doctrine which will
teach that they can be assured of happiness and heaven at last, though their
hearts and natures are unchanged, and though they live without God in the
world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How great was the boon conferred by Nimrod on the human race, in the
estimation of ungodly men, by emancipating them from the impressions of true
religion, and putting the authority of heaven to a distance from them, we find
most vividly described in a Polynesian tradition, that carries its own evidence
with it. John Williams, the well known missionary, tells us that, according to
one of the ancient traditions of the islanders of the South Seas, ”the heavens
were originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were
compelled to crawl” under them. ”This was found a very serious evil; but at
length an individual conceived the sublime idea of elevating the heavens to a
more convenient height. For this purpose he put forth his utmost energy, and by
the first effort raised them to the top of a tender plant called teve, about
four feet high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed, when, by a second
effort, he lifted them to the height of a tree called Kauariki, which is as
large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he carried them to the summits of
the mountains; and after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious
effort, he elevated them to their present situation.” For this, as a mighty
benefactor of mankind, ”this individual was deified; and up to the moment that
Christianity was embraced, the deluded inhabitants worshipped him as the
‘Elevator of the heavens.’” Now, what could more graphically describe the
position of mankind soon after the flood, and the proceedings of Nimrod as
Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” * than this Polynesian fable?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The bearing of this name, Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator,” will be seen in
Chapter III, Section I, ”Christmas,” where it is shown that slaves had a
temporary emancipation at his birthday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While the awful catastrophe by which God had showed His avenging justice on
the sinners of the old world was yet fresh in the minds of men, and so long as
Noah, and the upright among his descendants, sought with all earnestness to
impress upon all under their control the lessons which that solemn event was so
well fitted to teach, ”heaven,” that is, God, must have seemed very near to
earth. To maintain the union between heaven and earth, and to keep it as close
as possible, must have been the grand aim of all who loved God and the best
interests of the human race. But this implied the restraining and
discountenancing of all vice and all those ”pleasures of sin,” after which the
natural mind, unrenewed and unsanctified, continually pants. This must have
been secretly felt by every unholy mind as a state of insufferable bondage.
”The carnal mind is enmity against God,” is ”not subject to His law,” neither
indeed is ”able to be” so. It says to the Almighty, ”Depart from us, for we
desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” So long as the influence of the great
father of the new world was in the ascendant, while his maxims were regarded,
and a holy atmosphere surrounded the world, no wonder that those who were
alienated from God and godliness, felt heaven and its influence and authority
to be intolerably near, and that in such circumstances they ”could not walk,”
but only ”crawl,”–that is, that they had no freedom to ”walk after the sight of
their own eyes and the imaginations of their own hearts.” From this bondage
Nimrod emancipated them. By the apostacy he introduced, by the free life he
developed among those who rallied around him, and by separating them from the
holy influences that had previously less or more controlled them, he helped
them to put God and the strict spirituality of His law at a distance, and thus
he became the ”Elevator of the heavens,” making men feel and act as if heaven
were afar off from earth, and as if either the God of heaven ”could not see
through the dark cloud,” or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of His
laws. Then all such would feel that they could breathe freely, and that now
they could walk at liberty. For this, such men could not but regard Nimrod as a
high benefactor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, who could have imagined that a tradition from Tahiti would have
illuminated the story of Atlas? But yet, when Atlas, bearing the heavens on his
shoulders, is brought into juxtaposition with the deified hero of the South
Seas, who blessed the world by heaving up the superincumbent heavens that
pressed so heavily upon it, who does not see that the one story bears a
relation to the other? *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Polynesian story the heavens and earth are said to have been
”bound together with cords,” and the ”severing” of these cords is said to have
been effected by myriads of ”dragon-flies,” which, with their ”wings,” bore an
important share in the great work. (WILLIAMS) Is there not here a reference to
Nimrod’s `63 ”mighties” or ”winged ones”? The deified ”mighty ones” were often
represented as winged serpents. See WILKINSON, vol. iv. p. 232, where the god
Agathodaemon is represented as a ”winged asp.” Among a rude people the memory
of such a representation might very naturally be kept up in connection with the
”dragon-fly”; and as all the mighty or winged ones of Nimrod’s age, the real
golden age of paganism, when ”dead, became daemons” (HESIOD, Works and Days),
they would of course all alike be symbolised in the same way. If any be
stumbled at the thought of such a connection between the mythology of Tahiti
and of Babel, let it not be overlooked that the name of the Tahitian god of war
was Oro (WILLIAMS), while ”Horus (or Orus),” as Wilkinson calls the son of
Osiris, in Egypt, which unquestionably borrowed its system from Babylon,
appeared in that very character. (WILKINSON) Then what could the severing of
the ”cords” that bound heaven and earth together be, but just the breaking of
the bands of the covenant by which God bound the earth to Himself, when on
smelling a sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice, He renewed His covenant with him
as head of the human race. This covenant did not merely respect the promise to
the earth securing it against another universal deluge, but contained in its
bosom a promise of all spiritual blessings to those who adhere to it. The
smelling of the sweet savour in Noah’s sacrifice had respect to his faith in
Christ. When, therefore, in consequence of smelling that sweet savour, ”God
blessed Noah and his sons” (Gen 9:1), that had reference not merely to temporal
but to spiritual and eternal blessings. Every one, therefore, of the sons of
Noah, who had Noah’s faith, and who walked as Noah walked, was divinely assured
of an interest in ”the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”
Blessed were those bands by which God bound the believing children of men to
Himself–by which heaven and earth were so closely joined together. Those, on
the other hand, who joined in the apostacy of Nimrod broke the covenant, and in
casting off the authority of God, did in effect say, ”Let us break His bands
asunder, and cast His cords from us.” To this very act of severing the covenant
connection between earth and heaven there is very distinct allusion, though
veiled, in the Babylonian history of Berosus. There Belus, that is Nimrod,
after having dispelled the primeval darkness, is said to have separated heaven
and earth from one another, and to have orderly arranged the world. (BEROSUS,
in BUNSEN) These words were intended to represent Belus as the ”Former of the
world.” But then it is a new world that he forms; for there are creatures in
existence before his Demiurgic power is exerted. The new world that Belus or
Nimrod formed, was just the new order of things which he introduced when,
setting at nought all Divine appointments, he rebelled against Heaven. The
rebellion of the Giants is represented as peculiarly a rebellion against
Heaven. To this ancient quarrel between the Babylonian potentates and Heaven,
there is plainly an allusion in the words of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, when
announcing that sovereign’s humiliation and subsequent restoration, he says
(Dan 4:26), ”Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, when thou hast known that the
HEAVENS do rule.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, it appears that Atlas, with the heavens resting on his broad
shoulders, refers to no mere distinction in astronomical knowledge, however
great, as some have supposed, but to a quite different thing, even to that
great apostacy in which the Giants rebelled against Heaven, and in which
apostacy Nimrod, ”the mighty one,” * as the acknowledged ringleader, occupied a
pre-eminent place. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Greek Septuagint, translated in Egypt, the term ”mighty” as
applied in Genesis 10:8, to Nimrod, is rendered the ordinary name for a
”Giant.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** IVAN and KALLERY, in their account of Japan, show that a similar story
to that of Atlas was known there, for they say that once a day the Emperor
”sits on his throne upholding the world and the empire.” Now something like
this came to be added to the story of Atlas, for PAUSANIAS shows that Atlas
also was represented as upholding both earth and heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in
introducing, men were led to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was
unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated
by mere external means. Looking at the subject in the light of the Bacchanalian
orgies, which, as the reader has seen, commemorated the history of Nimrod, it
is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment,
and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of
the wrath of a holy God. In his various expeditions he was always accompanied
by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and
everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the
good graces of mankind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section IV<br />
The Death of the Child</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How Nimrod died, Scripture is entirely silent. There was an ancient
tradition that he came to a violent end. The circumstances of that end,
however, as antiquity represents them, are clouded with fable. It is said that
tempests of wind sent by God against the Tower of Babel overthrew it, and that
Nimrod perished in its ruins. This could not be true, for we have sufficient
evidence that the Tower of Babel stood long after Nimrod’s day. Then, in regard
to the death of Ninus, profane history speaks darkly and mysteriously, although
one account tells of his having met with a violent death similar to that of Pentheus,
Lycurgus, * and Orpheus, who were said to have been torn in pieces. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Lycurgus, who is commonly made the enemy of Bacchus, was, by the
Thracians and Phrygians, identified with Bacchus, who it is well known, was
torn in pieces.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** LUDOVICUS VIVES, Commentary on Augustine. Ninus as referred to by Vives
is called ”King of India.” The word ”India” in classical writers, though not
always, yet commonly means Ethiopia, or the land of Cush. Thus the Choaspes in
the land of the eastern Cushites is called an ”Indian River” (DIONYSIUS AFER.
Periergesis); and the Nile is said by Virgil to come from the ”coloured
Indians” (Georg)–i.e., from the Cushites, or Ethiopians of Africa. Osiris also
is by Diodorus Siculus (Bibliotheca), called ”an Indian by extraction.” There
can be no doubt, then, that ”Ninus, king of India,” is the Cushite or Ethiopian
Ninus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The identity of Nimrod, however, and the Egyptian Osiris, having been
established, we have thereby light as to Nimrod’s death. Osiris met with a
violent death, and that violent death of Osiris was the central theme of the
whole idolatry of Egypt. If Osiris was Nimrod, as we have seen, that violent
death which the Egyptians so pathetically deplored in their annual festivals
was just the death of Nimrod. The accounts in regard to the death of the god
worshipped in the several mysteries of the different countries are all to the
same effect. A statement of Plato seems to show, that in his day the Egyptian
Osiris was regarded as identical with Tammuz; * and Tammuz is well known to
have been the same as Adonis, the famous HUNTSMAN, for whose death Venus is
fabled to have made such bitter lamentations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See WILKINSON’S Egyptians. The statement of Plato amounts to this, that
the famous Thoth was a counsellor of Thamus, king of Egypt. Now Thoth is
universally known as the ”counsellor” of Osiris. Hence it may be concluded that
Thamus and Osiris are the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the women of Egypt wept for Osiris, as the Phoenician and Assyrian women
wept for Tammuz, so in Greece and Rome the women wept for Bacchus, whose name,
as we have seen, means ”The bewailed,” or ”Lamented one.” And now, in
connection with the Bacchanal lamentations, the importance of the relation
established between Nebros, ”The spotted fawn,” and Nebrod, ”The mighty hunter,”
will appear. The Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was the symbol of Bacchus, as
representing Nebrod or Nimrod himself. Now, on certain occasions, in the
mystical celebrations, the Nebros, or ”spotted fawn,” was torn in pieces,
expressly, as we learn from Photius, as a commemoration of what happened to
Bacchus, * whom that fawn represented.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Photius, under the head ”Nebridzion” quotes Demosthenes as saying that
”spotted fawns (or nebroi) were torn in pieces for a certain mystic or
mysterious reason”; and he himself tells us that ”the tearing in pieces of the
nebroi (or spotted fawns) was in imitation of the suffering in the case of
Dionysus” or Bacchus. (PHOTIUS, Lexicon)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The tearing in pieces of Nebros, ”the spotted one,” goes to confirm the
conclusion, that the death of Bacchus, even as the death of Osiris, represented
the death of Nebrod, whom, under the very name of ”The Spotted one,” the
Babylonians worshipped. Though we do not find any account of Mysteries observed
in Greece in memory of Orion, the giant and mighty hunter celebrated by Homer,
under that name, yet he was represented symbolically as having died in a
similar way to that in which Osiris died, and as having then been translated to
heaven. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See OVID’S Fasti. Ovid represents Orion as so puffed up with pride on
account of his great strength, as vain-gloriously to boast that no creature on
earth could cope with him, whereupon a scorpion appeared, ”and,” says the poet,
”he was added to the stars.” The name of a scorpion in Chaldee is Akrab; but
Ak-rab, thus divided, signifies ”THE GREAT OPPRESSOR,” and this is the hidden
meaning of the Scorpion as represented in the Zodiac. That sign typifies him
who cut off the Babylonian god, and suppressed the system he set up. It was
while the sun was in Scorpio that Osiris in Egypt ”disappeared” (WILKINSON),
and great lamentations were made for his disappearance. Another subject was
mixed up with the death of the Egyptian god; but it is specially to be noticed
that, as it was in consequence of a conflict with a scorpion that Orion was
”added to the stars,” so it was when the scorpion was in the ascendant that
Osiris ”disappeared.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From Persian records we are expressly assured that it was Nimrod who was
deified after his death by the name of Orion, and placed among the stars. Here,
then, we have large and consenting evidence, all leading to one conclusion,
that the death of Nimrod, the child worshipped in the arms of the
goddess-mother of Babylon, was a death of violence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, when this mighty hero, in the midst of his career of glory, was
suddenly cut off by a violent death, great seems to have been the shock that
the catastrophe occasioned. When the news spread abroad, the devotees of
pleasure felt as if the best benefactor of mankind were gone, and the gaiety of
nations eclipsed. Loud was the wail that everywhere ascended to heaven among
the apostates from the primeval faith for so dire a catastrophe. Then began
those weepings for Tammuz, in the guilt of which the daughters of Israel
allowed themselves to be implicated, and the existence of which can be traced
not merely in the annals of classical antiquity, but in the literature of the
world from Ultima Thule to Japan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Of the prevalence of such weepings in China, thus speaks the Rev. W.
Gillespie: ”The dragon-boat festival happens in midsummer, and is a season of
great excitement. About 2000 years ago there lived a young Chinese Mandarin,
Wat-yune, highly respected and beloved by the people. To the grief of all, he
was suddenly drowned in the river. Many boats immediately rushed out in search
of him, but his body was never found. Ever since that time, on the same day of
the month, the dragon-boats go out in search of him.” ”It is something,” adds
the author, ”like the bewailing of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz mentioned
in Scripture.” As the great god Buddh is generally represented in China as a
Negro, that may serve to identify the beloved Mandarin whose loss is thus
annually bewailed. The religious system of Japan largely coincides with that of
China. In Iceland, and throughout Scandinavia, there were similar lamentations
for the loss of the god Balder. Balder, through the treachery of the god Loki,
the spirit of evil, according as had been written in the book of destiny, ”was
slain, although the empire of heaven depended on his life.” His father Odin had
”learned the terrible secret from the book of destiny, having conjured one of
the Volar from her infernal abode. All the gods trembled at the knowledge of
this event. Then Frigga [the wife of Odin] called on every object, animate and
inanimate, to take an oath not to destroy or furnish arms against Balder. Fire,
water, rocks, and vegetables were bound by this solemn obligation. One plant
only, the mistletoe, was overlooked. Loki discovered the omission, and made
that contemptible shrub the fatal weapon. Among the warlike pastimes of
Valhalla [the assembly of the gods] one was to throw darts at the invulnerable
deity, who felt a pleasure in presenting his charmed breast to their weapons.
At a tournament of this kind, the evil genius putting a sprig of the mistletoe
into the hands of the blind Hoder, and directing his aim, the dreaded
prediction was accomplished by an unintentional fratricide. The spectators were
struck with speechless wonder; and their misfortune was the greater, that no
one, out of respect to the sacredness of the place, dared to avenge it. With
tears of lamentation they carried the lifeless body to the shore, and laid it
upon a ship, as a funeral pile, with that of Nanna his lovely bride, who had
died of a broken heart. His horse and arms were burnt at the same time, as was
customary at the obsequies of the ancient heroes of the north.” Then Frigga,
his mother, was overwhelmed with distress. ”Inconsolable for the loss of her
beautiful son,” says Dr. Crichton, ”she despatched Hermod (the swift) to the
abode of Hela [the goddess of Hell, or the infernal regions], to offer a ransom
for his release. The gloomy goddess promised that he should be restored,
provided everything on earth were found to weep for him. Then were messengers
sent over the whole world, to see that the order was obeyed, and the effect of
the general sorrow was ‘as when there is a universal thaw.’” There are
considerable variations from the original story in these two legends; but at
bottom the essence of the stories is the same, indicating that they must have
flowed from one fountain.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />
Section II<br />
Sub-Section V<br />
The Deification of the Child</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If there was one who was more deeply concerned in the tragic death of
Nimrod than another, it was his wife Semiramis, who, from an originally humble
position, had been raised to share with him the throne of Babylon. What, in
this emergency shall she do? Shall she quietly forego the pomp and pride to
which she has been raised! No. Though the death of her husband has given a rude
shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in nowise
checked. On the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her
husband had been honoured as a hero; in death she will have him worshipped as a
god, yea, as the woman’s promised Seed, ”Zero-ashta,” * who was destined to
bruise the serpent’s head, and who, in doing so, was to have his own heel
bruised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Zero–in Chaldee, ”the seed”–though we have seen reason to conclude that
in Greek it sometimes appeared as Zeira, quite naturally passed also into Zoro,
as may be seen from the change of Zerubbabel in the Greek Septuagint to
Zoro-babel; and hence Zuro-ashta, ”the seed of the woman” became Zoroaster, the
well known name of the head of the fire-worshippers. Zoroaster’s name is also
found as Zeroastes (JOHANNES CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis). The reader who consults
the able and very learned work of Dr. Wilson of Bombay, on the Parsi Religion,
will find that there was a Zoroaster long before that Zoroaster who lived in
the reign of Darius Hystaspes. In general history, the Zoroaster of Bactria is
most frequently referred to; but the voice of antiquity is clear and distinct
to the effect that the first and great Zoroaster was an Assyrian or Chaldean
(SUIDAS), and that he was the founder of the idolatrous system of Babylon, and
therefore Nimrod. It is equally clear also in stating that he perished by a
violent death, even as was the case with Nimrod, Tammuz, or Bacchus. The
identity of Bacchus and Zoroaster is still further proved by the epithet
Pyrisporus, bestowed on Bacchus in the Orphic Hymns. When the primeval promise
of Eden began to be forgotten, the meaning of the name Zero-ashta was lost to
all who knew only the exoteric doctrine of Paganism; and as ”ashta” signified
”fire” in Chaldee, as well as ”the woman,” and the rites of Bacchus had much to
do with fire-worship, ”Zero-ashta” came to be rendered ”the seed of fire”; and
hence the epithet Pyrisporus, or Ignigena, ”fire-born,” as applied to Bacchus.
From this misunderstanding of the meaning of the name Zero-ashta, or rather
from its wilful perversion by the priests, who wished to establish one doctrine
for the initiated, and another for the profane vulgar, came the whole story
about the unborn infant Bacchus having been rescued from the flames that
consumed his mother Semele, when Jupiter came in his glory to visit her. (Note
to OVID’S Metam.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There was another name by which Zoroaster was known, and which is not a
little instructive, and that is Zar-adas, ”The only seed.” (JOHANNES CLERICUS,
De Chaldoeis) In WILSON’S Parsi Religion the name is given either Zoroadus, or
Zarades. The ancient Pagans, while they recognised supremely one only God, knew
also that there was one only seed, on whom the hopes of the world were founded.
In almost all nations, not only was a great god known under the name of Zero or
Zer, ”the seed,” and a great goddess under the name of Ashta or Isha, ”the
woman”; but the great god Zero is frequently characterised by some epithet
which implies that he is ”The only One.” Now what can account for such names or
epithets? Genesis 3:15 can account for them; nothing else can. The name
Zar-ades, or Zoro-adus, also strikingly illustrates the saying of Paul: ”He
saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is
Christ.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is worthy of notice, that the modern system of Parseeism, which dates
from the reform of the old fire-worship in the time of Darius Hystaspes, having
rejected the worship of the goddess-mother, cast out also from the name of
their Zoroaster the name of the ”woman”; and therefore in the Zend, the sacred
language of the Parsees, the name of their great reformer is Zarathustra–i.e.,
”The Delivering Seed,” the last member of the name coming from Thusht (the root
being–Chaldee–nthsh, which drops the initial n), ”to loosen or set loose,” and
so to free. Thusht is the infinitive, and ra appended to it is, in Sanscrit,
with which the Zend has much affinity, the well known sign of the doer of an
action, just as er is in English. The Zend Zarathushtra, then, seems just the
equivalent of Phoroneus, ”The Emancipator.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The patriarchs, and the ancient world in general, were perfectly acquainted
with the grand primeval promise of Eden, and they knew right well that the
bruising of the heel of the promised seed implied his death, and that the curse
could be removed from the world only by the death of the grand Deliverer. If
the promise about the bruising of the serpent’s head, recorded in Genesis, as
made to our first parents, was actually made, and if all mankind were descended
from them, then it might be expected that some trace of this promise would be
found in all nations. And such is the fact. There is hardly a people or kindred
on earth in whose mythology it is not shadowed forth. The Greeks represented
their great god Apollo as slaying the serpent Pytho, and Hercules as strangling
serpents while yet in his cradle. In Egypt, in India, in Scandinavia, in
Mexico, we find clear allusions to the same great truth. ”The evil genius,”
says Wilkinson, ”of the adversaries of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently
figured under the form of a snake, whose head he is seen piercing with a spear.
The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant serpent
Calyia is slain by Vishnu, in his avatar of Crishna; and the Scandinavian deity
Thor was said to have bruised the head of the great serpent with his mace.”
”The origin of this,” he adds, ”may be readily traced to the Bible.” In
reference to a similar belief among the Mexicans, we find Humboldt saying, that
”The serpent crushed by the great spirit Teotl, when he takes the form of one
of the subaltern deities, is the genius of evil–a real Kakodaemon.” Now, in
almost all cases, when the subject is examined to the bottom, it turns out that
the serpent destroying god is represented as enduring hardships and sufferings
that end in his death. Thus the god Thor, while succeeding at last in
destroying the great serpent, is represented as, in the very moment of victory,
perishing from the venomous effluvia of his breath. The same would seem to be
the way in which the Babylonians represented their great serpent-destroyer
among the figures of their ancient sphere. His mysterious suffering is thus
described by the Greek poet Aratus, whose language shows that when he wrote,
the meaning of the representation had been generally lost, although, when
viewed in this light of Scripture, it is surely deeply significant:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”A human figure, ‘whelmed with
toil, appears;<br />
Yet still with name uncertain he remains;<br />
Nor known the labour that he thus sustains;<br />
But since upon his knees he seems to fall,<br />
Him ignorant mortals Engonasis call;<br />
And while sublime his awful hands are spread,<br />
Beneath him rolls the dragon’s horrid head,<br />
And his right foot unmoved appears to rest,<br />
Fixed on the writhing monster’s burnished crest.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The constellation thus represented is commonly known by the name of ”The
Kneeler,” from this very description of the Greek poet; but it is plain that,
as ”Eugonasis” came from the Babylonians, it must be interpreted, not in a
Greek, but in a Chaldee sense, and so interpreted, as the action of the figure
itself implies, the title of the mysterious sufferer is just ”The
Serpent-crusher.” Sometimes, however the actual crushing of the serpent was
represented as a much more easy process; yet, even then, death was the ultimate
result; and that death of the serpent-destroyer is so described as to leave no
doubt whence the fable was borrowed. This is particularly the case with the
Indian god Crishna, to whom Wilkinson alludes in the extract already given. In
the legend that concerns him, the whole of the primeval promise in Eden is very
strikingly embodied. First, he is represented in pictures and images with his
foot on the great serpent’s head, and then, after destroying it, he is fabled
to have died in consequence of being shot by an arrow in the foot; and, as in
the case of Tammuz, great lamentations are annually made for his death. Even in
Greece, also, in the classic story of Paris and Achilles, we have a very plain
allusion to that part of the primeval promise, which referred to the bruising
of the conqueror’s ”heel.” Achilles, the only son of a goddess, was
invulnerable in all points except the heel, but there a wound was deadly. At
that his adversary took aim, and death was the result.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if there be such evidence still, that even Pagans knew that it was by
dying that the promised Messiah was to destroy death and him that has the power
of death, that is the Devil, how much more vivid must have been the impression
of mankind in general in regard to this vital truth in the early days of
Semiramis, when they were so much nearer the fountain-head of all Divine
tradition. When, therefore, the name Zoroaster, ”the seed of the woman,” was
given to him who had perished in the midst of a prosperous career of false
worship and apostacy, there can be no doubt of the meaning which that name was
intended to convey. And the fact of the violent death of the hero, who, in the
esteem of his partisans, had done so much to bless mankind, to make life happy,
and to deliver them from the fear of the wrath to come, instead of being fatal
to the bestowal of such a title upon him, favoured rather than otherwise the
daring design. All that was needed to countenance the scheme on the part of
those who wished an excuse for continued apostacy from the true God, was just
to give out that, though the great patron of the apostacy had fallen a prey to
the malice of men, he had freely offered himself for the good of mankind. Now,
this was what was actually done. The Chaldean version of the story of the great
Zoroaster is that he prayed to the supreme God of heaven to take away his life;
that his prayer was heard, and that he expired, assuring his followers that, if
they cherished due regard for his memory, the empire would never depart from
the Babylonians. What Berosus, the Babylonian historian, says of the cutting
off of the head of the great god Belus, is plainly to the same effect. Belus,
says Berosus, commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, that from the
blood thus shed by his own command and with his own consent, when mingled with
the earth, new creatures might be formed, the first creation being represented
as a sort of a failure. Thus the death of Belus, who was Nimrod, like that
attributed to Zoroaster, was represented as entirely voluntary, and as
submitted to for the benefit of the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It seems to have been now only when the dead hero was to be deified, that
the secret Mysteries were set up. The previous form of apostacy during the life
of Nimrod appears to have been open and public. Now, it was evidently felt that
publicity was out of the question. The death of the great ringleader of the
apostacy was not the death of a warrior slain in battle, but an act of judicial
rigour, solemnly inflicted. This is well established by the accounts of the
deaths of both Tammuz and Osiris. The following is the account of Tammuz, given
by the celebrated Maimonides, deeply read in all the learning of the Chaldeans:
”When the false prophet named Thammuz preached to a certain king that he should
worship the seven stars and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, that king ordered
him to be put to a terrible death. On the night of his death all the images
assembled from the ends of the earth into the temple of Babylon, to the great
golden image of the Sun, which was suspended between heaven and earth. That
image prostrated itself in the midst of the temple, and so did all the images
around it, while it related to them all that had happened to Thammuz. The images
wept and lamented all the night long, and then in the morning they flew away,
each to his own temple again, to the ends of the earth. And hence arose the
custom every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and to weep
for Thammuz.” There is here, of course, all the extravagance of idolatry, as
found in the Chaldean sacred books that Maimonides had consulted; but there is
no reason to doubt the fact stated either as to the manner or the cause of the
death of Tammuz. In this Chaldean legend, it is stated that it was by the
command of a ”certain king” that this ringleader in apostacy was put to death.
Who could this king be, who was so determinedly opposed to the worship of the
host of heaven? From what is related of the Egyptian Hercules, we get very
valuable light on this subject. It is admitted by Wilkinson that the most
ancient Hercules, and truly primitive one, was he who was known in Egypt as
having, ”by the power of the gods” * (i.e., by the SPIRIT) fought against and
overcome the Giants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name of the true God (Elohim) is plural. Therefore, ”the power of the
gods,” and ”of God,” is expressed by the same term.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, no doubt, the title and character of Hercules were afterwards given by
the Pagans to him whom they worshipped as the grand deliverer or Messiah, just
as the adversaries of the Pagan divinities came to be stigmatised as the
”Giants” who rebelled against Heaven. But let the reader only reflect who were
the real Giants that rebelled against Heaven. They were Nimrod and his party; for
the ”Giants” were just the ”Mighty ones,” of whom Nimrod was the leader. Who,
then, was most likely to head the opposition to the apostacy from the primitive
worship? If Shem was at that time alive, as beyond question he was, who so
likely as he? In exact accordance with this deduction, we find that one of the
names of the primitive Hercules in Egypt was ”Sem.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If ”Sem,” then, was the primitive Hercules, who overcame the Giants, and
that not by mere physical force, but by ”the power of God,” or the influence of
the Holy Spirit, that entirely agrees with his character; and more than that,
it remarkably agrees with the Egyptian account of the death of Osiris. The
Egyptians say, that the grand enemy of their god overcame him, not by open
violence, but that, having entered into a conspiracy with seventy-two of the
leading men of Egypt, he got him into his power, put him to death, and then cut
his dead body into pieces, and sent the different parts to so many different
cities throughout the country. The real meaning of this statement will appear,
if we glance at the judicial institutions of Egypt. Seventy-two was just the
number of the judges, both civil and sacred, who, according to Egyptian law,
were required to determine what was to be the punishment of one guilty of so
high an offence as that of Osiris, supposing this to have become a matter of
judicial inquiry. In determining such a case, there were necessarily two
tribunals concerned. First, there were the ordinary judges, who had power of
life and death, and who amounted to thirty, then there was, over and above, a
tribunal consisting of forty-two judges, who, if Osiris was condemned to die,
had to determine whether his body should be buried or no, for, before burial,
every one after death had to pass the ordeal of this tribunal. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DIODORUS. The words of Diodorus, as printed in the ordinary editions,
make the number of the judges simply ”more than forty,” without specifying how
many more. In the Codex Coislianus, the number is stated to be ”two more than forty.”
The earthly judges, who tried the question of burial, are admitted both by
WILKINSON and BUNSEN, to have corresponded in number to the judges of the
infernal regions. Now, these judges, over and above their president, are proved
from the monuments to have been just forty-two. The earthly judges at funerals,
therefore, must equally have been forty-two. In reference to this number as
applying equally to the judges of this world and the world of spirits, Bunsen,
speaking of the judgment on a deceased person in the world unseen, uses these
words in the passage above referred to: ”Forty-two gods (the number composing
the earthly tribunal of the dead) occupy the judgment-seat.” Diodorus himself,
whether he actually wrote ”two more than forty,” or simply ”more than forty,”
gives reason to believe that forty-two was the number he had present to his
mind; for he says, that ”the whole of the fable of the shades below,” as
brought by Orpheus from Egypt, was ”copied from the ceremonies of the Egyptian
funerals,” which he had witnessed at the judgment before the burial of the
dead. If, therefore, there were just forty-two judges in ”the shades below,”
that even, on the showing of Diodorus, whatever reading of his words be
preferred, proves that the number of the judges in the earthly judgment must
have been the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As burial was refused him, both tribunals would necessarily be concerned;
and thus there would be exactly seventy-two persons, under Typho the president,
to condemn Osiris to die and to be cut in pieces. What, then, does the
statement account to, in regard to the conspiracy, but just to this, that the
great opponent of the idolatrous system which Osiris introduced, had so
convinced these judges of the enormity of the offence which he had committed,
that they gave up the offender to an awful death, and to ignominy after it, as
a terror to any who might afterwards tread in his steps. The cutting of the
dead body in pieces, and sending the dismembered parts among the different
cities, is paralleled, and its object explained, by what we read in the Bible
of the cutting of the dead body of the Levite’s concubine in pieces (Judges
19:29), and sending one of the parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel;
and the similar step taken by Saul, when he hewed the two yoke of oxen asunder,
and sent them throughout all the coasts of his kingdom (1 Sam 11:7). It is
admitted by commentators that both the Levite and Saul acted on a patriarchal
custom, according to which summary vengeance would be dealt to those who failed
to come to the gathering that in this solemn way was summoned. This was
declared in so many words by Saul, when the parts of the slaughtered oxen were
sent among the tribes: ”Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel,
so shall it be done to his oxen.” In like manner, when the dismembered parts of
Osiris were sent among the cities by the seventy-two ”conspirators”–in other
words, by the supreme judges of Egypt, it was equivalent to a solemn
declaration in their name, that ”whosoever should do as Osiris had done, so
should it be done to him; so should he also be cut in pieces.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When irreligion and apostacy again arose into the ascendant, this act, into
which the constituted authorities who had to do with the ringleader of the
apostates were led, for the putting down of the combined system of irreligion
and despotism set up by Osiris or Nimrod, was naturally the object of intense
abhorrence to all his sympathisers; and for his share in it the chief actor was
stigmatised as Typho, or ”The Evil One.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Wilkinson admits that different individuals at different times bore this
hated name in Egypt. One of the most noted names by which Typho, or the Evil
One, was called, was Seth (EPIPHANIUS, Adv. Hoeres). Now Seth and Shem are
synonymous, both alike signifying ”The appointed one.” As Shem was a younger
son of Noah, being ”the brother of Japhet the elder” (Gen 10:21), and as the
pre-eminence was divinely destined to him, the name Shem, ”the appointed one,”
had doubtless been given him by Divine direction, either at his birth or
afterwards, to mark him out as Seth had been previously marked out as the
”child of promise.” Shem, however, seems to have been known in Egypt as Typho,
not only under the name of Seth, but under his own name; for Wilkinson tells us
that Typho was characterised by a name that signified ”to destroy and render
desert.” (Egyptians) Now the name of Shem also in one of its meanings signifies
”to desolate” or lay waste. So Shem, the appointed one, was by his enemies made
Shem, the Desolator or Destroyer–i.e., the Devil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The influence that this abhorred Typho wielded over the minds of the
so-called ”conspirators,” considering the physical force with which Nimrod was
upheld, must have been wonderful, and goes to show, that though his deed in regard
to Osiris is veiled, and himself branded by a hateful name, he was indeed none
other than that primitive Hercules who overcame the Giants by ”the power of
God,” by the persuasive might of his Holy Spirit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In connection with this character of Shem, the myth that makes Adonis, who
is identified with Osiris, perish by the tusks of a wild boar, is easily
unravelled. * The tusk of a wild boar was a symbol. In Scripture, a tusk is
called ”a horn”; among many of the Classic Greeks it was regarded in the very
same light. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In India, a demon with a ”boar’s face” is said to have gained such power
through his devotion, that he oppressed the ”devotees” or worshippers of the
gods, who had to hide themselves. (MOOR’S Pantheon) Even in Japan there seems
to be a similar myth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Pausanian admits that some in his day regarded tusks as teeth; but he
argues strongly, and, I think, conclusively, for their being considered as
”horns.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When once it is known that a tusk is regarded as a ”horn” according to the
symbolism of idolatry, the meaning of the boar’s tusks, by which Adonis
perished, is not far to seek. The bull’s horns that Nimrod wore were the symbol
of physical power. The boar’s tusks were the symbol of spiritual power. As a
”horn” means power, so a tusk, that is, a horn in the mouth, means ”power in
the mouth”; in other words, the power of persuasion; the very power with which
”Sem,” the primitive Hercules, was so signally endowed. Even from the ancient
traditions of the Gael, we get an item of evidence that at once illustrates
this idea of power in the mouth, and connects it with that great son of Noah,
on whom the blessing of the Highest, as recorded in Scripture, did specially
rest. The Celtic Hercules was called Hercules Ogmius, which, in Chaldee, is
”Hercules the Lamenter.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Celtic scholars derive the name Ogmius from the Celtic word Ogum,
which is said to denote ”the secret of writing”; but Ogum is much more likely
to be derived from the name of the god, than the name of the god to be derived
from it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">No name could be more appropriate, none more descriptive of the history of
Shem, than this. Except our first parent, Adam, there was, perhaps, never a
mere man that saw so much grief as he. Not only did he see a vast apostacy,
which, with his righteous feelings, and witness as he had been of the awful
catastrophe of the flood, must have deeply grieved him; but he lived to bury
SEVEN GENERATIONS of his descendants. He lived 502 years after the flood, and
as the lives of men were rapidly shortened after that event, no less than SEVEN
generations of his lineal descendants died before him (Gen 11:10-32). How
appropriate a name Ogmius, ”The Lamenter or Mourner,” for one who had such a
history! Now, how is this ”Mourning” Hercules represented as putting down enormities
and redressing wrongs? Not by his club, like the Hercules of the Greeks, but by
the force of persuasion. Multitudes were represented as following him, drawn by
fine chains of gold and amber inserted into their ears, and which chains
proceeded from his mouth. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Sir W. BETHAM’S Gael and Cymbri. In connection with this Ogmius, one of
the names of ”Sem,” the great Egyptian Hercules who overcame the Giants, is
worthy of notice. That name is Chon. In the Etymologicum Magnum, apud BRYANT,
we thus read: ”They say that in the Egyptian dialect Hercules is called Chon.”
Compare this with WILKINSON, where Chon is called ”Sem.” Now Khon signifies ”to
lament” in Chaldee, and as Shem was Khon–i.e., ”Priest” of the Most High God,
his character and peculiar circumstances as Khon ”the lamenter” would form an
additional reason why he should be distinguished by that name by which the
Egyptian Hercules was known. And it is not to be overlooked, that on the part
of those who seek to turn sinners from the error of their ways, there is an
eloquence in tears that is very impressive. The tears of Whitefield formed one
great part of his power; and, in like manner, the tears of Khon, ”the
lamenting” Hercules, would aid him mightily in overcoming the Giants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is a great difference between the two symbols–the tusks of a boar and
the golden chains issuing from the mouth, that draw willing crowds by the ears;
but both very beautifully illustrate the same idea–the might of that persuasive
power that enabled Shem for a time to withstand the tide of evil that came
rapidly rushing in upon the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now when Shem had so powerfully wrought upon the minds of men as to induce
them to make a terrible example of the great Apostate, and when that Apostate’s
dismembered limbs were sent to the chief cities, where no doubt his system had
been established, it will be readily perceived that, in these circumstances, if
idolatry was to continue–if, above all, it was to take a step in advance, it
was indispensable that it should operate in secret. The terror of an execution,
inflicted on one so mighty as Nimrod, made it needful that, for some time to
come at least, the extreme of caution should be used. In these circumstances,
then, began, there can hardly be a doubt, that system of ”Mystery,” which,
having Babylon for its centre, has spread over the world. In these Mysteries,
under the seal of secrecy and the sanction of an oath, and by means of all the
fertile resources of magic, men were gradually led back to all the idolatry
that had been publicly suppressed, while new features were added to that
idolatry that made it still more blasphemous than before. That magic and
idolatry were twin sisters, and came into the world together, we have abundant
evidence. ”He” (Zoroaster), says Justin the historian, ”was said to be the
first that invented magic arts, and that most diligently studied the motions of
the heavenly bodies.” The Zoroaster spoken of by Justin is the Bactrian
Zoroaster; but this is generally admitted to be a mistake. Stanley, in his
History of Oriental Philosophy, concludes that this mistake had arisen from
similarity of name, and that from this cause that had been attributed to the
Bactrian Zoroaster which properly belonged to the Chaldean, ”since it cannot be
imagined that the Bactrian was the inventor of those arts in which the
Chaldean, who lived contemporary with him, was so much skilled.” Epiphanius had
evidently come to the same substantial conclusion before him. He maintains,
from the evidence open to him in his day, that it was ”Nimrod, that established
the sciences of magic and astronomy, the invention of which was subsequently
attributed to (the Bactrian) Zoroaster.” As we have seen that Nimrod and the
Chaldean Zoroaster are the same, the conclusions of the ancient and the modern inquirers
into Chaldean antiquity entirely harmonise. Now the secret system of the
Mysteries gave vast facilities for imposing on the senses of the initiated by
means of the various tricks and artifices of magic. Notwithstanding all the
care and precautions of those who conducted these initiations, enough has
transpired to give us a very clear insight into their real character.
Everything was so contrived as to wind up the minds of the novices to the
highest pitch of excitement, that, after having surrendered themselves
implicitly to the priests, they might be prepared to receive anything. After
the candidates for initiation had passed through the confessional, and sworn
the required oaths, ”strange and amazing objects,” says Wilkinson, ”presented
themselves. Sometimes the place they were in seemed to shake around them;
sometimes it appeared bright and resplendent with light and radiant fire, and
then again covered with black darkness, sometimes thunder and lightning,
sometimes frightful noises and bellowings, sometimes terrible apparitions
astonished the trembling spectators.” Then, at last, the great god, the central
object of their worship, Osiris, Tammuz, Nimrod or Adonis, was revealed to them
in the way most fitted to soothe their feelings and engage their blind
affections. An account of such a manifestation is thus given by an ancient
Pagan, cautiously indeed, but yet in such a way as shows the nature of the
magic secret by which such an apparent miracle was accomplished: ”In a
manifestation which one must not reveal…there is seen on a wall of the temple a
mass of light, which appears at first at a very great distance. It is
transformed, while unfolding itself, into a visage evidently divine and
supernatural, of an aspect severe, but with a touch of sweetness. Following the
teachings of a mysterious religion, the Alexandrians honour it as Osiris or
Adonis.” From this statement, there can hardly be a doubt that the magical art
here employed was none other than that now made use of in the modern
phantasmagoria. Such or similar means were used in the very earliest periods
for presenting to the view of the living, in the secret Mysteries, those who
were dead. We have statements in ancient history referring to the very time of
Semiramis, which imply that magic rites were practised for this very purpose; *
and as the magic lantern, or something akin to it, was manifestly used in later
times for such an end, it is reasonable to conclude that the same means, or
similar, were employed in the most ancient times, when the same effects were
produced.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* One of the statements to which I refer is contained in the following
words of Moses of Chorene in his Armenian History, referring to the answer made
by Semiramis to the friends of Araeus, who had been slain in battle by her: ”I
have given commands, says Semiramis, to my gods to lick the wounds of Araeus,
and to raise him from the dead. The gods, says she, have licked Araeus, and
recalled him to life.” If Semiramis had really done what she said she had done,
it would have been a miracle. The effects of magic were sham miracles; and
Justin and Epiphanius show that sham miracles came in at the very birth of
idolatry. Now, unless the sham miracle of raising the dead by magical arts had
already been known to be practised in the days of Semiramis, it is not likely
that she would have given such an answer to those whom she wished to
propitiate; for, on the one hand, how could she ever have thought of such an
answer, and on the other, how could she expect that it would have the intended
effect, if there was no current belief in the practice of necromancy? We find
that in Egypt, about the same age, such magic arts must have been practised, if
Manetho is to be believed. ”Manetho says,” according to Josephus, ”that he [the
elder Horus, evidently spoken of as a human and mortal king] was admitted to
the sight of the gods, and that Amenophis desired the same privilege.” This
pretended admission to the right of the gods evidently implied the use of the
magic art referred to in the text.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in the hands of crafty, designing men, this was a powerful means of
imposing upon those who were willing to be imposed upon, who were averse to the
holy spiritual religion of the living God, and who still hankered after the
system that was put down. It was easy for those who controlled the Mysteries,
having discovered secrets that were then unknown to the mass of mankind, and
which they carefully preserved in their own exclusive keeping, to give them
what might seem ocular demonstration, that Tammuz, who had been slain, and for
whom such lamentations had been made, was still alive, and encompassed with
divine and heavenly glory. From the lips of one so gloriously revealed, or what
was practically the same, from the lips of some unseen priest, speaking in his
name from behind the scenes, what could be too wonderful or incredible to be
believed? Thus the whole system of the secret Mysteries of Babylon was intended
to glorify a dead man; and when once the worship of one dead man was
established, the worship of many more was sure to follow. This casts light upon
the language of the 106th Psalm, where the Lord, upbraiding Israel for their
apostacy, says: ”They joined themselves to Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of
the dead.” Thus, too, the way was paved for bringing in all the abominations
and crimes of which the Mysteries became the scenes; for, to those who liked
not to retain God in their knowledge, who preferred some visible object of
worship, suited to the sensuous feelings of their carnal minds, nothing could seem
a more cogent reason for faith or practice than to hear with their own ears a
command given forth amid so glorious a manifestation apparently by the very
divinity they adored.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The scheme, thus skilfully formed, took effect. Semiramis gained glory from
her dead and deified husband; and in course of time both of them, under the
names of Rhea and Nin, or ”Goddess-Mother and Son,” were worshipped with an
enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were everywhere set up and
adored. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It would seem that no public idolatry was ventured upon till the reign of
the grandson of Semiramis, Arioch or Arius. (Cedreni Compendium)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Wherever the Negro aspect of Nimrod was found an obstacle to his worship,
this was very easily obviated. According to the Chaldean doctrine of the
transmigration of souls, all that was needful was just to teach that Ninus had
reappeared in the person of a posthumous son, of a fair complexion,
supernaturally borne by his widowed wife after the father had gone to glory. As
the licentious and dissolute life of Semiramis gave her many children, for whom
no ostensible father on earth would be alleged, a plea like this would at once
sanctify sin, and enable her to meet the feelings of those who were disaffected
to the true worship of Jehovah, and yet might have not fancy to bow down before
a Negro divinity. From the light reflected on Babylon by Egypt, as well as from
the form of the extant images of the Babylonian child in the arms of the
goddess-mother, we have every reason to believe that this was actually done. In
Egypt the fair Horus, the son of the black Osiris, who was the favourite object
of worship, in the arms of the goddess Isis, was said to have been miraculously
born in consequence of a connection, on the part of that goddess, with Osiris
after his death, and, in point of fact, to have been a new incarnation of that
god, to avenge his death on his murderers. It is wonderful to find in what
widely-severed countries, and amongst what millions of the human race at this
day, who never saw a Negro, a Negro god is worshipped. But yet, as we shall
afterwards see, among the civilised nations of antiquity, Nimrod almost
everywhere fell into disrepute, and was deposed from his original pre-eminence,
expressly ob deformitatem, ”on account of his ugliness.” Even in Babylon
itself, the posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all
his father’s glory, yet possessing more of his mother’s complexion, came to be
the favourite type of the Madonna’s divine son.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This son, thus worshipped in his mother’s arms, was looked upon as invested
with all the attributes, and called by almost all the names of the promised
Messiah. As Christ, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, was called Adonai, The
Lord, so Tammuz was called Adon or Adonis. Under the name of Mithras, he was
worshipped as the ”Mediator.” As Mediator and head of the covenant of grace, he
was styled Baal-berith, Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8:33). In this character
he is represented in Persian monuments as seated on the rainbow, the well known
symbol of the covenant. In India, under the name of Vishnu, the Preserver or
Saviour of men, though a god, he was worshipped as the great ”Victim-Man,” who
before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to offer, offered
himself as a sacrifice. The Hindoo sacred writings teach that this mysterious
offering before all creation is the foundation of all the sacrifices that have
ever been offered since. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the exercise of his office as the Remedial god, Vishnu is said to
”extract the thorns of the three worlds.” (MOOR’S Pantheon) ”Thorns” were a
symbol of the curse–Genesis 3:18.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Do any marvel at such a statement being found in the sacred books of a
Pagan mythology? Why should they? Since sin entered the world there has been
only one way of salvation, and that through the blood of the everlasting
covenant–a way that all mankind once knew, from the days of righteous Abel
downwards. When Abel, ”by faith,” offered unto God his more excellent sacrifice
than that of Cain, it was his faith ”in the blood of the Lamb slain,” in the
purpose of God ”from the foundation of the world,” and in due time to be
actually offered up on Calvary, that gave all the ”excellence” to his offering.
If Abel knew of ”the blood of the Lamb,” why should Hindoos not have known of
it? One little word shows that even in Greece the virtue of ”the blood of God”
had once been known, though that virtue, as exhibited in its poets, was utterly
obscured and degraded. That word is Ichor. Every reader of the bards of classic
Greece knows that Ichor is the term peculiarly appropriated to the blood of a
divinity. Thus Homer refers to it:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”From the clear vein the
immortal Ichor flowed,<br />
Such stream as issues from a wounded god,<br />
Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood,<br />
Unlike our gross, diseased terrestrial blood.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, what is the proper meaning of the term Ichor? In Greek it has no
etymological meaning whatever; but, in Chaldee, Ichor signifies ”The precious
thing.” Such a name, applied to the blood of a divinity, could have only one
origin. It bears its evidence on the very face of it, as coming from that grand
patriarchal tradition, that led Abel to look forward to the ”precious blood” of
Christ, the most ”precious” gift that love Divine could give to a guilty world,
and which, while the blood of the only genuine ”Victim-Man,” is at the same
time, in deed and in truth, ”The blood of God” (Acts 20:28). Even in Greece
itself, though the doctrine was utterly perverted, it was not entirely lost. It
was mingled with falsehood and fable, it was hid from the multitude; but yet,
in the secret mystic system it necessarily occupied an important place. As
Servius tells us that the grand purpose of the Bacchic orgies ”was the
purification of souls,” and as in these orgies there was regularly the tearing asunder
and the shedding of the blood of an animal, in memory of the shedding of the
life’s blood of the great divinity commemorated in them, could this symbolical
shedding of the blood of that divinity have no bearing on the ”purification”
from sin, these mystic rites were intended to effect? We have seen that the
sufferings of the Babylonian Zoroaster and Belus were expressly represented as
voluntary, and as submitted to for the benefit of the world, and that in
connection with crushing the great serpent’s head, which implied the removal of
sin and the curse. If the Grecian Bacchus was just another form of the
Babylonian divinity, then his sufferings and blood-shedding must have been
represented as having been undergone for the same purpose–viz., for the ”purification
of souls.” From this point of view, let the well known name of Bacchus in
Greece be looked at. The name was Dionysus or Dionusos. What is the meaning of
that name? Hitherto it has defied all interpretation. But deal with it as
belonging to the language of that land from which the god himself originally
came, and the meaning is very plain. D’ion-nuso-s signifies ”THE SIN-BEARER,” *
a name entirely appropriate to the character of him whose sufferings were
represented as so mysterious, and who was looked up to as the great ”purifier
of souls.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The expression used in Exodus 28:38, for ”bearing iniquity” or in a
vicarious manner is ”nsha eon” (the first letter eon being ayn). A synonym for
eon, ”iniquity,” is aon (the first letter being aleph). In Chaldee the first
letter a becomes i, and therefore aon, ”iniquity,” is ion. Then nsha ”to bear,”
in the participle active is ”nusha.” As the Greeks had no sh, that became nusa.
De, or Da, is the demonstrative pronoun signifying ”That” or ”The great.” And thus
”D’ion-nusa” is exactly ”The great sin-bearer.” That the classic Pagans had the
very idea of the imputation of sin, and of vicarious suffering, is proved by
what Ovid says in regard to Olenos. Olenos is said to have taken upon him and
willingly to have borne the blame of guilt of which he was innocent. Under the
load of this imputed guilt, voluntarily taken upon himself, Olenos is
represented as having suffered such horror as to have perished, being petrified
or turned into stone. As the stone into which Olenos was changed was erected on
the holy mountain of Ida, that shows that Olenos must have been regarded as a
sacred person. The real character of Olenos, as the ”sin-bearer,” can be very
fully established. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect225.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this Babylonian god, known in Greece as ”The sin-bearer,” and in India
as the ”Victim-Man,” among the Buddhists of the East, the original elements of
whose system are clearly Babylonian, was commonly addressed as the ”Saviour of
the world.” It has been all along well enough known that the Greeks
occasionally worshipped the supreme god under the title of ”Zeus the Saviour”;
but this title was thought to have reference only to deliverance in battle, or some
suck-like temporal deliverance. But when it is known that ”Zeus the Saviour”
was only a title of Dionysus, the ”sin-bearing Bacchus,” his character, as ”The
Saviour,” appears in quite a different light. In Egypt, the Chaldean god was
held up as the great object of love and adoration, as the god through whom
”goodness and truth were revealed to mankind.” He was regarded as the
predestined heir of all things; and, on the day of his birth, it was believed
that a voice was heard to proclaim, ”The Lord of all the earth is born.” In
this character he was styled ”King of kings, and Lord of lords,” it being as a
professed representative of this hero-god that the celebrated Sesostris caused
this very title to be added to his name on the monuments which he erected to
perpetuate the fame of his victories. Not only was he honoured as the great
”World King,” he was regarded as Lord of the invisible world, and ”Judge of the
dead”; and it was taught that, in the world of spirits, all must appear before
his dread tribunal, to have their destiny assigned them. As the true Messiah
was prophesied of under the title of the ”Man whose name was the branch,” he
was celebrated not only as the ”Branch of Cush,” but as the ”Branch of God,”
graciously given to the earth for healing all the ills that flesh is heir to. *
He was worshipped in Babylon under the name of El-Bar, or ”God the Son.” Under
this very name he is introduced by Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as the
second in the list of Babylonian sovereigns. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* This is the esoteric meaning of Virgil’s ”Golden Branch,” and of the
Mistletoe Branch of the Druids. The proof of this must be reserved to the
Apocalypse of the Past. I may remark, however, in passing, on the wide extent
of the worship of a sacred branch. Not only do the Negroes in Africa in the
worship of the Fetiche, on certain occasions, make use of a sacred branch
(HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies), but even in India there are traces of the same
practice. My brother, S. Hislop, Free Church Missionary at Nagpore, informs me
that the late Rajah of Nagpore used every year, on a certain day, to go in
state to worship the branch of a particular species of tree, called Apta, which
had been planted for the occasion, and which, after receiving divine honours,
was plucked up, and its leaves distributed by the native Prince among his
nobles. In the streets of the city numerous boughs of the same kind of tree
were sold, and the leaves presented to friends under the name of sona, or
”gold.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** BEROSUS, in BUNSEN’S Egypt. The name ”El-Bar” is given above in the
Hebrew form, as being more familiar to the common reader of the English Bible.
The Chaldee form of the name is Ala-Bar, which in the Greek of Berosus, is
Ala-Par, with the ordinary Greek termination os affixed to it. The change of Bar
into Par in Greek is just on the same principle as Ab, ”father,” in Greek
becomes Appa, and Bard, the ”spotted one,” becomes Pardos, &c. This name,
Ala-Bar, was probably given by Berosus to Ninyas as the legitimate son and
successor of Nimrod. That Ala-Par-os was really intended to designate the
sovereign referred to, as ”God the Son,” or ”the Son of God,” is confirmed by
another reading of the same name as given in Greek. There the name is
Alasparos. Now Pyrsiporus, as applied to Bacchus, means Ignigena, or the ”Seed
of Fire”; and Ala-sporos, the ”Seed of God,” is just a similar expression
formed in the same way, the name being Grecised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Under this name he has been found in the sculptures of Nineveh by Layard,
the name Bar ”the Son,” having the sign denoting El or ”God” prefixed to it.
Under the same name he has been found by Sir H. Rawlinson, the names ”Beltis”
and the ”Shining Bar” being in immediate juxtaposition. Under the name of Bar
he was worshipped in Egypt in the earliest times, though in later times the god
Bar was degraded in the popular Pantheon, to make way for another more popular
divinity. In Pagan Rome itself, as Ovid testifies, he was worshipped under the
name of the ”Eternal Boy.” * Thus daringly and directly was a mere mortal set
up in Babylon in opposition to the ”Son of the Blessed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* To understand the true meaning of the above expression, reference must be
had to a remarkable form of oath among the Romans. In Rome the most sacred form
of an oath was (as we learn from AULUS GELLIUS), ”By Jupiter the STONE.” This,
as it stands, is nonsense. But translate ”lapidem” [stone] back into the sacred
tongue, or Chaldee, and the oath stands, ”By Jove, the Son,” or ”By the son of
Jove.” Ben, which in Hebrew is Son, in Chaldee becomes Eben, which also
signifies a stone, as may be seen in ”Eben-ezer,” ”The stone of help.” Now as
the most learned inquirers into antiquity have admitted that the Roman Jovis,
which was anciently the nominative, is just a form of the Hebrew Jehovah, it is
evident that the oath had originally been, ”by the son of Jehovah.” This
explains how the most solemn and binding oath had been taken in the form above
referred to; and,it shows, also, what was really meant when Bacchus, ”the son
of Jovis,” was called ”the Eternal Boy.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">(OVID, Metam.)</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Olenos, the Sin-Bearer</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In different portions of this work evidence has been brought to show that
Saturn, ”the father of gods and men,” was in one aspect just our first parent
Adam. Now, of Saturn it is said that he devoured all his children. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Sometimes he is said to have devoured only his male children; but see
SMITH’S (Larger) Classical Dictionary, ”Hera,” where it will be found that the
female as well as the male were devoured.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the exoteric story, among those who knew not the actual fact referred
to, this naturally appeared in the myth, in the shape in which we commonly find
it–viz., that he devoured them all as soon as they were born. But that which
was really couched under the statement, in regard to his devouring his
children, was just the Scriptural fact of the Fall–viz., that he destroyed them
by eating–not by eating them, but by eating the forbidden fruit. When this was
the sad and dismal state of matters, the Pagan story goes on to say that the
destruction of the children of the father of gods and men was arrested by means
of his wife, Rhea. Rhea, as we have already seen, had really as much to do with
the devouring of Saturn’s children, as Saturn himself; but, in the progress of
idolatry and apostacy, Rhea, or Eve, came to get glory at Saturn’s expense.
Saturn, or Adam, was represented as a morose divinity; Rhea, or Eve,
exceedingly benignant; and, in her benignity, she presented to her husband a
stone bound in swaddling bands, which he greedily devoured, and henceforth the
children of the cannibal father were safe. The stone bound in swaddling bands
is, in the sacred language, ”Ebn Hatul”; but Ebn-Hat-tul * also signifies ”A
sin-bearing son.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Hata, ”sin,” is found also in Chaldee, Hat. Tul is from Ntl, ”to
support.” If the reader will look at Horus with his swathes (BRYANT); Diana
with the bandages round her legs; the symbolic bull of the Persian swathed in
like manner, and even the shapeless log of the Tahitians, used as a god and
bound about with ropes (WILLIAMS); he will see, I think, that there must be
some important mystery in this swathing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This does not necessarily mean that Eve, or the mother of mankind, herself
actually brought forth the promised seed (although there are many myths also to
that effect), but that, having received the glad tidings herself, and embraced
it, she presented it to her husband, who received it by faith from her, and
that this laid the foundation of his own salvation and that of his posterity.
The devouring on the part of Saturn of the swaddled stone is just the
symbolical expression of the eagerness with which Adam by faith received the
good news of the woman’s seed; for the act of faith, both in the Old Testament
and in the New, is symbolised by eating. Thus Jeremiah says, ”Thy words were
found of me, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing
of my heart” (Jer 15:16). This also is strongly shown by our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, who, while setting before the Jews the indispensable necessity of
eating His flesh, and feeding on Him, did at the same time say: ”It is the
Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). That Adam eagerly
received the good news about the promised seed, and treasured it up in his
heart as the life of his soul, is evident from the name which he gave to his
wife immediately after hearing it: ”And Adam called his wife’s name Eve,
because she was the mother of all living ones” (Gen 3:20).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The story of the swaddled stone does not end with the swallowing of it, and
the arresting of the ruin of the children of Saturn. This swaddled stone was
said to be ”preserved near the temple of Delphi, where care was taken to anoint
it daily with oil, and to cover it with wool” (MAURICE’S Indian Antiquities).
If this stone symbolised the ”sin-bearing son,” it of course symbolised also
the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, in whose symbolic
covering our first parents were invested when God clothed them in the coats of
skins. Therefore, though represented to the eye as a stone, he must have the
appropriate covering of wool. When represented as a branch, the branch of God,
the branch also was wrapped in wool (POTTER, Religion of Greece). The daily
anointing with oil is very significant. If the stone represented the
”sin-bearing son,” what could the anointing of that ”sin-bearing son” daily
with oil mean, but just to point him out as the ”Lord’s Anointed,” or the
”Messiah,” whom the idolatrous worshipped in opposition to the true Messiah yet
to be revealed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">One of the names by which this swaddled and anointed stone was called is
very strikingly confirmatory of the above conclusion. That name is Baitulos.
This we find from Priscian, who, speaking of ”that stone which Saturn is said
to have devoured for Jupiter,” adds, whom the Greeks called ”Baitulos.” Now,
”B’hai-tuloh” signifies the ”Life-restoring child.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Tli, Tleh, or Tloh, ”Infans puer” (CLAVIS STOCKII, Chald.), and Hia,
or Haya, ”to live, to restore life.” (GESENIUS) From Hia, ”to live,” with
digamma prefixed, comes the Greek ”life.” That Hia, when adopted into Greek,
was also pronounced Haya, we have evidence in he noun Hiim, ”life,” pronounced
Hayyim, which in Greek is represented by ”blood.” The Mosaic principle, that
”the blood was the life,” is thus proved to have been known by others besides
the Jews. Now Haya, ”to live or restore life,” with the digamma prefixed, becomes
B’haya: and so in Egypt, we find that Bai signified ”soul,” or ”spirit”
(BUNSEN), which is the living principle. B’haitulos, then, is the
”Life-restoring child.” P’haya-n is the same god.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The father of gods and men had destroyed his children by eating; but the
reception of ”the swaddled stone” is said to have ”restored them to life”
(HESIOD, Theogon.). Hence the name Baitulos; and this meaning of the name is
entirely in accordance with what is said in Sanchuniathon about the Baithulia
made by the Phoenician god Ouranos: ”It was the god Ouranos who devised
Baithulia, contriving stones that moved as having life.” If the stone Baitulos
represented the ”life-restoring child,” it was natural that that stone should
be made, if possible, to appear as having ”life” in itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, there is a great analogy between this swaddled stone that represented
the ”sin-bearing son,” and that Olenos mentioned by Ovid, who took on him guilt
not his own, and in consequence was changed into a stone. We have seen already
that Olenos, when changed into a stone, was set up in Phrygia on the holy
mountain of Ida. We have reason to believe that the stone which was fabled to
have done so much for the children of Saturn, and was set up near the temple of
Delphi, was just a representation of this same Olenos. We find that Olen was
the first prophet at Delphi, who founded the first temple there (PAUSA
Phocica). As the prophets and priests generally bore the names of the gods whom
they represented (Hesychius expressly tells us that the priest who represented
the great god under the name of the branch in the mysteries was himself called
by the name of Bacchus), this indicates one of the ancient names of the god of
Delphi. If, then, there was a sacred stone on Mount Ida called the stone of Olenos,
and a sacred stone in the precincts of the temple of Delphi, which Olen
founded, can there be a doubt that the sacred stone of Delphi represented the
same as was represented by the sacred stone of Ida? The swaddled stone set up
at Delphi is expressly called by Priscian, in the place already cited, ”a god.”
This god, then, that in symbol was divinely anointed, and was celebrated as
having restored to life the children of Saturn, father of gods and men, as
identified with the Idaean Olenos, is proved to have been regarded as occupying
the very place of the Messiah, the great Sin-bearer, who came to bear the sins
of men, and took their place and suffered in their room and stead; for Olenos,
as we have seen, voluntarily took on him guilt of which he was personally free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While thus we have seen how much of the patriarchal faith was hid under the
mystical symbols of Paganism, there is yet a circumstance to be noted in regard
to the swaddled stone, that shows how the Mystery of Iniquity in Rome has
contrived to import this swaddled stone of Paganism into what is called
Christian symbolism. The Baitulos, or swaddled stone, was a round or globular
stone. This globular stone is frequently represented swathed and bound,
sometimes with more, sometimes with fewer bandages. In BRYANT, where the
goddess Cybele is represented as ”Spes Divina,” or Divine hope, we see the
foundation of this divine hope held out to the world in the representation of
the swaddled stone at her right hand, bound with four different swathes. In DAVID’S
Antiquites Etrusques, we find a goddess represented with Pandora’s box, the
source of all ill, in her extended hand, and the swaddled globe depending from
it; and in this case that globe has only two bandages, the one crossing the
other. And what is this bandage globe of Paganism but just the counterpart of
that globe, with a band around it, and the mystic Tau, or cross, on the top of
it, that is called ”the type of dominion,” and is frequently represented in the
hands of the profane representations of God the Father. The reader does not now
need to be told that the cross is the chosen sign and mark of that very God
whom the swaddled stone represented; and that when that God was born, it was
said, ”The Lord of all the earth is born” (WILKINSON). As the god symbolised by
the swaddled stone not only restored the children of Saturn to life, but
restored the lordship of the earth to Saturn himself, which by transgression he
had lost, it is not to be wondered at that it is said of ”these consecrated
stones,” that while ”some were dedicated to Jupiter, and others to the sun,”
”they were considered in a more particular manner sacred to Saturn,” the Father
of the gods (MAURICE), and that Rome, in consequence, has put the round stone
into the hand of the image, bearing the profaned name of God the Father
attached to it, and that from his source the bandaged globe, surmounted with
the mark of Tammuz, has become the symbol of dominion throughout all Papal
Europe.</span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter II<br />
Section III<br />
The Mother of the Child</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now while the mother derived her glory in the first instance from the
divine character attributed to the child in her arms, the mother in the
long-run practically eclipsed the son. At first, in all likelihood, there would
be no thought whatever of ascribing divinity to the mother. There was an express
promise that necessarily led mankind to expect that, at some time or other, the
Son of God, in amazing condescension, should appear in this world as the Son of
man. But there was no promise whatever, or the least shadow of a promise, to
lead any one to anticipate that a woman should ever be invested with attributes
that should raise her to a level with Divinity. It is in the last degree
improbable, therefore, that when the mother was first exhibited with the child
in her arms, it should be intended to give divine honours to her. She was
doubtless used chiefly as a pedestal for the upholding of the divine Son, and
holding him forth to the adoration of mankind; and glory enough it would be
counted for her, alone of all the daughters of Eve, to have given birth to the
promised seed, the world’s only hope. But while this, no doubt, was the design,
it is a plain principle in all idolatries that that which most appeals to the
senses must make the most powerful impression. Now the Son, even in his new
incarnation, when Nimrod was believed to have reappeared in a fairer form, was
exhibited merely as a child, without any very particular attraction; while the
mother in whose arms he was, was set off with all the art of painting and
sculpture, as invested with much of that extraordinary beauty which in reality
belonged to her. The beauty of Semiramis is said on one occasion to have
quelled a rising rebellion among her subjects on her sudden appearance among
them; and it is recorded that the memory of the admiration excited in their
minds by her appearance on that occasion was perpetuated by a statue erected in
Babylon, representing her in the guise in which she had fascinated them so
much. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Valerius Maximus does not mention anything about the
representation of Semiramis with the child in her arms; but as Semiramis was
deified as Rhea, whose distinguishing character was that of goddess Mother, and
as we have evidence that the name, ”Seed of the Woman,” or Zoroaster, goes back
to the earliest times–viz., her own day (CLERICUS, De Chaldoeis), this implies
that if there was any image-worship in these times, that ”Seed of the Woman”
must have occupied a prominent place in it. As over all the world the Mother
and the child appear in some shape or other, and are found on the early
Egyptian monuments, that shows that this worship must have had its roots in the
primeval ages of the world. If, therefore, the mother was represented in so
fascinating a form when singly represented, we may be sure that the same beauty
for which she was celebrated would be given to her when exhibited with the
child in her arms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This Babylonian queen was not merely in character coincident with the
Aphrodite of Greece and the Venus of Rome, but was, in point of fact, the
historical original of that goddess that by the ancient world was regarded as
the very embodiment of everything attractive in female form, and the perfection
of female beauty; for Sanchuniathon assures us that Aphrodite or Venus was
identical with Astarte, and Astarte being interpreted, is none other than ”The
woman that made towers or encompassing walls”–i.e., Semiramis. The Roman Venus,
as is well known, was the Cyprian Venus, and the Venus of Cyprus is
historically proved to have been derived from Babylon. Now, what in these
circumstances might have been expected actually took place. If the child was to
be adored, much more the mother. The mother, in point of fact, became the
favourite object of worship. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* How extraordinary, yea, frantic, was the devotion in the minds of the
Babylonians to this goddess queen, is sufficiently proved by the statement of
Herodotus, as to the way in which she required to be propitiated. That a whole
people should ever have consented to such a custom as is there described, shows
the amazing hold her worship must have gained over them. Nonnus, speaking of
the same goddess, calls her ”The hope of the whole world.” (DIONUSIACA in
BRYANT) It was the same goddess, as we have seen, who was worshipped at
Ephesus, whom Demetrius the silversmith characterised as the goddess ”whom all
Asia and the world worshipped” (Acts 19:27). So great was the devotion to this
goddess queen, not of the Babylonians only, but of the ancient world in
general, that the fame of the exploits of Semiramis has, in history, cast the
exploits of her husband Ninus or Nimrod, entirely into the shade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In regard to the identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus, see note below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To justify this worship, the mother was raised to divinity as well as her
son, and she was looked upon as destined to complete that bruising of the
serpent’s head, which it was easy, if such a thing was needed, to find abundant
and plausible reasons for alleging that Ninus or Nimrod, the great Son, in his
mortal life had only begun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Roman Church maintains that it was not so much the seed of the woman,
as the woman herself, that was to bruise the head of the serpent. In defiance
of all grammar, she renders the Divine denunciation against the serpent thus:
”She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.” The same was held
by the ancient Babylonians, and symbolically represented in their temples. In
the uppermost story of the tower of Babel, or temple of Belus, Diodorus Siculus
tells us there stood three images of the great divinities of Babylon; and one
of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head. Among the Greeks the same
thing was symbolised; for Diana, whose real character was originally the same
as that of the great Babylonian goddess, was represented as bearing in one of
her hands a serpent deprived of its head. As time wore away, and the facts of
Semiramis’ history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be
miraculous: and therefore she was called ”Alma Mater,” * ”the Virgin Mother.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The term Alma is the precise term used by Isaiah in the Hebrew of the Old
Testament, when announcing, 700 years before the event, that Christ should be
born of a Virgin. If the question should be asked, how this Hebrew term Alma
(not in a Roman, but a Hebrew sense) could find its way to Rome, the answer is,
Through Etruria, which had an intimate connection with Assyria. The word
”mater” itself, from which comes our own ”mother,” is originally Hebrew. It
comes from Heb. Msh, ”to draw forth,” in Egyptian Ms, ”to bring forth”
(BUNSEN), which in the Chaldee form becomes Mt, whence the Egyptian Maut,
”mother.” Erh or Er, as in English (and a similar form is found in Sanscrit),
is, ”The doer.” So that Mater or Mother signifies ”The bringer forth.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It may be thought an objection to the above account of the epithet Alma,
that this term is often applied to Venus, who certainly was no virgin. But this
objection is more apparent than real. On the testimony of Augustine, himself an
eye-witness, we know that the rites of Vesta, emphatically ”the virgin goddess
of Rome,” under the name of Terra, were exactly the same as those of Venus, the
goddess of impurity and licentiousness (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate Dei). Augustine
elsewhere says that Vesta, the virgin goddess, ”was by some called Venus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even in the mythology of our own Scandinavian ancestors, we have a
remarkable evidence that Alma Mater, or the Virgin Mother, had been originally
known to them. One of their gods called Heimdal, who is described in the most
exalted terms, as having such quick perceptions as that he could hear the grass
growing on the ground, or the wool on the sheep’s back, and whose trumpet, when
it blew, could be heard through all the worlds, is called by the paradoxical
name, ”the son of nine virgins.” (MALLET) Now this obviously contains an
enigma. Let the language in which the religion of Odin was originally
delivered–viz., the Chaldee, be brought to bear upon it, and the enigma is
solved at once. In Chaldee ”the son of nine virgins” is Ben-Almut-Teshaah. But
in pronunciation this is identical with ”Ben-Almet-Ishaa,” ”the son of the
virgin of salvation.” That son was everywhere known as the ”saviour seed.”
”Zera-hosha” and his virgin mother consequently claimed to be ”the virgin of
salvation.” Even in the very heavens the God of Providence has constrained His
enemies to inscribe a testimony to the great Scriptural truth proclaimed by the
Hebrew prophet, that a ”virgin should bring forth a son, whose name should be
called Immanuel.” The constellation Virgo, as admitted by the most learned
astronomers, was dedicated to Ceres (Dr. JOHN HILL, in his Urania, and Mr. A.
JAMIESON, in his Celestial Atlas), who is the same as the great goddess of
Babylon, for Ceres was worshipped with the babe at her breast (SOPHOCLES,
Antigone), even as the Babylonian goddess was. Virgo was originally the
Assyrian Venus, the mother of Bacchus or Tammuz. Virgo then, was the Virgin
Mother. Isaiah’s prophecy was carried by the Jewish captives to Babylon, and
hence the new title bestowed upon the Babylonian goddess.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous, was widely
known long before the Christian era. For centuries, some say for thousands of
years before that event, the Buddhist priests had a tradition that a Virgin was
to bring forth a child to bless the world. That this tradition came from no
Popish or Christian source, is evident from the surprise felt and expressed by
the Jesuit missionaries, when they first entered Thibet and China, and not only
found a mother and a child worshipped as at home, but that mother worshipped
under a character exactly corresponding with that of their own Madonna, ”Virgo
Deipara,” ”The Virgin mother of God,” * and that, too, in regions where they
could not find the least trace of either the name or history of our Lord Jesus
Christ having ever been known.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See Sir J. F. DAVIS’S China, and LAFITAN, who says that the accounts sent
home by the Popish missionaries bore that the sacred books of the Chinese spoke
not merely of a Holy Mother, but of a Virgin Mother. For further evidence on
this subject, see note</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The primeval promise that the ”seed of the woman should bruise the
serpent’s head,” naturally suggested the idea of a miraculous birth.
Priestcraft and human presumption set themselves wickedly to anticipate the
fulfilment of that promise; and the Babylonian queen seems to have been the
first to whom that honour was given. The highest titles were accordingly
bestowed upon her. She was called the ”queen of heaven.” (Jer 44:17,18,19,25) *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* When Ashta, or ”the woman,” came to be called the ”queen of heaven,” the
name ”woman” became the highest title of honour applied to a female. This
accounts for what we find so common among the ancient nations of the East, that
queens and the most exalted personages were addressed by the name of ”woman.”
”Woman” is not a complimentary title in our language; but formerly it had been applied
by our ancestors in the very same way as among the Orientals; for our word
”Queen” is derived from Cwino, which in the ancient Gothic just signified a
woman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt she was styled Athor–i.e., ”the Habitation of God,” (BUNSEN) to
signify that in her dwelt all the ”fulness of the Godhead.” To point out the
great goddess-mother, in a Pantheistic sense, as at once the Infinite and
Almighty one, and the Virgin mother, this inscription was engraven upon one of
her temples in Egypt: ”I am all that has been, or that is, or that shall be. No
mortal has removed my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the Sun.”
(Ibid.) In Greece she had the name of Hesita, and amongst the Romans, Vesta,
which is just a modification of the same name–a name which, though it has been
commonly understood in a different sense, really meant ”The Dwelling-place.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Hestia, in Greek, signifies ”a house” or ”dwelling.” This is usually
thought to be a secondary meaning of the word, its proper meaning being
believed to be ”fire.” But the statements made in regard to Hestia, show that
the name is derived from Hes or Hese, ”to cover, to shelter,” which is the very
idea of a house, which ”covers” or ”shelters” from the inclemency of the
weather. The verb ”Hes” also signifies ”to protect,” to ”show mercy,” and from
this evidently comes the character of Hestia as ”the protectress of
suppliants.” Taking Hestia as derived from Hes, ”to cover,” or ”shelter,” the
following statement of Smith is easily accounted for: ”Hestia was the goddess
of domestic life, and the giver of all domestic happiness; as such she was
believed to dwell in the inner part of every house, and to have invented the
art of building houses.” If ”fire” be supposed to be the original idea of
Hestia, how could ”fire” ever have been supposed to be ”the builder of houses”!
But taking Hestia in the sense of the Habitation or Dwelling-place, though
derived from Hes, ”to shelter,” or ”cover,” it is easy to see how Hestia would
come to be identified with ”fire.” The goddess who was regarded as the
”Habitation of God” was known by the name of Ashta, ”The Woman”; while ”Ashta”
also signified ”The fire”; and thus Hestia or Vesta, as the Babylonian system
was developed, would easily come to be regarded as ”Fire,” or ”the goddess of
fire.” For the reason that suggested the idea of the Goddess-mother being a
Habitation, see <u><span style="color: blue;">note</span></u> below.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the Dwelling-place of Deity, thus is Hestia or Vesta addressed in the Orphic
Hymns:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Daughter of Saturn, venerable
dame,<br />
Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,<br />
In thee the gods have fix’d their DWELLING-PLACE,<br />
Strong stable basis of the mortal race.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns: Hymn to Vesta. Though Vesta is here called the
daughter of Saturn, she is also identified in all the Pantheons with Cybele or
Rhea, the wife of Saturn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even when Vesta is identified with fire, this same character of Vesta as
”The Dwelling-place” still distinctly appears. Thus Philolaus, speaking of a
fire in the middle of the centre of the world, calls it ”The Vesta of the
universe, The HOUSE of Jupiter, The mother of the gods.” In Babylon, the title
of the goddess-mother as the Dwelling-place of God was Sacca, or in the
emphatic form, Sacta, that is, ”The Tabernacle.” Hence, at this day, the great
goddesses in India, as wielding all the power of the god whom they represent,
are called ”Sacti,” or the ”Tabernacle.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* KENNEDY and MOOR. A synonym for Sacca, ”a tabernacle,” is ”Ahel,” which,
with the points, is pronounced ”Ohel.” From the first form of the word, the
name of the wife of the god Buddha seems to be derived, which, in KENNEDY, is
Ahalya, and in MOOR’S Pantheon, Ahilya. From the second form, in like manner,
seems to be derived the name of the wife of the Patriarch of the Peruvians,
”Mama Oello.” (PRESCOTT’S Peru) Mama was by the Peruvians used in the Oriental
sense: Oello, in all likelihood, was used in the same sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now in her, as the Tabernacle or Temple of God, not only all power, but all
grace and goodness were believed to dwell. Every quality of gentleness and
mercy was regarded as centred in her; and when death had closed her career,
while she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a pigeon, * to
express the celestial benignity of her nature, she was called by the name of
”D’Iune,” ** or ”The Dove,” or without the article, ”Juno”–the name of the
Roman ”queen of heaven,” which has the very same meaning; and under the form of
a dove as well as her own, she was worshipped by the Babylonians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DIODORUS SIC. In connection with this the classical reader will remember
the title of one of the fables in OVID’S Metamorphoses. ”Semiramis into a
pigeon.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** Dione, the name of the mother of Venus, and frequently applied to Venus
herself, is evidently the same name as the above. Dione, as meaning Venus, is
clearly applied by Ovid to the Babylonian goddess. (Fasti)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented
with an olive branch in her mouth, as she herself in her human form also is
seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing
her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is
commonly known, for ”Z’emir-amit” means ”The branch-bearer.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Ze, ”the” or ”that,” emir, ”branch,” and amit, ”bearer,” in the
feminine. HESYCHIUS says that Semiramis is a name for a ”wild pigeon.” The
above explanation of the original meaning of the name Semiramis, as referring
to Noah’s wild pigeon (for it was evidently a wild one, as the tame one would
not have suited the experiment), may account for its application by the Greeks
to any wild pigeon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the goddess was thus represented as the Dove with the olive branch,
there can be no doubt that the symbol had partly reference to the story of the
flood; but there was much more in the symbol than a mere memorial of that great
event. ”A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified
son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning
of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all
grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the
sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove
represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In
confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the Assyrian ”Juno,” or ”The
Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air. Thus Julius
Firmicus says: ”The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish the air to have the
supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same [element] under
the name of Juno, or the Virgin Venus.” Why was air thus identified with Juno,
whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian trinity? Why, but
because in Chaldee the same word which signifies the air signifies also the
”Holy Ghost.” The knowledge of this entirely accounts for the statement of
Proclus, that ”Juno imports the generation of soul.” Whence could the soul–the
spirit of man–be supposed to have its origin, but from the Spirit of God. In
accordance with this character of Juno as the incarnation of the Divine Spirit,
the source of life, and also as the goddess of the air, thus is she invoked in
the ”Orphic Hymns”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”O royal Juno, of majestic
mien,<br />
Aerial formed, divine, Jove’s blessed queen,<br />
Throned in the bosom of caerulean air,<br />
The race of mortals is thy constant care;<br />
The cooling gales, thy power alone inspires,<br />
Which nourish life, which every life desires;<br />
Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone<br />
Producing all things, mortal life is known;<br />
All natures show thy temperament divine,<br />
And universal sway alone is thine,<br />
With sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea<br />
And rolling rivers roar when shook by thee.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns. Every classical reader must be aware of the
identification of Juno with the air. The following, however, as still further
illustrative of the subject from Proclus, may not be out of place: ”The series
of our sovereign mistress Juno, beginning from on high, pervades the last of
things, and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air; for air is a
symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable
woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the
Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a
famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to
worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden
dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, ”Semeion.” (BRYANT)
What is the meaning of Semeion? It is evidently ”The Habitation”; * and the
”golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell
in her–even the Spirit of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Ze, ”that,” or ”the great,” and ”Maaon,” or Maion, ”a habitation,”
which, in the Ionic dialect, in which Lucian, the describer of the goddess,
wrote, would naturally become Meion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When such transcendent dignity was bestowed on her, when such winning
characters were attributed to her, and when, over and above all, her images
presented her to the eyes of men as Venus Urania, ”the heavenly Venus,” the
queen of beauty, who assured her worshippers of salvation, while giving loose
reins to every unholy passion, and every depraved and sensual appetite–no
wonder that everywhere she was enthusiastically adored. Under the name of the
”Mother of the gods,” the goddess queen of Babylon became an object of almost
universal worship. ”The Mother of the gods,” says Clericus, ”was worshipped by
the Persians, the Syrians, and all the kings of Europe and Asia, with the most
profound religious veneration.” Tacitus gives evidence that the Babylonian
goddess was worshipped in the heart of Germany, and Caesar, when he invaded
Britain, found that the priests of this same goddess, known by the name of
Druids, had been there before him. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* CAESAR, De Bello Gallico. The name Druid has been thought to be derived
from the Greek Drus, an oak tree, or the Celtic Deru, which has the same
meaning; but this is obviously a mistake. In Ireland, the name for a Druid is
Droi, and in Wales Dryw; and it will be found that the connection of the Druids
with the oak was more from the mere similarity of their name to that of the
oak, than because they derived their name from it. The Druidic system in all
its parts was evidently the Babylonian system. Dionysius informs us, that the
rites of Bacchus were duly celebrated in the British Islands and Strabo cites Artemidorus
to show that, in an island close to Britain, Ceres and Proserpine were
venerated with rites similar to the orgies of Samothrace. It will be seen from
the account of the Druidic Ceridwen and her child, afterwards to be noticed
(see Chapter IV, Section III), that there was a great analogy between her
character and that of the great goddess-mother of Babylon. Such was the system;
and the name Dryw, or Droi, applied to the priests, is in exact accordance with
that system. The name Zero, given in Hebrew or the early Chaldee, to the son of
the great goddess queen, in later Chaldee became ”Dero.” The priest of Dero,
”the seed,” was called, as is the case in almost all religions, by the name of
his god; and hence the familiar name ”Druid” is thus proved to signify the
priest of ”Dero”–the woman’s promised ”seed.” The classical Hamadryads were
evidently in like manner priestesses of ”Hamed-dero,”–”the desired seed”–i.e.,
”the desire of all nations.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Herodotus, from personal knowledge, testifies, that in Egypt this ”queen of
heaven” was ”the greatest and most worshipped of all the divinities.” Wherever
her worship was introduced, it is amazing what fascinating power it exerted.
Truly, the nations might be said to be ”made drunk” with the wine of her
fornications. So deeply, in particular, did the Jews in the days of Jeremiah
drink of her wine cup, so bewitched were they with her idolatrous worship, that
even after Jerusalem had been burnt, and the land desolated for this very
thing, they could not be prevailed on to give it up. While dwelling in Egypt as
forlorn exiles, instead of being witnesses for God against the heathenism
around them, they were as much devoted to this form of idolatry as the
Egyptians themselves. Jeremiah was sent of God to denounce wrath against them,
if they continued to worship the queen of heaven; but his warnings were in
vain. ”Then,” saith the prophet, ”all the men which knew that their wives had
burnt incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great
multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros,
answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the
name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee; but we will certainly do
whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the
queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we,
and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the
streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and
saw no evil” (Jer 44:15-17). Thus did the Jews, God’s own peculiar people,
emulate the Egyptians in their devotion to the queen of heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The worship of the goddess-mother with the child in her arms continued to
be observed in Egypt till Christianity entered. If the Gospel had come in power
among the mass of the people, the worship of this goddess-queen would have been
overthrown. With the generality it came only in name. Instead, therefore, of
the Babylonian goddess being cast out, in too many cases her name only was
changed. She was called the Virgin Mary, and, with her child, was worshipped
with the same idolatrous feeling by professing Christians, as formerly by open
and avowed Pagans. The consequence was, that when, in AD 325, the Nicene Council
was summoned to condemn the heresy of Arius, who denied the true divinity of
Christ, that heresy indeed was condemned, but not without the help of men who
gave distinct indications of a desire to put the creature on a level with the
Creator, to set the Virgin-mother side by side with her Son. At the Council of
Nice, says the author of ”Nimrod,” ”The Melchite section”–that is, the
representatives of the so-called Christianity of Egypt–”held that there were
three persons in the Trinity–the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Messiah their
Son.” In reference to this astounding fact, elicited by the Nicene Council,
Father Newman speaks exultingly of these discussions as tending to the
glorification of Mary. ”Thus,” says he, ”the controversy opened a question which
it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the
realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. Thus,
there was a wonder in Heaven; a throne was seen far above all created powers,
mediatorial, intercessory, a title archetypal, a crown bright as the morning
star, a glory issuing from the eternal throne, robes pure as the heavens, and a
sceptre over all. And who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was
that wisdom, and what was her name, the mother of fair love, and far, and holy
hope, exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose-plant in Jericho, created
from the beginning before the world, in God’s counsels, and in Jerusalem was
her power? The vision is found in the Apocalypse ‘a Woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* NEWMAN’S Development. The intelligent reader will see at a glance the
absurdity of applying this vision of the ”woman” of the Apocalypse to the
Virgin Mary. John expressly declares that what he saw was a ”sign” or ”symbol”
(semeion). If the woman here is a literal woman, the woman that sits on the
seven hills must be the same. ”The woman” in both cases is a ”symbol.” ”The
woman” on the seven hills is the symbol of the false church; the woman clothed
with the sun, of the true church–the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The votaries of Mary,” adds he, ”do not exceed the true faith, unless the
blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous,
unless Arianism is orthodoxy.” This is the very poetry of blasphemy. It
contains an argument too; but what does that argument amount to? It just
amounts to this, that if Christ be admitted to be truly and properly God, and
worthy of Divine honours, His mother, from whom He derived merely His humanity,
must be admitted to be the same, must be raised far above the level of all
creatures, and be worshipped as a partaker of the Godhead. The divinity of
Christ is made to stand or fall with the divinity of His mother. Such is Popery
in the nineteenth century; yea, such is Popery in England. It was known already
that Popery abroad was bold and unblushing in its blasphemies; that in Lisbon a
church was to be seen with these words engraven on its front, ”To the virgin
goddess of Loretto, the Italian race, devoted to her DIVINITY, have dedicated
this temple.” (Journal of Professor GIBSON, in Scottish Protestant) But when
till now was such language ever heard in Britain before? This, however, is just
the exact reproduction of the doctrine of ancient Babylon in regard to the
great goddess-mother. The Madonna of Rome, then, is just the Madonna of
Babylon. The ”Queen of Heaven” in the one system is the same as the ”Queen of
Heaven” in the other. The goddess worshipped in Babylon and Egypt as the
Tabernacle or Habitation of God, is identical with her who, under the name of
Mary, is called by Rome ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” ”the awful
Dwelling-place,” * ”the Mansion of God” (Pancarpium Marioe), the ”Tabernacle of
the Holy Ghost” (Garden of the Soul), the ”Temple of the Trinity” (Golden
Manual in Scottish Protestant).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Golden Manual in Scottish Protestant. The word here used for
”Dwelling-place” in the Latin of this work is a pure Chaldee word–”Zabulo,” and
is from the same verb as Zebulun (Gen 30:20), the name which was given by Leah
to her son, when she said ”Now will my husband dwell with me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Some may possibly be inclined to defend such language, by saying that the
Scripture makes every believer to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, and,
therefore, what harm can there be in speaking of the Virgin Mary, who was
unquestionably a saint of God, under that name, or names of a similar import?
Now, no doubt it is true that Paul says (1 Cor 3:16), ”Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” It is not only
true, but it is a great truth, and a blessed one–a truth that enhances every
comfort when enjoyed, and takes the sting out of every trouble when it comes,
that every genuine Christian has less or more experience of what is contained
in these words of the same apostle (2 Cor 6:16), ”Ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will
be their God, and they shall be my people.” It must also be admitted, and
gladly admitted, that this implies the indwelling of all the Persons of the
glorious Godhead; for the Lord Jesus hath said (John 14:23), ”If a man love me,
he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and WE will come unto him,
and make our abode with him.” But while admitting all this, on examination it
will be found that the Popish and the Scriptural ideas conveyed by these
expressions, however apparently similar, are essentially different. When it is
said that a believer is ”a temple of God,” or a temple of the Holy Ghost, the
meaning is (Eph 3:17) that ”Christ dwells in the heart by faith.” But when Rome
says that Mary is ”The Temple” or ”Tabernacle of God,” the meaning is the exact
Pagan meaning of the term–viz., that the union between her and the Godhead is a
union akin to the hypostatical union between the divine and human nature of
Christ. The human nature of Christ is the ”Tabernacle of God,” inasmuch as the
Divine nature has veiled its glory in such a way, by assuming our nature, that
we can come near without overwhelming dread to the Holy God. To this glorious
truth John refers when he says (John 1:14), ”The Word was made flesh, and dwelt
(literally tabernacled) among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In this sense, Christ,
the God-man, is the only ”Tabernacle of God.” Now, it is precisely in this
sense that Rome calls Mary the ”Tabernacle of God,” or of the ”Holy Ghost.”
Thus speaks the author of a Popish work devoted to the exaltation of the
Virgin, in which all the peculiar titles and prerogatives of Christ are given
to Mary: ”Behold the tabernacle of God, the mansion of God, the habitation, the
city of God is with men, and in men and for men, for their salvation, and
exaltation, and eternal glorification…Is it most clear that this is true of the
holy church? and in like manner also equally true of the most holy sacrament of
the Lord’s body? Is it (true) of every one of us in as far as we are truly
Christians? Undoubtedly; but we have to contemplate this mystery (as existing)
in a peculiar manner in the most holy Mother of our Lord.” (Pancarpium Marioe)
Then the author, after endeavouring to show that ”Mary is rightly considered as
the Tabernacle of God with men,” and that in a peculiar sense, a sense
different from that in which all Christians are the ”temple of God,” thus
proceeds with express reference to her in this character of the Tabernacle:
”Great truly is the benefit, singular is the privilege, that the Tabernacle of
God should be with men, IN WHICH men may safely come near to God become man.”
(Ibid.) Here the whole mediatorial glory of Christ, as the God-man in whom
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is given to Mary, or at least
is shared with her. The above extracts are taken from a work published upwards
of two hundred years ago. Has the Papacy improved since then? Has it repented
of its blasphemies? No, the very reverse. The quotation already given from
Father Newman proves this; but there is still stronger proof. In a recently
published work, the same blasphemous idea is even more clearly unfolded. While
Mary is called ”The HOUSE consecrated to God,” and the ”TEMPLE of the Trinity,”
the following versicle and response will show in what sense she is regarded as
the temple of the Holy Ghost: ”V. The Lord himself created HER in the Holy
Ghost, and POURED HER out among all his works. V. O Lady, hear,” &c. This
astounding language manifestly implies that Mary is identified with the Holy
Ghost, when it speaks of her ”being poured out” on ”all the works of God”; and
that, as we have seen, was just the very way in which the Woman, regarded as
the ”Tabernacle” or House of God by the Pagans, was looked upon. Where is such
language used in regard to the Virgin? Not in Spain; not in Austria; not in the
dark places of Continental Europe; but in London, the seat and centre of the
world’s enlightenment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The names of blasphemy bestowed by the Papacy on Mary have not one shadow
of foundation in the Bible, but are all to be found in the Babylonian idolatry.
Yea, the very features and complexions of the Roman and Babylonian Madonnas are
the same. Till recent times, when Raphael somewhat departed from the beaten
track, there was nothing either Jewish or even Italian in the Romish Madonnas.
Had these pictures or images of the Virgin Mother been intended to represent
the mother of our Lord, naturally they would have been cast either in the one
mould or the other. But it was not so. In a land of dark-eyed beauties, with
raven locks, the Madonna was always represented with blue eyes and golden hair,
a complexion entirely different form the Jewish complexion, which naturally
would have been supposed to belong to the mother of our Lord, but which
precisely agrees with that which all antiquity attributes to the goddess queen
of Babylon. In almost all lands the great goddess has been described with
golden or yellow hair, showing that there must have been one grand prototype,
to which they were all made to correspond. The ”yellow-haired Ceres,” might not
have been accounted of any weight in this argument if she had stood alone, for
it might have been supposed in that case that the epithet ”yellow-haired” was
borrowed from the corn that was supposed to be under her guardian care. But
many other goddesses have the very same epithet applied to them. Europa, whom
Jupiter carried away in the form of a bull, is called ”The yellow-haired
Europa.” (OVID, Fasti) Minerva is called by Homer ”the blue-eyed Minerva,” and
by Ovid ”the yellow-haired”; the huntress Diana, who is commonly identified
with the moon, is addressed by Anacreon as ”the yellow-haired daughter of
Jupiter,” a title which the pale face of the silver moon could surely never
have suggested. Dione, the mother of Venus, is described by Theocritus as
”yellow-haired.” Venus herself is frequently called ”Aurea Venus,” the ”golden
Venus.” (HOMER’S Iliad) The Indian goddess Lakshmi, the ”Mother of the
Universe,” is described as of ”a golden complexion.” (Asiatic Researches) Ariadne,
the wife of Bacchus, was called ”the yellow-haired Ariadne.” (HESIOD,
Theogonia) Thus does Dryden refer to her golden or yellow hair:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Where the rude waves in
Dian’s harbour play,<br />
The fair forsaken Ariadne lay;<br />
There, sick with grief and frantic with despair,<br />
Her dress she rent, and tore her golden hair.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Gorgon Medusa before her transformation, while celebrated for her
beauty, was equally celebrated for her golden hair:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Medusa once had charms: to
gain her love<br />
A rival crowd of anxious lovers strove.<br />
They who have seen her, own they ne’er did trace<br />
More moving features in a sweeter face;<br />
But above all, her length of hair they own<br />
In golden ringlets waves, and graceful shone.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The mermaid that figured so much in the romantic tales of the north, which
was evidently borrowed from the story of Atergatis, the fish goddess of Syria,
who was called the mother of Semiramis, and was sometimes identified with
Semiramis herself, was described with hair of the same kind. ”The Ellewoman,”
such is the Scandinavian name for the mermaid, ”is fair,” says the introduction
to the ”Danish Tales” of Hans Andersen, ”and gold-haired, and plays most
sweetly on a stringed instrument.” ”She is frequently seen sitting on the
surface of the waters, and combing her long golden hair with a golden comb.”
Even when Athor, the Venus of Egypt, was represented as a cow, doubtless to
indicate the complexion of the goddess that cow represented, the cow’s head and
neck were gilded. (HERODOTUS and WILKINSON) When, therefore, it is known that
the most famed pictures of the Virgin Mother in Italy represented her as of a
fair complexion and with golden hair, and when over all Ireland the Virgin is
almost invariably represented at this day in the very same manner, who can
resist the conclusion that she must have been thus represented, only because
she had been copied form the same prototype as the Pagan divinities?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nor is this agreement in complexion only, but also in features. Jewish
features are everywhere marked, and have a character peculiarly their own. But
the original Madonnas have nothing at all of Jewish form or feature; but are
declared by those who have personally compared both, entirely to agree in this
respect, as well as in complexion, with the Babylonian Madonnas found by Sir Robert
Ker Porter among the ruins of Babylon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is yet another remarkable characteristic of these pictures worthy of
notice, and that is the nimbus or peculiar circle of light that frequently
encompasses the head of the Roman Madonna. With this circle the heads of the
so-called figures of Christ are also frequently surrounded. Whence could such a
device have originated? In the case of our Lord, if His head had been merely
surrounded with rays, there might have been some pretence for saying that that
was borrowed from the Evangelic narrative, where it is stated, that on the holy
mount His face became resplendent with light. But where, in the whole compass
of Scripture, do we ever read that His head was surrounded with a disk, or a
circle of light? But what will be searched for in vain in the Word of God, is
found in he artistic representations of the great gods and goddesses of
Babylon. The disk, and particularly the circle, were the well known symbols of
the Sun-divinity, and figured largely in the symbolism of the East. With the
circle or the disk the head of the Sun-divinity was encompassed. The same was
the case in Pagan Rome. Apollo, as the child of the Sun, was often thus
represented. The goddesses that claimed kindred with the Sun were equally
entitled to be adorned with the nimbus or luminous circle. From Pompeii there
is a representation of Circe, ”the daughter of the Sun” with her head
surrounded with a circle, in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna
is at this day surrounded. Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of
Circe, with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how
exactly they correspond. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The explanation of the figure is thus given in Pompeii: ”One of them [the
paintings] is taken from the Odyssey, and represents Ulysses and Circe, at the
moment when the hero, having drunk the charmed cup with impunity, by virtue of
the antidote given him by Mercury [it is well known that Circe had a 'golden
cup,' even as the Venus of Babylon had], draws his sword, and advances to
avenge his companions,” who, having drunk of her cup, had been changed into
swine. The goddess, terrified, makes her submission at once, as described by
Homer; Ulysses himself being the narrator:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Hence, seek the sty, there
wallow with thy friends,<br />
She spake, I drawing from beside my thigh<br />
My Falchion keen, with death-denouncing looks,<br />
Rushed on her; she, with a shrill scream of fear,<br />
Ran under my raised arm, seized fast my knees,<br />
And in winged accents plaintive, thus began:<br />
‘Say, who art thou,’” &c.–COWPER’S Odyssey</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”This picture,” adds the author of Pompeii, ”is remarkable, as teaching us
the origin of that ugly and unmeaning glory by which the heads of saints are
often surrounded…This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by Servius
to be ‘the luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods.’ It belongs
with peculiar propriety to Circe, as the daughter of the Sun. The emperors,
with their usual modesty, assumed it as the mark of their divinity; and under
this respectable patronage it passed, like many other Pagan superstitions and
customs, into the use of the Church.” The emperors here get rather more than a
fair share of the blame due to them. It was not the emperors that brought
”Pagan superstition” into the Church, so much as the Bishop of Rome. See
Chapter VII, Section II.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, could any one possibly believe that all this coincidence could be
accidental. Of course, if the Madonna had ever so exactly resembled the Virgin
Mary, that would never have excused idolatry. But when it is evident that the
goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries,
is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus ”the Son,” as the
rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of
licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry.
What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say
that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus?
When she was worshipped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called
by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of His glorious character, as
the name of Jesus. He was called ”Zoro-ashta,” ”the seed of the woman.” But
that did not hinder the hot anger of God from being directed against those in
the days of old who worshipped that ”image of jealousy, provoking to jealousy.”
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Ezekiel 8:3. There have been many speculations about what this ”image of
jealousy” could be. But when it is known that the grand feature of ancient
idolatry was just the worship of the Mother and the child, and that child as
the Son of God incarnate, all is plain. Compare verses 3 and 5 with verse 14,
and it will be seen that the ”women weeping for Tammuz” were weeping close
beside the image of jealousy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Neither can the giving of the name of Christ to the infant in the arms of
the Romish Madonna, make it less the ”image of jealousy,” less offensive to the
Most High, less fitted to provoke His high displeasure, when it is evident that
that infant is worshipped as the child of her who was adored as Queen of
Heaven, with all the attributes of divinity, and was at the same time the
”Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Image-worship in every case
the Lord abhors; but image-worship of such a kind as this must be peculiarly
abhorrent to His holy soul. Now, if the facts I have adduced be true, is it
wonderful that such dreadful threatenings should be directed in the Word of God
against the Romish apostacy, and that the vials of this tremendous wrath are
destined to be outpoured upon its guilty head? If these things be true (and
gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call
her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines,
who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a
doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy
Trinity consisted of ”the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son”?
(Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, July, 1852) Is there one who would not shrink
with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a Church
that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the
following lines?</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Heart of Jesus, I adore thee;<br />
Heart of Mary, I implore thee;<br />
Heart of Joseph, pure and just;<br />
IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* What every Christian must Know and Do. By the Rev. J. FURNISS. Published
by James Duffy, Dublin. The edition of this Manual of Popery quoted above,
besides the blasphemy it contains, contains most immoral principles, teaching
distinctly the harmlessness of fraud, if only kept within due bounds. On this
account, a great outcry having been raised against it, I believe this edition
has been withdrawn from general circulation. The genuineness of the passage
above given is, however, beyond all dispute. I received myself from a fried in
Liverpool a copy of the edition containing these words, which is now in my
possession, having previously seen them in a copy in the possession of the Rev.
Richard Smyth of Armagh. It is not in Ireland, however, only, that such a
trinity is exhibited for the worship of Romanists. In a Card, or Fly-leaf,
issued by the Popish priests of Sunderland, now lying before me, with the
heading ”Paschal Duty, St. Mary’s Church, Bishopwearmouth, 1859,” the following
is the 4th admonition given to the ”Dear Christians” to whom it is addressed:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”4. And never forget the acts of a good Christian, recommended to you so
often during the renewal of the Mission.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Blessed be Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph.<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart, my life, and my soul.<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me always; and in my last agony,<br />
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, receive my last breath. Amen.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">To induce the adherents of Rome to perform this ”act of a good Christian,”
a considerable bribe is held out. In p. 30 of Furniss’ Manual above referred
to, under the head ”Rule of Life,” the following passage occurs: ”In the
morning, before you get up, make the sign of the cross, and say, Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. (Each time you say this prayer,
you get an indulgence of 100 days, which you can give to the souls in
Purgatory)!” I must add that the title of Furniss’ book, as given above, is the
title of Mr. Smyth’s copy. The title of the copy in my possession is ”What
every Christian must Know.” London: Richardson & Son, 147 Strand. Both
copies alike have the blasphemous words given in the text, and both have the
”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name?
Yet this is the Trinity which now the Roman Catholics of Ireland from tender
infancy are taught to adore. This is the Trinity which, in the latest books of
catechetical instruction is presented as the grand object of devotion to the
adherents of the Papacy. The manual that contains this blasphemy comes forth
with the express ”Imprimatur” of ”Paulus Cullen,” Popish Archbishop of Dublin.
Will any one after this say that the Roman Catholic Church must still be called
Christian, because it holds the doctrine of the Trinity? So did the Pagan
Babylonians, so did the Egyptians, so do the Hindoos at this hour, in the very
same sense in which Rome does. They all admitted A trinity, but did they worship
THE Triune Jehovah, the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible? And will any one
say with such evidence before him, that Rome does so? <b>Away then, with
the deadly delusion that Rome is Christian!</b> There might once have been
some palliation for entertaining such a supposition; but every day the ”Grand
Mystery” is revealing itself more and more in its true character. There is not,
and there cannot be, any safety for the souls of men in ”Babylon.” ”Come out of
her, my people,” is the loud and express command of God. Those who disobey that
command, do it at their peril.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Notes</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Identification of Rhea or
Cybele and Venus</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the exoteric doctrine of Greece and Rome, the characters of Cybele, the
mother of the gods, and of Venus, the goddess of love, are generally very
distinct, insomuch that some minds may perhaps find no slight difficulty in
regard to the identification of these two divinities. But that difficulty will
disappear, if the fundamental principle of the Mysteries be borne in mind–viz.,
that at bottom they recognised only Adad, ”The One God.” Adad being Triune,
this left room, when the Babylonian Mystery of Iniquity took shape, for three
different FORMS of divinity–the father, the mother, and the son; but all the
multiform divinities with which the Pagan world abounded, whatever diversities
there were among them, were resolved substantially into so many manifestations
of one or other of these divine persons, or rather of two, for the first person
was generally in the background. We have distinct evidence that this was the
case. Apuleius tells us, that when he was initiated, the goddess Isis revealed
herself to him as ”The first of the celestials, and the uniform manifestation
of the gods and goddesses…WHOSE ONE SOLE DIVINITY the whole orb of the earth
venerated, and under a manifold form, with different rites, and under a variety
of appellations”; and going over many of these appellations, she declares
herself to be at once ”Pessinuntica, the mother of the gods [i.e. Cybele], and
Paphian Venus.” Now, as this was the case in the later ages of the Mysteries,
so it must have been the case from the very beginning; because they SET OUT,
and necessarily set out, with the doctrine of the UNITY of the Godhead. This,
of course, would give rise to no little absurdity and inconsistency in the very
nature of the case. Both Wilkinson and Bunsen, to get rid of the
inconsistencies they have met with in the Egyptian system, have found it necessary
to have recourse to substantially the same explanation as I have done. Thus we
find Wilkinson saying: ”I have stated that Amun-re and other gods took the form
of different deities, which, though it appears at first sight to present some
difficulty, may readily be accounted for when we consider that each of those
whose figures or emblem were adopted, was only an EMANATION, or deified
attribute of the SAME GREAT BEING to whom they ascribed various characters,
according to the several offices he was supposed to perform.” The statement of
Bunsen is to the same effect, and it is this: ”Upon these premises, we think
ourselves justified in concluding that the two series of gods were originally
identical, and that, in the GREAT PAIR of gods, all those attributes were
concentrated, from the development of which, in various personifications, that
mythological system sprang up which we have been already considering.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The bearing of all this upon the question of the identification of Cybele
and Astarte, or Venus, is important. Fundamentally, there was but one
goddess–the Holy Spirit, represented as female, when the distinction of sex was
wickedly ascribed to the Godhead, through a perversion of the great Scripture
idea, that all the children of God are at once begotten of the Father, and born
of the Spirit; and under this idea, the Spirit of God, as Mother, was
represented under the form of a dove, in memory of the fact that that Spirit,
at the creation, ”fluttered”–for so, as I have observed, is the exact meaning of
the term in Genesis 1:2–”on the face of the waters.” This goddess, then, was
called Ops, ”the flutterer,” or Juno, ”The Dove,” or Khubele, ”The binder with
cords,” which last title had reference to ”the bands of love, the cords of a
man” (called in Hosea 11:4, ”Khubeli Adam”), with which not only does God @mL3
continually, by His providential goodness, draw men unto Himself, but with
which our first parent Adam, through the Spirit’s indwelling, while the
covenant of Eden was unbroken, was sweetly bound to God. This theme is minutely
dwelt on in Pagan story, and the evidence is very abundant; but I cannot enter
upon it here. Let this only be noticed, however, that the Romans joined the two
terms Juno and Khubele–or, as it is commonly pronounced, Cybele–together; and
on certain occasions invoked their supreme goddess, under the name of Juno
Covella–that is, ”The dove that binds with cords.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the reader looks, in Layard, at the triune emblem of the supreme
Assyrian divinity, he will see this very idea visibly embodied. There the wings
and tail of the dove have two bands associated with them instead of feet
(LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In reference to events after the Fall, Cybele got a new idea attached to
her name. Khubel signifies not only to ”bind with cords,” but also ”to travail
in birth”; and therefore Cybele appeared as the ”Mother of the gods,” by whom
all God’s children must be born anew or regenerated. But, for this purpose, it
was held indispensable that there should be a union in the first instance with
Rhea, ”The gazer,” the human ”mother of gods and men,” that the ruin she had
introduced might be remedied. Hence the identification of Cybele and Rhea,
which in all the Pantheons are declared to be only two different names of the
same goddess, though, as we have seen, these goddesses were in reality entirely
distinct. This same principle was applied to all the other deified mothers.
They were deified only through the supposed miraculous identification with them
of Juno or Cybele–in other words, of the Holy Spirit of God. Each of these
mothers had her own legend, and had special worship suited thereto; but, as in
all cases, she was held to be an incarnation of the one spirit of God, as the
great Mother of all, the attributes of that one Spirit were always pre-supposed
as belonging to her. This, then, was the case with the goddess recognised as
Astarte or Venus, as well as with Rhea. Though there were points of difference
between Cybele, or Rhea, and Astarte or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus, Layard shows
that there were also distinct points of contact between them. Cybele or Rhea
was remarkable for her turreted crown. Mylitta, or Astarte, was represented
with a similar crown. Cybele, or Rhea, was drawn by lions; Mylitta, or Astarte,
was represented as standing on a lion. The worship of Mylitta, or Astarte, was
a mass of moral pollution (HERODOTUS). The worship of Cybele, under the name of
Terra, was the same (AUGUSTINE, De Civitate).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The first deified woman was no doubt Semiramis, as the first deified man
was her husband. But it is evident that it was some time after the Mysteries
began that this deification took place; for it was not till after Semiramis was
dead that she was exalted to divinity, and worshipped under the form of a dove.
When, however, the Mysteries were originally concocted, the deeds of Eve, who,
through her connection with the serpent, brought forth death, must necessarily
have occupied a place; for the Mystery of sin and death lies at the very
foundation of all religion, and in the age of Semiramis and Nimrod, and Shem
and Ham, all men must have been well acquainted with the facts of the Fall. At
first the sin of Eve may have been admitted in all its sinfulness (otherwise
men generally would have been shocked, especially when the general conscience
had been quickened through the zeal of Shem); but when a woman was to be
deified, the shape that the mystic story came to assume shows that that sin was
softened, yea, that it changed its very character, and that by a perversion of
the name given to Eve, as ”the mother of all living ones,” that is, all the
regenerate, she was glorified as the authoress of spiritual life, and, under
the very name Rhea, was recognised as the mother of the gods. Now, those who
had the working of the Mystery of Iniquity did not find it very difficult to
show that this name Rhea, originally appropriate to the mother of mankind, was
hardly less appropriate for her who was the actual mother of the gods, that is,
of all the deified mortals. Rhea, in the active sense, signifies ”the Gazing
woman,” but in the passive it signifies ”The woman gazed at,” that is, ”The
beauty,” and thus, under one and the same term, the mother of mankind and the
mother of the Pagan gods, that is, Semiramis, were amalgamated; insomcuh, that now,
as is well known, Rhea is currently recognised as the ”Mother of gods and men”
(HESIOD, Theogon). It is not wonderful, therefore that the name Rhea is found
applied to her, who, by the Assyrians, was worshipped in the very character of
Astarte or Venus.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">____________________</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Virgin Mother of Paganism</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Almost all the Tartar princes,” says SALVERTE (Des Sciences Occultes),
”trace their genealogy to a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sun-beam, or
some equally miraculous means.” In India, the mother of Surya, the sun-god, who
was born to destroy the enemies of the gods, is said to have become pregnant in
this way, a beam of the sun having entered her womb, in consequence of which
she brought forth the sun-god. Now the knowledge of this widely diffused myth
casts light on the secret meaning of the name Aurora, given to the wife of
Orion, to whose marriage with that ”mighty hunter” Homer refers (Odyssey).
While the name Aur-ora, in the physical sense, signifies also ”pregnant with
light”; and from ”ohra,” ”to conceive” or be ”pregnant,” we have in Greek, the
word for a wife. As Orion, according to Persian accounts, was Nimrod; and
Nimrod, under the name of Ninus, was worshipped as the son of his wife, when he
came to be deified as the sun-god, that name Aurora, as applied to his wife, is
evidently intended to convey the very same idea as prevails in Tartary and
India. These myths of the Tartars and Hindoos clearly prove that the Pagan idea
of the miraculous conception had not come from any intermixture of Christianity
with that superstition, but directly from the promise of ”the seed of the
woman.” But how, it may be asked, could the idea of being pregnant with a
sunbeam arise? There is reason to believe that it came from one of the natural
names of the sun. From the Chaldean zhr, ”to shine,” comes, in the participle
active, zuhro or zuhre, ”the Shiner”; and hence, no doubt, from zuhro, ”the
Shiner,” under the prompting of a designing priesthood, men would slide into
the idea of zuro, ”the seed,”–”the Shiner” and ”the seed,” according to the
genius of Paganism, being thus identified. This was manifestly the case in
Persia, where the sun as the great divinity; for the ”Persians,” says Maurice,
”called God Sure” (Antiquities).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">____________________</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Goddess Mother as a
Habitation</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">What could ever have induced mankind to think of calling the great Goddess-mother,
or mother of gods and men, a House or Habitation? The answer is evidently to be
found in a statement made in Genesis 2:21, in regard to the formation of the
mother of mankind: ”And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he
slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made (margin, literally
BUILDED) he into a woman.” That this history of the rib was well known to the
Babylonians, is manifest from one of the names given to their primeval goddess,
as found in Berosus. That name is Thalatth. But Thalatth is just the Chaldean
form of the Hebrew Tzalaa, in the feminine,–the very word used in Genesis for
the rib, of which Eve was formed; and the other name which Berosus couples with
Thalatth, does much to confirm this; for that name, which is Omorka, * just
signifies ”The Mother of the world.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From ”Am,” ”mother,” and ”arka,” ”earth.” The first letter aleph in both
of these words is often pronounced as o. Thus the pronunciation of a in Am,
”mother,” is seen in the Greek a ”shoulder.” Am, ”mother,” comes from am, ”to
support,” and from am, pronounced om, comes the shoulder that bears burdens.
Hence also the name Oma, as one of the names of Bona Des. Oma is evidently the
”Mother.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When we have thus deciphered the meaning of the name Thalatth, as applied
to the ”mother of the world,” that leads us at once to the understanding, of
the name Thalasius, applied by the Romans to the god of marriage, the origin of
which name has hitherto been sought in vain. Thalatthi signifies ”belonging to
the rib,” and, with the Roman termination, becomes Thalatthius or ”Thalasius,
the man of the rib.” And what name more appropriate than this for Adam, as the
god of marriage, who, when the rib was brought to him, said, ”This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of man.” At first, when Thalatth, the rib, was builded into a woman,
that ”woman” was, in a very important sense, the ”Habitation” or ”Temple of
God”; and had not the Fall intervened, all her children would, in consequence
of mere natural generation, have been the children of God. The entrance of sin
into the world subverted the original constitution of things. Still, when the
promise of a Saviour was given and embraced, the renewed indwelling of the Holy
Spirit was given too, not that she might thereby have any power in herself to
bring forth children unto God, but only that she might duly act the part of a
mother to a spiritually living offspring–to those whom God of his free grace
should quicken, and bring from death unto life. Now, Paganism willingly
overlooked all this; and taught, as soon as its votaries were prepared for
receiving it, that this renewed indwelling of the spirit of God in the woman,
was identification, and so it deified her. Then Rhea, ”the gazer,” the mother
of mankind, was identified with Cybele ”the binder with cords,” or Juno, ”the
Dove,” that is, the Holy Spirit. Then, in the blasphemous Pagan sense, she
became Athor, ”the Habitation of God,” or Sacca, or Sacta, ”the tabernacle” or
”temple,” in whom dwelt ”all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Thus she
became Heva, ”The Living One”; not in the sense in which Adam gave that name to
his wife after the Fall, when the hope of life out of the midst of death was so
unexpectedly presented to her as well as to himself; but in the sense of the
communicator of spiritual and eternal life to men; for Rhea was called the
”fountain of the blessed ones.” The agency, then, of this deified woman was
held to be indispensable for the begetting of spiritual children to God, in
this, as it was admitted, fallen world. Looked at from this point of view, the
meaning of the name given to the Babylonian goddess in 2 Kings 17:30, will be
at once apparent. The name Succoth-benoth has very frequently been supposed to
be a plural word, and to refer to booths or tabernacles used in Babylon for
infamous purposes. But, as observed by Clericus (De Chaldoeis), who refers to the
Rabbins as being of the same opinion, the context clearly shows that the name
must be the name of an idol: (vv 29,30), ”Howbeit every nation made gods of
their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans
had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of
Babylon made Succoth-benoth.” It is here evidently an idol that is spoken of;
and as the name is feminine, that idol must have been the image of a goddess.
Taken in this sense, then, and in the light of the Chaldean system as now
unfolded, the meaning of ”Succoth-benoth,” as applied to the Babylonian
goddess, is just ”The tabernacle of child-bearing.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* That is, the Habitation in which the Spirit of God dwelt, for the purpose
of begetting spiritual children.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the Babylonian system was developed, Eve was represented as the first
that occupied this place, and the very name Benoth, that signifies
”child-bearing,” explains also how it came about that the Woman, who, as Hestia
or Vesta, was herself called the ”Habitation,” got the credit of ”having
invented the art of building houses” (SMITH, ”Hestia”). Benah, the verb, from
which Benoth comes, signifies at once to ”bring forth children” and ”to build
houses”; the bringing forth of children being metaphorically regarded as the
”building up of the house,” that is, of the family.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While the Pagan system, so far as a Goddess-mother was concerned, was
founded on this identification of the Celestial and Terrestrial mothers of the
”blessed” immortals, each of these two divinities was still celebrated as
having, in some sense, a distinct individuality; and, in consequence, all the
different incarnations of the Saviour-seed were represented as born of two
mothers. It is well known that Bimater, or Two-mothered, is one of the
distinguishing epithets applied to Bacchus. Ovid makes the reason of the
application of this epithet to him to have arisen from the myth, that when in
embryo, he was rescued from the flames in which is mother died, was sewed up in
Jupiter’s thigh, and then brought forth at the due time. Without inquiring into
the secret meaning of this, it is sufficient to state that Bacchus had two
goddess-mothers; for, not only was he conceived by Semele, but he was brought
into the world by the goddess Ippa (PROCLUS in Timoeum). This is the very same
thing, no doubt, that is referred to, when it is said that after his mother
Semele’s death, his aunt Ino acted the part of a mother and nurse unto him. The
same thing appears in the mythology of Egypt, for there we read that Osiris,
under the form of Anubis, having been brought forth by Nepthys, was adopted and
brought up by the goddess Isis as her own son. In consequence of this, the
favourite Triad came everywhere to be the two mothers and the son. In
WILKINSON, the reader will find a divine Triad, consisting of Isis and Nepthys,
and the child of Horus between them. In Babylon, the statement of Diodorus
shows that the Triad there at one period was two goddesses and the son–Hera,
Rhea, and Zeus; and in the Capitol at Rome, in like manner, the Triad was Juno,
Minerva, and Jupiter; while, when Jupiter was worshipped by the Roman matrons
as ”Jupiter puer,” or ”Jupiter the child,” it was in company with Juno and the
goddess Fortuna (CICERO, De Divinatione). This kind of divine Triad seems to be
traced up to very ancient times among the Romans; for it is stated both by
Dionysius Halicarnassius and by Livy, that soon after the expulsion of the
Tarquins, there was at Rome a temple in which were worshipped Ceres, Liber, and
Libera (DION. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">HALICARN and
LIVY).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />
Festivals<br />
Section I. Christmas and Lady-day</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined
in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the worshipping of whom the
fierce anger of God was provoked against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it
is of the last consequence that the fact should be established beyond all
possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who trembles
at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either
individually or nationally, the least countenance or support. Something has
been said already that goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and
Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence becomes still more
overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different festivals is
peculiarly so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may
be singled out for elucidation–viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the
Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these
can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in honour of the
birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected
with the 25th of December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise
day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded
there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have
been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to
the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open
fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate
of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable,
the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was
not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open
fields later than about the end of October. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GILL, in his Commentary on Luke 2:8, has the following: ”There are two
sorts of cattle with the Jews…there are the cattle of the house that lie in the
city; the cattle of the wilderness are they that lie in the pastures. On which
one of the commentators (MAIMONIDES, in Misn. Betza), observes, ‘These lie in
the pastures, which are in the villages, all the days of the cold and heat, and
do not go into the cities until the rains descend.’ The first rain falls in the
month Marchesvan, which answers to the latter part of our October and the
former part of November…From whence it appears that Christ must be born before
the middle of October, since the first rain was not yet come.” KITTO, on
Deuteronomy 11:14 (Illustrated Commentary), says that the ”first rain,” is in
”autumn,” ”that is, in September or October.” This would make the time of the removal
of the flocks from the fields somewhat earlier than I have stated in the text;
but there is no doubt that it could not be later than there stated, according
to the testimony of Maimonides, whose acquaintance with all that concerns
Jewish customs is well known.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could
have taken place at the end of December. There is great unanimity among
commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph
Scaliger, and Jennings, in his ”Jewish Antiquities,” who are all of opinion
that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord’s nativity, the
celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect.
After a long and careful disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he
adduces the following;–”At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go
to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys;
but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for
women with child, and children to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be
born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the
shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night time; but this was
not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter
wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in
the gospel, ‘Pray that your flight be not in the winter.’ If the winter was so
bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields
in, and women and children to travel in.” Indeed, it is admitted by the most
learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our Lord’s birth
cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival
as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the
fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER’s Manual of Presbytery.
Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into the Worship of the
Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival was observed in that
Church, and adds–”It seems improbably that they should celebrate Christ’s
nativity when they disagreed about the month and the day when Christ was born.”
See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of
Christ’s birth is uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could
not have been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob’s complaint
to Laban, ”By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night.” Now the
whole force of Jacob’s complaint against his churlish kinsman lay in this, that
Laban made him do what no other man would have done, and, therefore, if he
refers to the cold nights of winter (which, however, is not the common
understanding of the expression), it proves just the opposite of what it is
brought by Mr. Ryle to prove–viz., that it was not the custom for shepherds to
tend their flocks in the fields by night in winter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** GIESELER,
CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Christi),
writing in Antioch about AD 380, says: ”It is not yet ten years since this day
was made known to us”. ”What follows,” adds Gieseler, ”furnishes a remarkable
illustration of the ease with which customs of recent date could assume the
character of apostolic institutions.” Thus proceeds Chrysostom: ”Among those
inhabiting the west, it was known before from ancient and primitive times, and
to the dwellers from Thrace to Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and
well-known,” that is, the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch
in the east, on the very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was
perfectly well-known in all the European region of the west, from Thrace even
to Spain!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day?
Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era
itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of
the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven;
and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to
swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival
was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This
tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early
developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230,
bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this
respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own
superstition. ”By us,” says he, ”who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons,
and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January,
the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro,
new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are
celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their
religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”
Upright men strive to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the
apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was
submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan
festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with
which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the
Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, ”about the
time of the winter solstice.” The very name by which Christmas is popularly
known among ourselves–Yule-day –proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin.
”Yule” is the Chaldee name for an ”infant” or ”little child”; * and as the 25th
of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, ”Yule-day,” or the
”Child’s day,” and the night that preceded it, ”Mother-night,” long before they
came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Eol, an ”infant.” In Scotland, at least in the Lowlands, the
Yule-cakes are also called Nur-cakes. Now in Chaldee Nour signifies ”birth.”
Therefore, Nur-cakes are ”birth-cakes.” The Scandinavian goddesses, called
”norns,” who appointed children their destinies at their birth, evidently
derived their name from the cognate Chaldee word ”Nor,” a child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This
festival has been commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character,
referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement
of a new cycle. But there is indubitably evidence that the festival in question
had a much higher reference than this–that it commemorated not merely the
figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day
of the grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and
not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry,
the same period was observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley’s
Sabean Philosophy: ”On the 24th of the tenth month,” that is December,
according to our reckoning, ”the Arabians celebrated the BIRTHDAY OF THE
LORD–that is the Moon.” The Lord Moon was the great object of Arabian worship,
and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December, which
clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection
with the course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if
Christmas-day among the ancient Saxons of this island, was observed to
celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the case must have been
precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known,
regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* SHARON TURNER. Turner cites an Arabic poem which proves that a female sun
and a masculine moon were recognised in Arabia as well as by the Anglo-Saxons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the
Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day
of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The
name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to have been Meni, for this appears the
most natural interpretation of the Divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, ”But ye
are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad, and that
furnish the drink-offering unto Meni.” There is reason to believe that Gad
refers to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the
moon-divinity. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">*See KITTO, vol. iv. p. 66, end of Note. The name Gad evidently refers, in
the first instance, to the war-god, for it signifies to assault; but it also
signifies ”the assembler”; and under both ideas it is applicable to Nimrod,
whose general character was that of the sun-god, for he was the first grand
warrior; and, under the name Phoroneus, he was celebrated for having first
gathered mankind into social communities. The name Meni, ”the numberer,” on the
other hand, seems just a synonym for the name of Cush or Chus, which, while it
signifies ”to cover” or ”hide,” signifies also ”to count or number.” The true
proper meaning of the name Cush is, I have no doubt, ”The numberer” or
”Arithmetician”; for while Nimrod his son, as the ”mighty” one, was the grand
propagator of the Babylonian system of idolatry, by force and power, he, as
Hermes, was the real concocter of that system, for he is said to have ”taught
men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayers and sacrifice”
(WILKINSON); and seeing idolatry and astronomy were intimately combined, to
enable him to do so with effect, it was indispensable that he should be
pre-eminently skilled in the science of numbers. Now, Hermes (that is Cush) is
said to have ”first discovered numbers, and the art of reckoning, geometry, and
astronomy, the games of chess and hazard” (Ibid.); and it is in all probability
from reference to the meaning of the name of Cush, that some called ”NUMBER the
father of gods and men” (Ibid.). The name Meni is just the Chaldee form of the
Hebrew ”Mene,” the ”numberer” for in Chaldee i often takes the place of the
final e. As we have seen reason to conclude with Gesenius, that Nebo, the great
prophetic god of Babylon, was just the same god as Hermes, this shows the
peculiar emphasis of the first words in the Divine sentence that sealed the
doom of Belshazzar, as representing the primeval god–”MENE, MENE, Tekel,
Upharsin,” which is as much as covertly to say, ”The numberer is numbered.” As
the cup was peculiarly the symbol of Cush, hence the pouring out of the
drink-offering to him as the god of the cup; and as he was the great Diviner,
hence the divinations as to the future year, which Jerome connects with the
divinity referred to by Isaiah. Now Hermes, in Egypt as the ”numberer,” was
identified with the moon that numbers the months. He was called ”Lord of the
moon” (BUNSEN); and as the ”dispenser of time” (WILKINSON), he held a ”palm
branch, emblematic of a year” (Ibid.). Thus, then, if Gad was the
”sun-divinity,” Meni was very naturally regarded as ”The Lord Moon.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Meni, or Manai, signifies ”The Numberer.” And it is by the changes of the
moon that the months are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, ”He appointed the moon for
seasons: the sun knoweth the time of its going down.” The name of the ”Man of
the Moon,” or the god who presided over that luminary among the Saxons, was
Mane, as given in the ”Edda,” and Mani, in the ”Voluspa.” That it was the birth
of the ”Lord Moon” that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we
have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of
Scotland to the feast on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant
of the old birth festival for the cakes then made are called Nur-Cakes, or
Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, ”Hog-Manai” in Chaldee signifies ”The
feast of the Numberer”; in other words, the festival of Deus Lunus, or of the
Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the
inveterate endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome,
commenting on the very words of Isaiah already quoted, about spreading ”a table
for Gad,” and ”pouring out a drink-offering to Meni,” observes that it ”was the
custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities especially in
Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious
articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the
last day of the month and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in
respect of the fruitfulness of the year.” The Egyptian year began at a different
time from ours; but this is a near as possible (only substituting whisky for
wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the last
month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any omens are drawn from
anything that takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland
is personally cognisant of the fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before
New Year’s day, among those who observe old customs, a table is spread, and
that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can afford them,
oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes but
on this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the
provision.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon
itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb
of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of the Babylonian
system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was
worshipped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an incarnation of
the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology, which is admitted to be essentially
Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is
represented as being incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the
enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* See the Sanscrit Researches of Col. VANS KENNEDY. Col. K., a most
distinguished Sanscrit scholar, brings the Brahmins from Babylon (Ibid.). Be it
observed the very name Surya, given to the sun over all India, is connected
with this birth. Though the word had originally a different meaning, it was
evidently identified by the priests with the Chaldee ”Zero,” and made to
countenance the idea of the birth of the ”Sun-god.” The Pracrit name is still
nearer the Scriptural name of the promised ”seed.” It is ”Suro.” It has been
seen, in a previous chapter, that in Egypt also the Sun was represented as born
of a goddess.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the
winter solstice. That festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the
mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence it had been derived. The
feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; * loose reins were given to
drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, ** and used all
manner of freedoms with their masters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Subsequently the number of the days of the Saturnalia was increased to
seven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** If Saturn, or Kronos, was, as we have seen reason to believe, Phoroneus,
”The emancipator,” the ”temporary emancipation” of the slaves at his festival
was exactly in keeping with his supposed character.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken
festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the
festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon. ”It was the custom,” says he,
”during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in subjection to their
servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a
king.” This ”purple-robed” servant was called ”Zoganes,” the ”Man of sport and
wantonness,” and answered exactly to the ”Lord of Misrule,” that in the dark
ages, was chosen in all Popish countries to head the revels of Christmas. The
wassailling bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the ”Drunken
festival” of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up among
ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some
parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive
season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of
the Babylonian god, to do honour to him: for it was one of the distinguishing
peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his altars. The
Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and
Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the
palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him
as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial
divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in
that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the
son must have been recognised as the ”Man the branch.” And this entirely
accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and
the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, ”The seed
of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or ”born of the fire,” he
has to enter the fire on ”Mother-night,” that he may be born the next day out
of it, as the ”Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men.
But why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To
understand this, it must be remembered that the divine child born at the winter
solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had
been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the
great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a
huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But
the great serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself
around the dead stock, and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree–a tree of an
entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile
power–even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The Christmas-tree,
as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but
the very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the
Christmas-fir; for that covertly symbolised the new-born God as Baal-berith, *
”Lord of the Covenant,” and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting
nature of his power, not that after having fallen before his enemies, he had
risen triumphant over them all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Baal-bereth, which differs only in one letter from Baal-berith, ”Lord of
the Covenant,” signifies ”Lord of the fir-tree.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the
day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis
invicti solis, ”The birth-day of the unconquered Sun.” Now the Yule Log is the
dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the
Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus–the slain god come to life again. In the
light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger among us,
the origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the
reader look at the singular practice still kept up in the South on
Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That mistletoe bough in
the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon, was
a representation of the Messiah, ”The man the branch.” The mistletoe was
regarded as a divine branch *–a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a
tree that sprung out of the earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is
distinguished from the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian myths
somewhat differed; but yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it is evident that
some marvellous power was attributed to the mistletoe branch; for it was able
to do what nothing else in the compass of creation could accomplish; it slew
the divinity on whom the Anglo-Saxons regarded ”the empire” of their ”heaven”
as ”depending.” Now, all that is neceesary to unravel this apparent
inconsistency, is just to understand ”the branch” that had such power, as a
symbolical expression for the true Messiah. The Bacchus of the Greeks came
evidently to be recognised as the ”seed of the serpent”; for he is said to have
been brought forth by his mother in consequence of intercourse with Jupiter,
when that god had appeared in the form of a serpent. If the character of Balder
was the same, the story of his death just amounted to this, that the ”seed of
the serpent” had been slain by the ”seed of the woman.” This story, of course,
must have originated with his enemies. But the idolators took up what they
could not altogether deny, evidently with the view of explaining it away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree,
heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus the
mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man, the kiss
being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation. Whence could such an
idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11,
”Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each
other. Truth shall spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the
promised Saviour], and righteousness shall look down from heaven”? Certain it
is that that Psalm was written soon after the Babylonish captivity; and as
multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in Babylon under the
guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the Divine word it must
have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine.
Babylon was, at that time, the centre of the civilised world; and thus
Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol as it ever has done, had opportunities
of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the ends of the
earth, through the Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system
in Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising
light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the
efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to materialise, carnalise, and degrade
them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar
was fabled to have done him. According to one version of the story of the death
of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as we have seen, in consequence of a wound from
the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele,
whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in
like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly
represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the
great mother of the gods, has frequently the boar’s head as her accompaniment,
in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of her triumph over the
grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she occupied so conspicuous a
place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that killed
Adonis, because when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically
that it had not killed her husband of malice prepense, but only through
accident. But yet, in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a
boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess. In
Smith, Diana is represented with a boar’s head lying beside her, on the top of
a heap of stones in which the Roman Emperor Trajan is represented burning
incense to the same goddess, the boar’s head forms a very prominent figure. On
Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the Sun, to
propitiate her * for the loss of her beloved Adonis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The reader will remember the Sun was a goddess. Mallet says, ”They
offered the largest hog they could get to Frigga”–i.e., the mother of Balder
the lamented one. In Egypt swine were offered once a year, at the feast of the
Moon, to the Moon, and Bacchus or Osiris; and to them only it was lawful to
make such an offering. (AELIAN)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the
great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of
Martial:–</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”That boar will make you a
good Saturnalia.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Hence the boar’s head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas
dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the ”Christmas
goose” and ”Yule cakes” were essential articles in the worship of the
Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at Rome.
Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that ”the favourite offering” of Osiris
was ”a goose,” and moreover, that the ”goose could not be eaten except in the
depth of winter.” As to Rome, Juvenal says, ”that Osiris, if offended, could be
pacified only by a large goose and a thin cake.” In many countries we have
evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is well known that the
capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being surprised
by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno,
kept in the temple of Jupiter. In India, the goose occupied a similar position;
for in that land we read of the sacred ”Brahmany goose,” or goose sacred to Brahma.
Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic
character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in
Rome or Egypt, for there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and
his sacrificing knife in the other. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The symbolic meaning of the offering of the goose is worthy of notice.
”The goose,” says Wilkinson, ”signified in hieroglyphics a child or son”; and
Horapolo says, ”It was chosen to denote a son, from its love to its young, being
always ready to give itself up to the chasseur, in order that they might be
preserved; for which reason the Egyptians thought it right to revere this
animal.” (WILKINSON’s Egyptians) Here, then, the true meaning of the symbol is
a son, who voluntarily gives himself up as a sacrifice for those whom he
loves–viz., the Pagan Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter
solstice–in other words, Christmas–was held in honour of the birth of the
Babylonian Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives
the very strongest confirmation to what has now been said. That festival,
called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on the 25th of March, in alleged
commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the womb of the
Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished
honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who
could tell when this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all
in regard to the time. But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived
or born, that very day now set down in the Popish calendar for the
”Annunciation of the Virgin” was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele,
the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, and MACROB., Sat. The fact stated in the paragraph
above casts light on a festival held in Egypt, of which no satisfactory account
has yet been given. That festival was held in commemoration of ”the entrance of
Osiris into the moon.” Now, Osiris, like Surya in India, was just the Sun.
(PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride) The moon, on the other hand, though most
frequently the symbol of the god Hermes or Thoth, was also the symbol of the
goddess Isis, the queen of heaven. The learned Bunsen seems to dispute this;
but his own admissions show that he does so without reason. And Jeremiah 44:17
seems decisive on the subject. The entrance of Osiris into the moon, then, was
just the sun’s being conceived by Isis, the queen of heaven, that, like the
Indian Surya, he might in due time be born as the grand deliverer. Hence the
very name Osiris; for, as Isis is the Greek form of H’isha, ”the woman,” so
Osiris, as read at this day on the Egyptian monuments, is He-siri, ”the seed.”
It is no objection to this to say that Osiris is commonly represented as the
husband of Isis; for, as we have seen already, Osiris is at once the son and
husband of his mother. Now, this festival took place in Egypt generally in
March, just as Lady-day, or the first great festival of Cybele, was held in the
same month in Pagan Rome. We have seen that the common title of Cybele at Rome
was Domina, or ”the lady” (OVID, Fasti), as in Babylon it was Beltis (EUSEB.
Praep. Evang.), and from this, no doubt, comes the name ”Lady-day” as it has
descended to us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate
relation to one another. Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December
there are exactly nine months. If, then, the false Messiah was conceived in
March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe that the
conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronised, not
only to the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and
Christmas-day, then, are purely Babylonian.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />
Section II<br />
Easter</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a
Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is
nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven,
whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with
that now in common use in this country. That name, aas found by Layard on the
Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early
introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, ”the priests of the groves.”
Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the
Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines
of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of
the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has
everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on
the early British mind. From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the
Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove
how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same
god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. ”The late
Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in ”Notes and
Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, ”told me, that every year,
at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an
ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a
fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet;
they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has
been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the
fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part
of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was
previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing through the fire represents
that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus
worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort
Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in
Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called
by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called
Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name
of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival
from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by
any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not
of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing
Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened
account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different
countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words: ”Thus
much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the
celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any
commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one
knows that the name ”Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not
to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few
places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when
Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of
the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival
was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. ”It ought to be known,”
said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and
contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, ”that the
observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of
that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance?
The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers
of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ”in the spring of the
year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of
Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.
Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we
read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: ”Three days
after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the
sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on
consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are
informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in
commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time,
the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar
manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for ”forty nights” the ”wailing
for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the
Pagans observed, called ”Castus” or the ”sacred” fast, was, by the Christians
in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of
Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her
”excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine,
when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or
Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit
in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne,
Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that
the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both.
Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to
the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of
Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in
many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being
observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the ”month of
Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April.
To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual
policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated,
and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no
difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in
idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands. The instrument in
accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom
also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the
Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the
true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of
question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the
Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the
calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It
brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in
connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that
were commemorated during the ”sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by
Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the
Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations,
”went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate
Church, and who could find no more excellent way to ”revive” it, than by
borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected
with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn. That Christians
should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of
evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it
inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the
preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when
fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow
steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism.
What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of
the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period
after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three
weeks. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard
to Paschal observances, says: ”In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of
the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread,
probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival
of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic
Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of
Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in
connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following
extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period
of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: ”The solemnities of Pasch
[are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross,
the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and
Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by
law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a
law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal
processes.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are
these: ”Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter
three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the
worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the
whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within
the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held
at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which
decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view,
no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after,
readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once.
About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to
enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first
attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous
resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as
observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by
Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by
violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or
Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of
Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been
brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from
their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there
were something ”untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the
origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to
banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true,
it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are
already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this
country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to
undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of
the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the
truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat
run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly
considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the
seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the
Saints. If a heathen could say, ”Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love
truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity.
Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the
earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous
efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south
those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from
Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer,
Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt
the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their
closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own
consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and
labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed,
would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her
sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of
all Christendom, ”clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army
with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague
that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself,
but to the whole empire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend
the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its
Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of
Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The
”buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen
of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of
Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ”One species of sacred
bread,” says Bryant, ”which used to be offered to the gods, was of great
antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being
made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed,
saying, ”He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine
flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering
when he says, ”The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the
women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the
word ”bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was
pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon
Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical
Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass
into the Latin panis, ”bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would
become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa
has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of
Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The
origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as
the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus,
as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the
consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a
golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen.
In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even
as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of
the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their
temples. From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of
the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the
Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned
keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was
skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: ”An egg of wondrous size is
said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it
to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came
Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence
the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in
Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of
wondrous size was represented on a grand scale.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects
(for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time
of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is
enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could
it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such
a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already
indicated, is well known as the ”mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the
world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the
material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term
is seen in Genesis 11:1, ”The whole earth was of one language and of one
speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If
then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may
not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that
the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that
contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to
the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine
(for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes
Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the
name of a house is pronounced. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The common word ”Beth,” ”house,” in the Bible without the points, is
”Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the
Greek Septuagint, where it is ”Baith-el.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house
floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its
bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of
the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied
in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the
mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This,
then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything
that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean
mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the
greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was
held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world.
Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence
till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of
metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her
worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had
lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the
flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and
consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even
appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his
superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: ”Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee,
this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy
servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish
Guardian, April, 1844). Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem
of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or
”pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently
represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of
Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a
temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The
pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been
supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of
the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with
man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away. But upon
more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or ”pomegranate” had
reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also
Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of
her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of
these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. ”Idaia Mater,” then, signifies ”the
Mother of Knowledge”–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the
”knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to
herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was
worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the
mother of mankind. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect32.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of
knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended
hand, inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her
mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify?
Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of
the ”Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Tree, whose mortal taste.<br />
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted,
was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the
forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base.
Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand
benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that
knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the
Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery
inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads
its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which
Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the
Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first
parent is apostrophised: ”Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a
Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount
to this: ”Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious
Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in
the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of
the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the
consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse.
Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered
from them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also
the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and
most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the
superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the
pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland
join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of
Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve
ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of
them with two eggs and an orange.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s
”dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back
to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the
West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the
counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred
gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of
Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or
Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the ”golden fruit” on
the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let
the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no
serpent in that garden of delight in the ”islands of the blest,” to TEMPT
mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the
sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the
contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil,
the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that
strictly watched it–that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form
of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s
unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged
mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly
happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been
hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made
to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of
knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and
malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him
of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of
Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race.
What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred
orange of Easter.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect32.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US">[Back]</span></a></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Meaning of the Name
Astarte</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That Semiramis, under the name of Astarte, was worshipped not only as an
incarnation of the Spirit of God, but as the mother of mankind, we have very
clear and satisfactory evidence. There is no doubt that ”the Syrian goddess”
was Astarte (LAYARD’S Nineveh and its Remains). Now, the Assyrian goddess, or
Astarte, is identified with Semiramis by Athenagoras (Legatio), and by Lucian
(De Dea Syria). These testimonies in regard to Astarte, or the Syrian goddess,
being, in one aspect, Semiramis, are quite decisive. 1. The name Astarte, as
applied to her, has reference to her as being Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing
goddess, the first as Ovid says (Opera), that ”made (towers) in cities”; for we
find from Layard that in the Syrian temple of Hierapolis, ”she [Dea Syria or
Astarte] was represented standing on a lion crowned with towers.” Now, no name
could more exactly picture forth the character of Semiramis, as queen of
Babylon, than the name of ”Ash-tart,” for that just means ”The woman that made
towers.” It is admitted on all hands that the last syllable ”tart” comes from
the Hebrew verb ”Tr.” It has been always taken for granted, however, that ”Tr”
signifies only ”to go round.” But we have evidence that, in nouns derived from
it, it also signifies ”to be round,” ”to surround,” or ”encompass.” In the
masculine, we find ”Tor” used for ”a border or row of jewels round the head”
(see PARKHURST and also GESENIUS). And in the feminine, as given in Hesychius
(Lexicon), we find the meaning much more decisively brought out. Turis is just
the Greek form of Turit, the final t, according to the genius of the Greek
language, being converted into s. Ash-turit, then, which is obviously the same
as the Hebrew ”Ashtoreth,” is just ”The woman that made the encompassing wall.”
Considering how commonly the glory of that achievement, as regards Babylon, was
given to Semiramis, not only by Ovid, but by Justin, Dionysius, Afer, and
others, both the name and mural crown on the head of that goddess were surely
very appropriate. In confirmation of this interpretation of the meaning of the
name Astarte, I may adduce an epithet applied to the Greek Diana, who at
Ephesus bore a turreted crown on her head, and was identified with Semiramis,
which is not a little striking. It is contained in the following extract from
Livy: ”When the news of the battle [near Pydna] reached Amphipolis, the matrons
ran together to the temple of Diana, whom they style Tauropolos, to implore her
aid.” Tauropolos, from Tor, ”a tower,” or ”surrounding fortification,” and Pol,
”to make,” plainly means the ”tower-maker,” or ”maker of surrounding
fortifications”; and P53 to her as the goddess of fortifications, they would
naturally apply when they dreaded an attack upon their city.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest
honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently
intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the
Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that
Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and
whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of
the Messiah was the Lamb. Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom,
natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being
attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that
Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of
the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS). Hence, also, the character
attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to
conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian
goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the ”goddess of
wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies
also the ”Maker of investigations”; and in this respect was applicable to
Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove. That this is one of the
meanings of the name Astarte may be seen from comparing it with the cognate
names Asterie and Astraea (in Greek Astraia), which are formed by taking the
last member of the compound word in the masculine, instead of the feminine,
Teri, or Tri (the latter being pronounced Trai or Trae), being the same in
sense as Tart. Now, Asterie was the wife of Perseus, the Assyrian (HERODOTUS),
and who was the founder of Mysteries (BRYANT). As Asterie was further
represented as the daughter of Bel, this implies a position similar to that of
Semiramis. Astraea, again, was the goddess of justice, who is identified with
the heavenly virgin Themis, the name Themis signifying ”the perfect one,” who
gave oracles (OVID, Metam.), and who, having lived on earth before the Flood,
forsook it just before that catastrophe came on. Themis and Astraea are
sometimes distinguished and sometimes identified; but both have the same
character as goddesses of justice. The explanation of the discrepancy obviously
is, that the Spirit has sometimes been viewed as incarnate and sometimes not.
When incarnate, Astraea is daughter of Themis. What name could more exactly
agree with the character of a goddess of justice, than Ash-trai-a, ”The maker
of investigations,” and what name could more appropriately shadow forth one of
the characters of that Divine Spirit, who ”searcheth all things, yea, the deep
things of God”? As Astraea, or Themis, was ”Fatidica Themis,” ”Themis the
prophetic,” this also was another characteristic of the Spirit; for whence can
any true oracle, or prophetic inspiration, come, but from the inspiring Spirit
of God? Then, lastly, what can more exactly agree with the Divine statement in
Genesis in regard to the Spirit of God, than the statement of Ovid, that
Astraea was the last of the celestials who remained on earth, and that her
forsaking it was the signal for the downpouring of the destroying deluge? The
announcement of the coming Flood is in Scripture ushered in with these words
(Gen 6:3): ”And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” All
these 120 years, the Spirit was striving; when they came to an end, the Spirit
strove no longer, forsook the earth, and left the world to its fate. But though
the Spirit of God forsook the earth, it did not forsake the family of righteous
Noah. It entered with the patriarch into the ark; and when that patriarch came
forth from his long imprisonment, it came forth along with him. Thus the Pagans
had an historical foundation for their myth of the dove resting on the symbol
of the ark in the Babylonian waters, and the Syrian goddess, or Astarte–the
same as Astraea–coming forth from it. Semiramis, then, as Astarte, worshipped
as the dove, was regarded as the incarnation of the Spirit of God. 3. As Baal,
Lord of Heaven, had his visible emblem, the sun, so she, as Beltis, Queen of
Heaven, must have hers also–the moon, which in another sense was Asht-tart-e,
”The maker of revolutions”; for there is no doubt that Tart very commonly
signifies ”going round.” But, 4th, the whole system must be dovetailed
together. As the mother of the gods was equally the mother of mankind,
Semiramis, or Astarte, must also be identified with Eve; and the name Rhea,
which, according to the Paschal Chronicle was given to her, sufficiently proves
her identification with Eve. As applied to the common mother of the human race,
the name Astarte is singularly appropriate; for, as she was Idaia mater, ”The
mother of knowledge,” the question is, ”How did she come by that knowledge?” To
this the answer can only be: ”by the fatal investigations she made.” It was a
tremendous experiment she made, when, in opposition to the Divine command, and
in spite of the threatened penalty, she ventured to ”search” into that
forbidden knowledge which her Maker in his goodness had kept from her. Thus she
took the lead in that unhappy course of which the Scripture speaks–”God made
man upright, but they have SOUGHT out many inventions” (Eccl7:29). Now Semiramis,
deified as the Dove, was Astarte in the most gracious and benignant form.
Lucius Ampelius calls her ”the goddess benignant and merciful to me” (bringing
them) ”to a good and happy life.” In reference to this benignity of her
character, both the titles, Aphrodite and Mylitta, are evidently attributed to
her. The first I have elsewhere explained as ”The wrath-subduer,” and the
second is in exact accordance with it. Mylitta, or, as it is in Greek, Mulitta,
signifies ”The Mediatrix.” The Hebrew Melitz, which in Chaldee becomes Melitt,
is evidently used in Job 33:23, in the sense of a Mediator; ”the messenger, the
interpreter” (Melitz), who is ”gracious” to a man, and saith, ”Deliver from
going down to the pit: I have found a ransom,” being really ”The Messenger, the
MEDIATOR.” Parkhurst takes the word in this sense, and derives it from ”Mltz,”
”to be sweet.” Now, the feminine of Melitz is Melitza, from which comes
Melissa, a ”bee” (the sweetener, or producer of sweetness), and Melissa, a
common name of the priestesses of Cybele, and as we may infer of Cybele, as
Astarte, or Queen of Heaven, herself; for, after Porphyry, has stated that ”the
ancients called the priestesses of Demeter, Melissae,” he adds, that they also
”called the Moon Melissa.” We have evidence, further, that goes far to identify
this title as a title of Semiramis. Melissa or Melitta (APPOLODORUS)–for the
name is given in both ways–is said to have been the mother of Phoroneus, the
first that reigned, in whose days the dispersion of mankind occurred, divisions
having come in among them, whereas before, all had been in harmony and spoke
one language (Hyginus). There is no other to whom this can be applied but
Nimrod; and as Nimrod came to be worshipped as Nin, the son of his own wife,
the identification is exact. Melitta, then, the mother of Phoroneus, is the
same as Mylitta, the well known name of the Babylonian Venus; and the name, as
being the feminine of Melitz, the Mediator, consequently signifies the
Mediatrix. Another name also given to the mother of Phoroneus, ”the first that
reigned,” is Archia (LEMPRIERE; SMITH). Now Archia signifies ”Spiritual” (from
”Rkh,” Heb. ”Spirit,” which in Egyptian also is ”Rkh” [BUNSEN]; and in Chaldee,
with the prosthetic a prefixed becomes Arkh). * From the same root also
evidently comes the epithet Architis, as applied to the Venus that wept for
Adonis. Venus Architis is the spiritual Venus. **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The Hebrew Dem, blood, in Chaldee becomes Adem; and, in like manner, Rkh
becomes Arkh.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From OUVAROFF we learn that the mother of the third Bacchus was Aura,
and Phaethon is said by Orpheus to have been the son of the ”wide extended air”
(LACTANTIUS). The connection in the sacred language between the wind, the air,
and the spirit, sufficiently accounts for these statements, and shows their
real meaning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, then, the mother-wife of the first king that reigned was known as
Archia and Melitta, in other words, as the woman in whom the ”Spirit of God”
was incarnate; and thus appeared as the ”Dea Benigna,” ”The Mediatrix” for
sinful mortals. The first form of Astarte, as Eve, brought sin into the world;
the second form before the Flood, was avenging as the goddess of justice. This
form was ”Benignant and Merciful.” Thus, also, Semiramis, or Astarte, as Venus
the goddess of love and beauty, became ”The HOPE of the whole world,” and men
gladly had recourse to the ”mediation” of one so tolerant of sin.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />
Section III<br />
The Nativity of St. John</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Feast of the Nativity of St. John is set down in the Papal calendar for
the 24th of June, or Midsummer-day. The very same period was equally memorable
in the Babylonian calendar as that of one of its most celebrated festivals. It
was at Midsummer, or the summer solstice, that the month called in Chaldea,
Syria, and Phoenicia by the name of ”Tammuz” began; and on the first day–that
is, on or about the 24th of June–one of the grand original festivals of Tammuz
was celebrated. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* STANLEY’S Saboean Philosophy. In Egypt the month corresponding to
Tammuz–viz., Epep–began June 25 (WILKINSON)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">For different reasons, in different countries, other periods had been
devoted to commemorate the death and reviving of the Babylonian god; but this,
as may be inferred from the name of the month, appears to have been the real
time when his festival was primitively observed in the land where idolatry had
its birth. And so strong was the hold that this festival, with its peculiar
rites, had taken of the minds of men, that even when other days were devoted to
the great events connected with the Babylonian Messiah, as was the case in some
parts of our own land, this sacred season could not be allowed to pass without
the due observance of some, at least, of its peculiar rites. When the Papacy
sent its emissaries over Europe, towards the end of the sixth century, to
gather in the Pagans into its fold, this festival was found in high favour in
many countries. What was to be done with it? Were they to wage war with it? No.
This would have been contrary to the famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that, by
all means they should meet the Pagans half-way, and so bring them into the
Roman Church. The Gregorian policy was carefully observed; and so
Midsummer-day, that had been hallowed by Paganism to the worship of Tammuz, was
incorporated as a sacred Christian festival in the Roman calendar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But still a question was to be determined, What was to be the name of this
Pagan festival, when it was baptised, and admitted into the ritual of Roman
Christianity? To call it by its old name of Bel or Tammuz, at the early period
when it seems to have been adopted, would have been too bold. To call it by the
name of Christ was difficult, inasmuch as there was nothing special in His
history at that period to commemorate. But the subtlety of the agents of the
Mystery of Iniquity was not to be baffled. If the name of Christ could not be
conveniently tacked to it, what should hinder its being called by the name of
His forerunner, John the Baptist? John the Baptist was born six months before
our Lord. When, therefore, the Pagan festival of the winter solstice had once
been consecrated as the birthday of the Saviour, it followed, as a matter of
course, that if His forerunner was to have a festival at all, his festival must
be at this very season; for between the 24th of June and the 25th of
December–that is, between the summer and the winter solstice–there are just six
months. Now, for the purposes of the Papacy, nothing could be more opportune
than this. One of the many sacred names by which Tammuz or Nimrod was called,
when he reappeared in the Mysteries, after being slain, was Oannes. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* BEROSUS, BUNSEN’S Egypt. To identify Nimrod with Oannes, mentioned by
Berosus as appearing out of the sea, it will be remembered that Nimrod has been
proved to be Bacchus. Then, for proof that Nimrod or Bacchus, on being overcome
by his enemies, was fabled to have taken refuge in the sea, see chapter 4,
section i. When, therefore, he was represented as reappearing, it was natural
that he should reappear in the very character of Oannes as a Fish-god. Now,
Jerome calls Dagon, the well known Fish-god Piscem moeroris (BRYANT), ”the fish
of sorrow,” which goes far to identify that Fish-god with Bacchus, the
”Lamented one”; and the identification is complete when Hesychius tells us that
some called Bacchus Ichthys, or ”The fish.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The name of John the Baptist, on the other hand, in the sacred language
adopted by the Roman Church, was Joannes. To make the festival of the 24th of
June, then, suit Christians and Pagans alike, all that was needful was just to
call it the festival of Joannes; and thus the Christians would suppose that
they were honouring John the Baptist, while the Pagans were still worshipping
their old god Oannes, or Tammuz. Thus, the very period at which the great
summer festival of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon, is at this very
hour observed in the Papal Church as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John. And
the fete of St. John begins exactly as the festal day began in Chaldea. It is
well known that, in the East, the day began in the evening. So, though the 24th
be set down as the nativity, yet it is on St. John’s EVE–that is, on the
evening of the 23rd–that the festivities and solemnities of that period begin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if we examine the festivities themselves, we shall see how purely
Pagan they are, and how decisively they prove their real descent. The grand
distinguishing solemnities of St. John’s Eve are the Midsummer fires. These are
lighted in France, in Switzerland, in Roman Catholic Ireland, and in some of
the Scottish isles of the West, where Popery still lingers. They are kindled
throughout all the grounds of the adherents of Rome, and flaming brands are
carried about their corn-fields. Thus does Bell, in his Wayside Pictures,
describe the St. John’s fires of Brittany, in France: ”Every fete is marked by
distinct features peculiar to itself. That of St. John is perhaps, on the
whole, the most striking. Throughout the day the poor children go about begging
contributions for lighting the fires of Monsieur St. Jean, and towards evening
one fire is gradually followed by two, three, four; then a thousand gleam out
from the hill-tops, till the whole country glows under the conflagration.
Sometimes the priests light the first fire in the market place; and sometimes
it is lighted by an angel, who is made to descend by a mechanical device from
the top of the church, with a flambeau in her hand, setting the pile in a
blaze, and flying back again. The young people dance with a bewildering
activity about the fires; for there is a superstition among them that, if they
dance round nine fires before midnight, they will be married in the ensuing
year. Seats are placed close to the flaming piles for the dead, whose spirits
are supposed to come there for the melancholy pleasure of listening once more
to their native songs, and contemplating the lively measures of their youth.
Fragments of the torches on those occasions are preserved as spells against
thunder and nervous diseases; and the crown of flowers which surmounted the
principal fire is in such request as to produce tumultuous jealousy for its
possession.” Thus is it in France. Turn now to Ireland. ”On that great festival
of the Irish peasantry, St. John’s Eve,” says Charlotte Elizabeth, describing a
particular festival which she had witnessed, ”it is the custom, at sunset on
that evening, to kindle immense fires throughout the country, built, like our
bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such
other combustible substances as they can gather. The turf yields a steady,
substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame, and the effect of
these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from
every point of the horizon, is very remarkable. Early in the evening the
peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with
health, every countenance full of that sparkling animation and excess of
enjoyment that characterise the enthusiastic people of the land. I had never
seen anything resembling it; and was exceedingly delighted with their handsome,
intelligent, merry faces; the bold bearing of the men, and the playful but
really modest deportment of the maidens; the vivacity of the aged people, and
the wild glee of the children. The fire being kindled, a splendid blaze shot
up; and for a while they stood contemplating it with faces strangely disfigured
by the peculiar light first emitted when the bogwood was thrown on it. After a
short pause, the ground was cleared in front of an old blind piper, the very
beau ideal of energy, drollery, and shrewdness, who, seated on a low chair,
with a well-plenished jug within his reach, screwed his pipes to the liveliest
tunes, and the endless jig began. But something was to follow that puzzled me
not a little. When the fire burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable
part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed
through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while
a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse’s head fixed to one end,
and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on
whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud
shouts as the ‘white horse’; and having been safely carried, by the skill of
its bearer, several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the
people, who ran screaming in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant
for, and was told it represented ‘all cattle.’ Here,” adds the authoress, ”was
the old Pagan worship of Baal, if not of Moloch too, carried on openly and
universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions
professing the Christian name! I was confounded, for I did not then know that
Popery is only a crafty adaptation of Pagan idolatries to its own scheme.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such is the festival of St. John’s Eve, as celebrated at this day in France
and in Popish Ireland. Such is the way in which the votaries of Rome pretend to
commemorate the birth of him who came to prepare the way of the Lord, by
turning away His ancient people from all their refuges of lies, and shutting
them up to the necessity of embracing that kingdom of God that consists not in
any mere external thing, but in ”righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost.” We have seen that the very sight of the rites with which that festival
is celebrated, led the authoress just quoted at once to the conclusion that
what she saw before her was truly a relic of the Pagan worship of Baal. The
history of the festival, and the way in which it is observed, reflect mutual
light upon each other. Before Christianity entered the British Isles, the Pagan
festival of the 24th of June was celebrated among the Druids by blazing fires
in honour of their great divinity, who, as we have already seen, was Baal.
”These Midsummer fires and sacrifices,” says Toland, in his Account of the
Druids, ”were [intended] to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now
becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May, that they might
prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a thanksgiving for
finishing the harvest.” Again, speaking of the Druidical fires at Midsummer, he
thus proceeds: ”To return to our carn-fires, it was customary for the lord of
the place, or his son, or some other person of distinction, to take the
entrails of the sacrificed animals in his hands, and, walking barefoot over the
coals thrice after the flames had ceased, to carry them straight to the Druid,
who waited in a whole skin at the altar. If the nobleman escaped harmless, it
was reckoned a good omen, welcomed with loud acclamations; but if he received
any hurt, it was deemed unlucky both to the community and himself.” ”Thus, I
have seen,” adds Toland, ”the people running and leaping through the St. John’s
fires in Ireland; and not only proud of passing unsinged, but, as if it were
some kind of lustration, thinking themselves in an especial manner blest by the
ceremony, of whose original, nevertheless, they were wholly ignorant, in their
imperfect imitation of it.” We have seen reason already to conclude that
Phoroneus, ”the first of mortals that reigned”–i.e., Nimrod and the Roman
goddess Feronia–bore a relation to one another. In connection with the firs of
”St. John,” that relation is still further established by what has been handed
down from antiquity in regard to these two divinities; and, at the same time,
the origin of these fires is elucidated. Phoroneus is described in such a way
as shows that he was known as having been connected with the origin of
fire-worship. Thus does Pausanias refer to him: ”Near this image [the image of
Biton] they [the Argives] enkindle a fire, for they do not admit that fire was
given by Prometheus, to men, but ascribe the invention of it to Phoroneus.”
There must have been something tragic about the death of this fire-inventing
Phoroneus, who ”first gathered mankind into communities”; for, after describing
the position of his sepulchre, Pausanias adds: ”Indeed, even at present they
perform funeral obsequies to Phoroneus”; language which shows that his death
must have been celebrated in some such way as that of Bacchus. Then the
character of the worship of Feronia, as coincident with fire-worship, is
evident from the rites practised by the priests at the city lying at the foot
of Mount Socracte, called by her name. ”The priests,” says Bryant, referring
both to Pliny and Strabo as his authorities, ”with their feet naked, walked
over a large quantity of live coals and cinders.” To this same practice we find
Aruns in Virgil referring, when addressing Apollo, the sun-god, who had his
shrine at Soracte, where Feronia was worshipped, and who therefore must have
been the same as Jupiter Anxur, her contemplar divinity, who was regarded as a
”youthful Jupiter,” even as Apollo was often called the ”young Apollo”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”O patron of Soracte’s high
abodes,<br />
Phoebus, the ruling power among the gods,<br />
Whom first we serve; whole woods of unctuous pine<br />
Are felled for thee, and to thy glory shine.<br />
By thee protected, with our naked soles,<br />
Through flames unsinged we march and tread the kindled coals.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* DRYDEN’S Virgil Aeneid. ”The young Apollo,” when ”born to introduce law
and order among the Greeks,” was said to have made his appearance at Delphi
”exactly in the middle of summer.” (MULLER’S Dorians)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus the St. John’s fires, over whose cinders old and young are made to
pass, are traced up to ”the first of mortals that reigned.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is remarkable, that a festival attended with all the essential rites of
the fire-worship of Baal, is found among Pagan nations, in regions most remote
from one another, about the very period of the month of Tammuz, when the
Babylonian god was anciently celebrated. Among the Turks, the fast of Ramazan,
which, says Hurd, begins on the 12th of June, is attended by an illumination of
burning lamps. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* HURD’S Rites and Ceremonies. The time here given by Hurd would not in
itself be decisive as a proof of agreement with the period of the original
festival of Tammuz; for a friend who has lived for three years in
Constantinople informs me that, in consequence of the disagreement between the
Turkish and the solar year, the fast of Ramazan ranges in succession through
all the different months in the year. The fact of a yearly illumination in
connection with religious observances, however, is undoubted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In China where the Dragon-boat festival is celebrated in such a way as
vividly to recall to those who have witnessed it, the weeping for Adonis, the
solemnity begins at Midsummer. In Peru, during the reign of the Incas, the
feast of Raymi, the most magnificent feast of the Peruvians, when the sacred
fire every year used to be kindled anew from the sun, by means of a concave
mirror of polished metal, took place at the very same period. Regularly as
Midsummer came round, there was first, in token of mourning, ”for three days, a
general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in their dwellings,” and
then, on the fourth day, the mourning was turned into joy, when the Inca, and
his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn
in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. ”Eagerly,” says Prescott,
”they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays
strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of
gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of
triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and
louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east,
shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and
rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over
Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to
see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the
sun. In Egypt, the festival of the burning lamps, in which many have already
been constrained to see the counterpart of the festival of St. John, was
avowedly connected with the mourning and rejoicing for Osiris. ”At Sais,” says
Herodotus, ”they show the sepulchre of him whom I do not think it right to
mention on this occasion.” This is the invariable way in which the historian
refers to Osiris, into whose mysteries he had been initiated, when giving
accounts of any of the rites of his worship. ”It is in the sacred enclosure
behind the temple of Minerva, and close to the wall of this temple, whose whole
length it occupies. They also meet at Sais, to offer sacrifice during a certain
night, when every one lights, in the open air, a number of lamps around his
house. The lamps consist of small cups filled with salt and oil, having a wick
floating in it which burns all night. This festival is called the festival of
burning lamps. The Egyptians who are unable to attend also observe the
sacrifice, and burn lamps at home, so that not only at Sais, but throughout
Egypt, the same illumination takes place. They assign a sacred reason for the
festival celebrated on this night, and for the respect they have for it.”
Wilkinson, in quoting this passage of Herodotus, expressly identifies this
festival with the lamentation for Osiris, and assures us that ”it was
considered of the greatest consequence to do honour to the deity by the proper
performance of this rite.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Among the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers of Modern Chaldea, the same
festival is celebrated at this day, with rites probably almost the same, so far
as circumstances will allow, as thousands of years ago, when in the same
regions the worship of Tammuz was in all its glory. Thus graphically does Mr.
Layard describe a festival of this kind at which he himself had been present:
”As the twilight faded, the Fakirs, or lower orders of priests, dressed in
brown garments of coarse cloth, closely fitting to their bodies, and wearing
black turbans on their heads, issued from the tomb, each bearing a light in one
hand, and a pot of oil, with a bundle of cotton wick in the other. They filled
and trimmed lamps placed in niches in the walls of the courtyard and scattered
over the buildings on the sides of the valley, and even on isolated rocks, and
in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumerable stars appeared to glitter on the
black sides of the mountain and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the
priests made their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women
passed their right hands through the flame; and after rubbing the right eyebrow
with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly
carried it to their lips. Some who bore children in their arms anointed them in
like manner, whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who,
less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame…As night advanced,
those who had assembled–they must now have amounted to nearly five thousand
persons–lighted torches, which they carried with them as they wandered through
the forest. The effect was magical: the varied groups could be faintly
distinguished through the darkness–men hurrying to and fro–women with their
children seated on the house-tops–and crowds gathering round the pedlars, who
exposed their wares for sale in the courtyard. Thousands of lights were
reflected in the fountains and streams, glimmered amongst the foliage of the
trees, and danced in the distance. As I was gazing on this extraordinary scene,
the hum of human voices was suddenly hushed, and a strain, solemn and
melancholy, arose from the valley. It resembled some majestic chant which years
before I had listened to in the cathedral of a distant land. Music so pathetic
and so sweet I never before heard in the East. The voices of men and women were
blended in harmony with the soft notes of many flutes. At measured intervals
the song was broken by the loud clash of cymbals and tambourines; and those who
were within the precincts of the tomb then joined in the melody…The
tambourines, which were struck simultaneously, only interrupted at intervals
the song of the priests. As the time quickened they broke in more frequently.
The chant gradually gave way to a lively melody, which, increasing in measure,
was finally lost in a confusion of sounds. The tambourines were beaten with
extraordinary energy–the flutes poured forth a rapid flood of notes–the voices
were raised to the highest pitch–the men outside joined in the cry–whilst the
women made the rocks resound with the shrilltahlehl.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The musicians, giving way to the excitement, threw their instruments into
the air, and strained their limbs into every contortion, until they fell
exhausted to the ground. I never heard a more frightful yell than that which
rose in the valley. It was midnight. I gazed with wonder upon the extraordinary
scene around me. Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of
the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove.” Layard does not state
at what period of the year this festival occurred; but his language leaves
little doubt that he regarded it as a festival of Bacchus; in other words, of
the Babylonian Messiah, whose tragic death, and subsequent restoration to life
and glory, formed the cornerstone of ancient Paganism. The festival was
avowedly held in honour at once of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun, and of the Sheik
Adi, or ”Prince of Eternity,” around whose tomb nevertheless the solemnity took
place, just as the lamp festival in Egypt, in honour of the sun-god Osiris, was
celebrated in the precincts of the tomb of that god at Sais.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the reader cannot fail to have observed that in this Yezidi festival,
men, women, and children were ”PURIFIED” by coming in contact with ”the sacred
element” of fire. In the rites of Zoroaster, the great Chaldean god, fire
occupied precisely the same place. It was laid down as an essential principle
in his system, that ”he who approached to fire would receive a light from
divinity,” (TAYLOR’S Jamblichus) and that ”through divine fire all the stains
produced by generation would be purged away” (PROCLUS, Timaeo). Therefore it
was that ”children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch” (Jer 32:35),
to purge them from original sin, and through this purgation many a helpless
babe became a victim to the bloody divinity. Among the Pagan Romans, this
purifying by passing through the fire was equally observed; ”for,” says Ovid,
enforcing the practice, ”Fire purifies both the shepherd and the sheep.” Among
the Hindoos, from time immemorial, fire has been worshipped for its purifying
efficacy. Thus a worshipper is represented by Colebrooke, according to the
sacred books, as addressing the fire: ”Salutation to thee [O fire!], who dost
seize oblations, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost scintillate, may thy
auspicious flame burn our foes; mayest thou, the PURIFIER, be auspicious unto
us.” There are some who maintain a ”perpetual fire,” and perform daily
devotions to it, and in ”concluding the sacraments of the gods,” thus every day
present their supplications to it: ”Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the
gods; may this oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against man;
thou dost expiate a sin against the manes [departed spirits]; thou dost expiate
a sin against my own soul; thou dost expiate repeated sins; thou dost expiate
every sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; may this
oblation be efficacious.” Among the Druids, also, fire was celebrated as the
purifier. Thus, in a Druidic song, we read, ”They celebrated the praise of the
holy ones in the presence of the purifying fire, which was made to ascend on
high” (DAVIES’S Druids, ”Song to the Sun”). If, indeed, a blessing was expected
in Druidical times from lighting the carn-fires, and making either young or
old, either human beings or cattle, pass through the fire, it was simply in
consequence of the purgation from sin that attached to human beings and all
things connected with them, that was believed to be derived from this passing
through the fire. It is evident that this very same belief about the
”purifying” efficacy of fire is held by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, when
they are so zealous to pass both themselves and their children through the
fires of St. John. * Toland testifies that it is as a ”lustration” that these
fires are kindled; and all who have carefully examined the subject must come to
the same conclusion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”I have seen parents,” said the late Lord J. Scott in a letter to me,
”force their children to go through the Baal-fires.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, if Tammuz was, as we have seen,the same as Zoroaster, the god of the
ancient ”fire-worshippers,” and if his festival in Babylon so exactly
synchronised with the feast of the Nativity of St. John, what wonder that that
feast is still celebrated by the blazing ”Baal-fires,” and that it presents so
faithful a copy of what was condemned by Jehovah of old in His ancient people
when they ”made their children pass through the fire to Moloch”? But who that
knows anything of the Gospel would call such a festival as this a Christian
festival? The Popish priests, if they do not openly teach, at least allow their
deluded votaries to believe, as firmly s ever ancient fire worshipper did, that
material fire can purge away the guilt and stain of sin. How that tends to
rivet upon the minds of their benighted vassals one of the most monstrous but
profitable fables of their system, will come to be afterwards considered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The name Oannes could be known only to the initiated as the name of the
Pagan Messiah; and at first, some measure of circumspection was necessary in
introducing Paganism into the Church. But, as time went on, as the Gospel
became obscured, and the darkness became more intense, the same caution was by
no means so necessary. Accordingly, we find that, in the dark ages, the Pagan
Messiah has not been brought into the Church in a mere clandestine manner. Openly
and avowedly under his well known classic names of Bacchus and Dionysus, has he
been canonised, and set up for the worship of the ”faithful.” Yes, Rome, that
professes to be pre-eminently the Bride of Christ, the only Church in which
salvation is to be found, has had the unblushing effrontery to give the grand
Pagan adversary of the Son of God, UNDER HIS OWN PROPER NAME, a place in her
calendar. The reader has only to turn to the Roman calendar, and he will find
that this is a literal fact; he will find that October the 7th is set apart to
be observed in honour of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr.” Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a
”martyr”; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the
religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was
put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of
the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for
the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this ”St.
Bacchus the Martyr” was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of
drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for
October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the
vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the
”Rustic Festival” of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival
of ”St Bacchus the Martyr” occur.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name
of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The
Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names;
and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by
which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the
Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the
name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece.
That ”rustic” festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing
its object more fully, the name became ”Festum Dionysi Eleutherei
rusticum”–i.e., the ”rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus.” (BEGG’S Handbook
of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship,
has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints
out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the
innocent epithet ”Rusticum,” which, even among the heathen, had no pretension
to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of
October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: ”The festival of St.
Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in
Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case
of the Romish saint.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two
companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison
of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light
on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs
the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the
spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the
place of burial. In commemoration of so stupendous a miracle, a hymn was duly
chanted for many a century in the Cathedral of St. Denys, at Paris, containing
the following verse:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The corpse immediately arose;<br />
The trunk bore away the dissevered head,<br />
Guided on its way by a legion of angels.”<br />
(SALVERTE, Des Sciences Occultes</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">At last, even Papists began to be ashamed of such an absurdity being
celebrated in the name of religion; and in 1789, ”the office of St. Denys” was
abolished. Behold, however, the march of events. The world has for some time
past been progressing back again to the dark ages. The Romish Breviary, which
had been given up in France, has, within the last six years, been reimposed by
Papal authority on the Gallican Church, with all its lying legends, and this
among the rest of them; the Cathedral of St. Denys is again being rebuilt, and
the old worship bids fair to be restored in all its grossness. Now, how could
it ever enter the minds of men to invent so monstrous a fable? The origin of it
is not far to seek. The Church of Rome represented her canonised saints, who
were said to have suffered martyrdom by the sword, as headless images or
statues with the severed head borne in the hand. ”I have seen,” says Eusebe
Salverte, ”in a church of Normandy, St. Clair; St. Mithra, at Arles, in
Switzerland, all the soldiers of the Theban legion represented with their heads
in their hands. St. Valerius is thus figured at Limoges, on the gates of the
cathedral, and other monuments. The grand seal of the canton of Zurich
represents, in the same attitude, St. Felix, St. Regula, and St. Exsuperantius.
There certainly is the origin of the pious fable which is told of these
martyrs, such as St. Denys and many others besides.” This was the immediate
origin of the story of the dead saint rising up and marching away with his head
in his hand. But it turns out that this very mode of representation was
borrowed from Paganism, and borrowed in such a way as identifies the Papal St.
Denys of Paris with the Pagan Dionysus, not only of Rome but of Babylon.
Dionysus or Bacchus, in one of his transformations, was represented as
Capricorn, the ”goat-horned fish”; and there is reason to believe that it was
in this very form that he had the name of Oannes. In this form in India, under
the name ”Souro,” that is evidently ”the seed,” he is said to have done many
marvellous things. (For Oannes and Souro, see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect33.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)
Now, in the Persian Sphere he was not only represented mystically as Capricorn,
but also in the human shape; and then exactly as St. Denys is represented by
the Papacy. The words of the ancient writer who describes this figure in the
Persian Sphere are these: ”Capricorn, the third Decan. The half of the figure
without a head, because its head is in its hand.” Nimrod had his head cut off;
and in commemoration of that fact, which his worshippers so piteously bewailed,
his image in the Sphere was so represetned. That dissevered head, in some of
the versions of his story, was fabled to have done as marvellous things as any
that were done by the lifeless trunk of St. Denys. Bryant has proved, in this
story of Orpheus, that it is just a slighty-coloured variety of the story of Osiris.
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* BRYANT. The very name Orpheus is just a synonym for Bel, the name of the
great Babylonian god, which, while originally given to Cush, became hereditary
in the line of his deified descendants. Bel signifies ”to mix,” as well as ”to
confound,” and ”Orv” in Hebrew, which in Chaldee becomes Orph, signifies also
”to mix.” But ”Orv,” or ”Orph,” signifies besides ”a willow-tree”; and
therefore, in exact accordance with the mystic system, we find the symbol of
Orpheus among the Greeks to have been a willow-tree. Thus, Pausanias, after
referring to a representation of Actaeon, says, ”If again you look to the lower
parts of the picture, you will see after Patroclus, Orpheus sitting on a hill,
with a harp in his left hand, and in his right hand the leaves of a
willow-tree”; and again, a little furthe on, he says: ”He is represented
leaning on the trunk of this tree.” The willow-leaves in the right hand of
Orpheus, and the willow-tree on which he leans, sufficiently show the meaning
of his name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">As Osiris was cut in pieces in Egypt, so Orpheus was torn in pieces in
Thrace. Now, when the mangled limbs of the latter had been strewn about the
field, his head, floating on the Hebrus, gave proof of the miraculous character
of him that owned it. ”Then,” says Virgil:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Then, when his head from his
fair shoulders torn,<br />
Washed by the waters, was on Hebrus borne,<br />
Even then his trembling voice invoked his bride,<br />
With his last voice, ‘Eurydice,’ he creid;<br />
‘Eurydice,’ the rockes and river banks replied.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is diversity here, but amidst that diversity there is an obvious
unity. In both cases, thehead dissevered from the lifeless body occupies the
foreground of the picture; in both cases, the miracle is in connection with a
river. Now, when the festivals of ”St. Bacchus the Martyr,” and of ”St.
Dionysius and Eleuther,” so remarkably agree with the time when the festivals
of the Pagan god of wine were celbrated, whether by the name of Bacchus, or
Dionysus, or Eleuthereus, and when the mode of representing the modern
Dionysius and the ancient Dionysus are evidently the very same, while the
legends of both so strikiingly harmonise, who can doubt the real character of
those Romish festivals? They are not Christina. They are Pagan; they are
unequivocally Babylonian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect33.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US">[Back]</span></a></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Oannes and Souro</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reason for believing that Oannes, that was said to have been the first
of the fabulous creatures that came up out of the sea and instructed the
Babylonians, was represented as the goat-horned fish, is as follows: First, the
name Oannes, as elsewhere shown, is just the Greek form of He-annesh, or ”The
man,” which is a synonym for the name of our first parent, Adam. Now, Adam can
be proved to be the original of Pan, who was also called Inuus, which is just
another pronunciation of Anosh without the article, which, in our translation
of Genesis 5:7, is made Enos. This name, as universally admitted, is the
generic name for man after the Fall, as weak and diseased. The o in Enos is
what is called the vau, which sometimes is pronounced o, sometimes u, and
sometimes v or w. A legitimate pronunciation of Enos, therefore, is just Enus
or Enws, the same in sound as Inuus, the Ancient Roman name of Pan. The name
Pan itself signifies ”He who turned aside.” As the Hebrew word for
”uprightness” signifies ”walking straight in the way,” so every deviation from
the straight line of duty was Sin; Hata, the word for sin, signifying
generically ”to go aside from the straight line.” Pan, it is admitted, was the
Head of the Satyrs–that is, ”the first of the Hidden Ones,” for Satyr and
Satur, ”the Hidden One,” are evidently just the same word; and Adam was the
first of mankind that hid himself. Pan is said to have loved a nymph called
Pitho, or, as it is given in another form, Pitys (SMITH, ”Pan”); and what is
Pitho or Pitys but just the name of the beguiling woman, who, having been
beguiled herself, acted the part of a beguiler of her husband, and induced him
to take the step, in consequence of which he earned the name Pan, ”The man that
turned aside.” Pitho or Pitys evidently come from Peth or Pet, ”to beguile,”
from which verb also the famous serpent Python derived its name. This
conclusion in regard to the personal identity of Pan and Pitho is greatly
confirmed by the titles given to the wife of Faunus. Faunus, says Smith, is
”merely another name for Pan.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In Chaldee the same letter that is pronounced P is also pronounced Ph,
that is F, therefore Pan is just Faun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the wife of Faunus was called Oma, Fauna, and Fatua, which names
plainly mean ”The mother that turned aside, being beguiled.” This beguiled
mother is also called indifferently ”the sister, wife, or daughter” of her
husband; and how this agrees with the relations of Eve to Adam, the reader does
not need to be told.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, a title of Pan was Capricornus, or ”The goat-horned” (DYMOCK, ”Pan”),
and the origin of this title must be traced to what took place when our first
parent became the Head of the Satyrs–the ”first of the Hidden ones.” He fled to
hide himself; and Berkha, ”a fugitive,” signifies also ”a he-goat.” Hence the
origin of the epithet Capricornus, or ”goat-horned,” as applied to Pan. But as
Capricornus in the sphere is generally represented as the ”Goat-fish,” if Capricornus
represents Pan, or Adam, or Oannes, that shows that it must be Adam, after,
through virtue of the metempsychosis, he had passed through the waters of the
deluge: the goat, as the symbol of Pan, representing Adam, the first father of
mankind, combined with the fish, the symbol of Noah, the second father of the
human race; of both whom Nimrod, as at once Kronos, ”the father of the gods,”
and Souro, ”the seed,” was a new incarnation. Among the idols of Babylon, as
represented in KITTO’S Illust. Commentary, we find a representation of this
very Capricornus, or goat-horned fish; and Berosus tells us that the well known
representations of Pan, of which Capricornus is a modification, were found in
Babylon in the most ancient times. A great deal more of evidence might be
adduced on this subject; but I submit to the reader if the above statement does
not sufficiently account for the origin of the remarkable figure in the Zodiac,
”The goat-horned fish.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter III<br />
Section IV<br />
The Feast of the Assumption</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If what has been already said shows the carnal policy of Rome at the
expense of truth, the circumstances attending the festival of the Assumption
show the daring wickedness and blasphemy of that Church still more; considering
that the doctrine in regard to this festival, so far as the Papacy is concerned,
was not established in the dark ages, but three centuries after the
Reformation, amid all the boasted light of the nineteenth century. The doctrine
on which the festival of the Assumption is founded, is this: that the Virgin
Mary saw no corruption, that in body and in soul she was carried up to heaven,
and now is invested with all power in heaven and in earth. This doctrine has
been unblushingly avowed in the face of the British public, in a recent
pastoral of the Popish Archbishop of Dublin. This doctrine has now received the
stamp of Papal Infallibility, having been embodied in the late blasphemous
decree that proclaims the ”Immaculate Conception.” Now, it is impossible for
the priests of Rome to find one shred of countenance for such a doctrine in Scripture.
But, in the Babylonian system, the fable was ready made to their hand. There it
was taught that Bacchus went down to hell, rescued his mother from the infernal
powers, and carried her with him in triumph to heaven. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* APOLLODORUS. We have seen that the great goddess, who was worshipped in
Babylon as ”The Mother,” was in reality the wife of Ninus, the great god, the
prototype of Bacchus. In conformity with this, we find a somewhat similar story
told of Ariadne, the wife of Bacchus, as is fabled of Semele his mother. ”The
garment of Thetis,” says Bryant, ”contained a description of some notable
achievements in the first ages; and a particular account of the apotheosis, of
Ariadne, who is described, whatever may be the meaning of it, as carried by Bacchus
to heaven.” A similar story is told of Alcmene, the mother of the Grecian
Hercules, who was quite distinct, as we have seen, from the primitive Hercules,
and was just one of the forms of Bacchus, for he was a ”great tippler”; and the
”Herculean goblets” are proverbial. (MULLER’S Dorians) Now the mother of this
Hercules is said to have had a resurrection. ”Jupiter” [the father of
Hercules], says Muller, ”raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the
islands of the blest, as the wife of Rhadamanthus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This fable spread wherever the Babylonian system spread; and, accordingly,
at this day, the Chinese celebrate, as they have done from time immemorial, a
festival in honour of a Mother, who by her son was rescued from the power of
death and the grave. The festival of the Assumption in the Romish Church is
held on the 15th of August. The Chinese festival, founded on a similar legend,
and celebrated with lanterns and chandeliers, as shown by Sir J. F. Davis in
his able and graphic account of China, is equally celebrated in the month of
August. Now, when the mother of the Pagan Messiah came to be celebrated as
having been thus ”Assumed,” then it was that, under the name of the ”Dove,” she
was worshipped as the Incarnation of the Spirit of God, with whom she was
identified. As such as she was regarded as the source of all holiness, and the
grand ”PURIFIER,” and, of course, was known herself as the ”Virgin” mother,
”PURE AND UNDEFILED.” (PROCLUS, in TAYLOR’S Note upon Jamblichus) Under the
name of Proserpine (with whom, though the Babylonian goddess was originally
distinct, she was identified), while celebrated, as the mother of the first
Bacchus, and known as ”Pluto’s honoured wife,” she is also addressed, in the
”Orphic Hymns,” as</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Associate of the seasons, essence
bright,<br />
All-ruling VIRGIN, bearing heavenly light.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Whoever wrote these hymns, the more they are examined the more does it
become evident, when they are compared with the most ancient doctrine of
Classic Greece, that their authors understood and thoroughly adhered to the
genuine theology of Paganism. To the fact that Proserpine was currently
worshipped in Pagan Greece, though well known to be the wife of Pluto, the god
of hell, under the name of ”The Holy Virgin,” we find Pausanias, while describing
the grove Carnasius, thus bearing testimony: ”This grove contains a statue of
Apollo Carneus, of Mercury carrying a ram, and of Proserpine, the daughter of
Ceres, who is called ‘The HOLY VIRGIN.’” The purity of this ”Holy Virgin” did
not consist merely in freedom from actual sin, but she was especially
distinguished for her ”immaculate conception”; for Proclus says, ”She is called
Core, through the purity of her essence, and her UNDEFILED transcendency in her
GENERATIONS.” Do men stand amazed at the recent decree? There is no real reason
to wonder. It was only in following out the Pagan doctrine previously adopted
and interwoven with the whole system of Rome to its logical consequences, that
that decree has been issued, and that the Madonna of Rome has been formally
pronounced at last, in every sense of the term, absolutely ”IMMACULATE.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, after all this, is it possible to doubt that the Madonna of Rome, with
the child in her arms, and the Madonna of Babylon, are one and the same
goddess? It is notorious that the Roman Madonna is worshipped as a goddess,
yea, is the supreme object of worship. Will not, then, the Christians of
Britain revolt at the idea of longer supporting this monstrous Babylonian
Paganism? What Christian constituency could tolerate that its representative
should vote away the money of this Protestant nation for the support of such
blasphemous idolatry? *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* It is to be lamented that Christians in general seem to have so little
sense either of the gravity of the present crisis of the Church and the world,
or of the duty lying upon them as Christ’s witnesses, to testify, and that
practically, against the public sins of the nation. If they would wish to be
stimulated to a more vigorous discharge of duty in this respect, let them read
an excellent and well-timed little work recently issued from the press,
entitled An Original Interpretation of the Apocalypse, where the Apocalyptic
statements in regard to the character, life, death, and resurrection of the Two
Witnesses, are briefly but forcibly handled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Were not the minds of men judicially blinded, they would tremble at the
very thought of incurring the guilt that this land, by upholding the corruption
and wickedness of Rome, has for years past been contracting. Has not the Word
of God, in the most energetic and awful terms, doomed the New Testament
Babylon? And has it not equally declared, that those who share in Babylon’s
sins, shall share in Babylon’s plagues? (Rev 18:4)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The guilt of idolatry is by many regarded as comparatively slight and insignificant
guilt. But not so does the God of heaven regard it. Which is the commandment of
all the ten that is fenced about with the most solemn and awful sanctions? It
is the second: ”Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them,
nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me.” These words were spoken by God’s own lips, they were written by
God’s own finger on the tables of stone: not for the instruction of the seed of
Abraham only, but of all the tribes and generations of mankind. No other
commandment has such a threatening attached to it as this. Now, if God has
threatened to visit the SIN OF IDOLATRY ABOVE ALL OTHER SINS, and if we find
the heavy judgments of God pressing upon us as a nation, while this very sin is
crying to heaven against us, ought it not to be a matter of earnest inquiry, if
among all our other national sins, which are both many and great, this may not
form ”the very head and front of our offending”? What though we do not
ourselves bow down to stocks and stones? Yet if we, making a profession the
very opposite, encourage, and foster, and maintain that very idolatry which God
has so fearfully threatened with His wrath, our guilt, instead of being the
less, is only so much the greater, for it is a sin against the light. Now, the
facts are manifest to all men. It is notorious, that in 1845 anti-Christian
idolatry was incorporated in the British Constitution, in a way in which for a
century and a half it had not been incorporated before. It is equally notorious,
that ever since, the nation has been visited with one succession of judgments
after another. Ought we then to regard this coincidence as merely accidental?
Ought we not rather to see in it the fulfilment of the threatening pronounced
by God in the Apocalypse? This is at this moment an intensely practical
subject. If our sin in this matter is not nationally recognised, if it is not
penitently confessed, if it is not put away from us; if, on the contrary, we go
on increasing it, if now for the first time since the Revolution, while so
manifestly dependent on the God of battles for the success of our arms, we
affront Him to His face by sending idol priests into our camp, then, though we
have national fasts, and days of humiliation without number, they cannot be
accepted; they may procure us a temporary respite, but we may be certain that
”the Lord’s anger will not be turned away, His hand will be stretched out
still.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The above paragraph first appeared in the spring of 1855, when the empire
had for months been looking on in amazement at the ”horrible and heart-rending”
disasters in the Crimea, caused simply by the fact, that official men in that
distant region ”could not find their hands,” and when at last a day of
humiliation had been appointed. The reader can judge whether or not the events
that have since occurred have made the above reasoning out of date. The few
years of impunity that have elapsed since the Indian Mutiny, with all its
horrors, was suppressed, show the long-suffering of God. But if that
long-suffering is despised (which it manifestly is, while the guilt is daily
increasing), the ultimate issue must just be so much the more terrible.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">See Chapter V, Section IV regarding Cupid (St. Valentine’s Day)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />
Doctrine and Discipline</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When Linacer, a distinguished physician, but bigoted Romanist, in the reign
of Henry VIII first fell in with the New Testament, after reading it for a
while, he tossed it from him with impatience and a great oath, exclaiming,
”Either this book is not true, or we are not Christians.” He saw at once that
the system of Rome and the system of the New Testament were directly opposed to
one another; and no one who impartially compares the two systems can come to
any other conclusion. In passing from the Bible to the Breviary, it is like
passing from light to darkness. While the one breathes glory to God in the
highest, peace on earth, and good will to men, the other inculcates all that is
dishonouring to the Most High, and ruinous to the moral and spiritual welfare
of mankind. How came it that such pernicious doctrines and practices were
embraced by the Papacy? Was the Bible so obscure or ambiguous that men
naturally fell into the mistake of supposing that it required them to believe
and practise the very opposite of what it did? No; the doctrine and discipline
of the Papacy were never derived from the Bible. The fact that wherever it has
the power, it lays the reading of the Bible under its ban, and either consigns
that choicest gift of heavenly love to the flames, or shuts it up under lock
and key, proves this of itself. But it can be still more conclusively
established. A glance at the main pillars of the Papal system will sufficiently
prove that its doctrine and discipline, in all essential respects, have been
derived from Babylon. Let the reader now scan the evidence.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Section I<br />
Baptismal Regeneration</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is well known that regeneration by baptism is a fundamental article of
Rome, yea, that it stands at the very threshold of the Roman system. So
important, according to Rome, is baptism for this purpose, that, on the one
hand, it is pronounced of ”absolute necessity for salvation,” * insomuch that
infants dying without it cannot be admitted to glory; and on the other, its
virtues are so great, that it is declared in all cases infallibly to
”regenerate us by a new spiritual birth, making us children of God”:–it is
pronounced to be ”the first door by which we enter into the fold of Jesus
Christ, the first means by which we receive the grace of reconciliation with
God; therefore the merits of His death are by baptism applied to our souls in
so superabundant a manner, as fully to satisfy Divine justice for all demands
against us, whether for original or actual sin.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop HAY’S Sincere Christian. There are two exceptions to this
statement; the case of an infidel converted in a heathen land, where it is
impossible to get baptism, and the case of a martyr ”baptised,” as it is
called, ”in his own blood”; but in all other cases, whether of young or old,
the necessity is ”absolute.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in both respects this doctrine is absolutely anti-Scriptural; in both
it is purely Pagan. It is anti-Scriptural, for the Lord Jesus Christ has
expressly declared that infants, without the slightest respect to baptism or
any external ordinance whatever, are capable of admission into all the glory of
the heavenly world: ”Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid
them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” John the Baptist, while yet in
his mother’s womb was so filled with joy at the advent of the Saviour, that, as
soon as Mary’s salutation sounded in the ears of his own mother, the unborn
babe ”leaped in the womb for joy.” Had that child died at the birth, what could
have excluded it from ”the inheritance of the saints in light” for which it was
so certainly ”made meet”? Yet the Roman Catholic Bishop Hay, in defiance of
very principle of God’s Word, does not hesitate to pen the following:
”Question: What becomes of young children who die without baptism? Answer: If a
young child were put to death for the sake of Christ, this would be to it the
baptism of blood, and carry it to heaven; but except in this case, as such
infants are incapable of having the desire of baptism, with the other necessary
dispositions, if they are not actually baptised with water, THEY CANNOT GO TO
HEAVEN.” As this doctrine never came from the Bible, whence came it? It came
from heathenism. The classic reader cannot fail to remember where, and in what
melancholy plight, Aeneas, when he visited the infernal regions, found the
souls of unhappy infants who had died before receiving, so to speak, ”the rites
of the Church”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Before the gates the cries of
babes new-born,<br />
Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,<br />
Assault his ears.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">These wretched babes, to glorify the virtue and efficacy of the mystic
rites of Paganism, are excluded from the Elysian Fields, the paradise of the
heathen, and have among their nearest associates no better company than that of
guilty suicides:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The next in place and
punishment are they<br />
Who prodigally threw their souls away,<br />
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,<br />
And loathing anxious life, suborned their fate.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Virgil, DRYDEN’S translation. Between the infants and the suicides one
other class is interposed, that is, those who on earth have been unjustly
condemned to die. Hope is held out for these, but no hope is held out for the
babes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">So much for the lack of baptism. Then as to its positive efficacy when
obtained, the Papal doctrine is equally anti-Scriptural. There are professed
Protestants who hold the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; but the Word of
God knows nothing of it. The Scriptural account of baptism is, not that it
communicates the new birth, but that it is the appointed means of signifying
and sealing that new birth where it already exists. In this respect baptism
stands on the very same ground as circumcision. Now, what says God’s Word of
the efficacy of circumcision? This it says, speaking of Abraham: ”He received
the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he
had, yet being uncircumcised” (Rom 4:11). Circumcision was not intended to make
Abraham righteous; he was righteous already before he was circumcised. But it
was intended to declare him righteous, to give him the more abundant evidence
in his own consciousness of his being so. Had Abraham not been righteous before
his circumcision, his circumcision could not have been a seal, could not have
given confirmation to that which did not exist. So with baptism, it is ”a seal
of the righteousness of the faith” which the man ”has before he is baptised”;
for it is said, ”He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved” (Mark
16:16). Where faith exists, if it be genuine, it is the evidence of a new
heart, of a regenerated nature; and it is only on the profession of that faith
and regeneration in the case of an adult, that he is admitted to baptism. Even
in the case of infants, who can make no profession of faith or holiness, the
administration of baptism is not for the purpose of regenerating them, or
making them holy, but of declaring them ”holy,” in the sense of being fit for
being consecrated, even in infancy, to the service of Christ, just as the whole
nation of Israel, in consequence of their relation to Abraham, according to the
flesh, were ”holy unto the Lord.” If they were not, in that figurative sense,
”holy,” they would not be fit subjects for baptism, which is the ”seal” of a
holy state. But the Bible pronounces them, in consequence of their descent from
believing parents, to be ”holy,” and that even where only one of the parents is
a believer: ”The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean,
but now they are HOLY” (1 Cor 7:14). It is in consequence of, and solemnly to
declare, that ”holiness,” with all the responsibilities attaching to it, that
they are baptised. That ”holiness,” however, is very different from the
”holiness” of the new nature; and although the very fact of baptism, if
Scripturally viewed and duly improved, is, in the hand of the good Spirit of
God, an important means of making that ”holiness” a glorious reality, in the
highest sense of the term, yet it does not in all cases necessarily secure
their spiritual regeneration. God may, or may not, as He sees fit, give the new
heart, before, or at, or after baptism; but manifest it is, that thousands who
have been duly baptised are still unregenerate, are still in precisely the same
position as Simon Magus, who, after being canonically baptised by Philip, was
declared to be ”in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts
7:23). The doctrine of Rome, however, is, that all who are canonically
baptised, however ignorant, however immoral, if they only give implicit faith
to the Church, and surrender their consciences to the priests, are as much
regenerated as ever they can be, and that children coming from the waters of
baptism are entirely purged from the stain of original sin. Hence we find the
Jesuit missionaries in India boasting of making converts by thousands, by the
mere fact of baptising them, without the least previous instruction, in the
most complete ignorance of the truths of Christianity, on their mere profession
of submission to Rome. This doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration also is
essentially Babylonian. Some may perhaps stumble at the idea of regeneration at
all having been known in the Pagan world; but if they only go to India, they
will find at this day, the bigoted Hindoos, who have never opened their ears to
Christian instruction, as familiar with the term and the idea as ourselves. The
Brahmins make it their distinguishing boast that they are ”twice-born” men, and
that, as such, they are sure of eternal happiness. Now, the same was the case
in Babylon, and there the new birth was conferred by baptism. In the Chaldean
mysteries, before any instruction could be received, it was required first of
all, that the person to be initiated submit to baptism in token of blind and
implicit obedience. We find different ancient authors bearing direct testimony
both to the fact of this baptism and the intention of it. ”In certain sacred
rites of the heathen,” says Tertullian, especially referring to the worship of
Isis and Mithra, ”the mode of initiation is by baptism.” The term ”initiation”
clearly shows that it was to the Mysteries of these divinities he referred.
This baptism was by immersion, and seems to have been rather a rough and
formidable process; for we find that he who passed through the purifying
waters, and other necessary penances, ”if he survived, was then admitted to the
knowledge of the Mysteries.” (Elliae Comment. in S. GREG. NAZ.) To face this
ordeal required no little courage on the part of those who were initiated.
There was this grand inducement, however, to submit, that they who were thus baptised
were, as Tertullian assures us, promised, as the consequence, ”REGENERATION,
and the pardon of all their perjuries.” Our own Pagan ancestors, the
worshippers of Odin, are known to have practised baptismal rites, which, taken
in connection with their avowed object in practising them, show that,
originally, at least, they must have believed that the natural guilt and
corruption of their new-born children could be washed away by sprinkling them
with water, or by plunging them, as soon as born, into lakes or rivers. Yea, on
the other side of the Atlantic, in Mexico, the same doctrine of baptismal
regeneration was found in full vigour among the natives, when Cortez and his
warriors landed on their shores. The ceremony of Mexican baptism, which was
beheld with astonishment by the Spanish Roman Catholic missionaries, is thus
strikingly described in Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico: ”When everything
necessary for the baptism had been made ready, all the relations of the child
were assembled, and the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of
baptism, * was summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the courtyard of
the house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms,
called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about her placed the
ornaments, which had been prepared for baptism, in the midst of the court. To
perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself with her face toward the west,
and immediately began to go through certain ceremonies…After this she sprinkled
water on the head of the infant, saying, ‘O my child, take and receive the
water of the Lord of the world, which is our life, which is given for the
increasing and renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that
these heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may
destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given you before the
beginning of the world, since all of us are under its power’…She then washed
the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner: ‘Whencesoever thou
comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave him and depart from him, for
he now liveth anew, and is BORN ANEW; now he is purified and cleansed afresh,
and our mother Chalchivitylcue [the goddess of water] bringeth him into the
world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife took the child in both hands, and,
lifting him towards heaven, said, ‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom
thou hast sent into the world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence.
Grant him, O Lord, thy gifts and inspiration, for thou art the Great God, and
with thee is the great goddess.’”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* As baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, Rome also authorises
midwives to administer baptism. In Mexico the midwife seems to have been a
”priestess.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here is the opus operatum without mistake. Here is baptismal regeneration
and exorcism too, * as thorough and complete as any Romish priest or lover of
Tractarianism could desire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* In the Romish ceremony of baptism, the first thing the priest does is to
exorcise the devil out of the child to be baptised in these words, ”Depart from
him, thou unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost the Comforter.”
(Sincere Christian) In the New Testament there is not the slightest hint of any
such exorcism accompanying Christian Baptism. It is purely Pagan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Does the reader ask what evidence is there that Mexico had derived this
doctrine from Chaldea? The evidence is decisive. From the researches of
Humboldt we find that the Mexicans celebrated Wodan as the founder of their
race, just as our own ancestors did. The Wodan or Odin of Scandinavia can be
proved to be the Adon of Babylon. (see </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect41.htm#notea"><span lang="EN-US">note</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"> below)
The Wodan of Mexico, from the following quotation, will be seen to be the very
same: ”According to the ancient traditions collected by the Bishop Francis
Nunez de la Vega,” says Humboldt, ”the Wodan of the Chiapanese [of Mexico] was
grandson of that illustrious old man, who at the time of the great deluge, in
which the greater part of the human race perished, was saved on a raft,
together with his family. Wodan co-operated in the construction of the great
edifice which had been undertaken by men to reach the skies; the execution of
this rash project was interrupted; each family received from that time a
different language; and the great spirit Teotl ordered Wodan to go and people
the country of Anahuac.” This surely proves to demonstration whence originally
came the Mexican mythology and whence also that doctrine of baptismal
regeneration which the Mexicans held in common with Egyptian and Persian
worshippers of the Chaldean Queen of Heaven. Prestcott, indeed, has cast doubts
on the genuiness of this tradition, as being too exactly coincident with the Scriptural
history to be easily believed. But the distinguished Humboldt, who had
carefully examined the matter, and who had no prejudice to warp him, expresses
his full belief in its correctness; and even from Prestcott’s own interesting
pages, it may be proved in every essential particular, with the single
exception of the name of Wodan, to which he makes no reference. But, happily,
the fact that that name had been borne by some illustrious hero among the
supposed ancestors of the Mexican race, is put beyond all doubt by the singular
circumstance that the Mexicans had one of their days called Wodansday, exactly
as we ourselves have. This, taken in connection with all the circumstances, is
a very striking proof, at once of the unity of the human race, and of the
wide-spread diffusion of the system that began at Babel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If the question arise, How came it that the Bayblonians themselves adopted
such a doctrine as regeneration by baptism, we have light also on that. In the
Babylonian Mysteries, the commemoration of the flood, of the ark, and the grand
events in the life of Noah, was mingled with the worship of the Queen of Heaven
and her son. Noah, as having lived in two worlds, both before the flood and
after it, was called ”Dipheus,” or ”twice-born,” and was represented as a god
with two heads looking in opposite directions, the one old, and the other
young. Though we have seen that the two-headed Janus in one aspect had
reference to Cush and his son, Nimrod, viewed as one god, in a two-fold
capacity, as the Supreme, and Father of all the deified ”mighty ones,” yet, in
order to gain for him the very authority and respect essential to constitute
him properly the head of the great system of idolatry that the apostates
inaugurated, it was necessary to represent him as in some way or other
identified with the great patriarch, who was the Father of all, and who had so
miraculous a history. Therefore in the legends of Janus, we find mixed up with
other things derived from an entirely different source, statements not only in
regard to his being the ”Father of the world,” but also his being ”the inventor
of ships,” which plainly have been borrowed from the history of Noah; and
therefore, the remarkable way in which he is represented in the figure here
presented to the reader may confidently be concluded to have been primarily
suggested by the history of the great Diluvian patriarch, whose integrity in
his two-fold life is so particularly referred to in the Scripture, where it is
said (Gen 6:9), ”Noah was just a man, and perfect in his generations,” that is,
in his life before the flood, and in his life after it. The whole mythology of
Greece and Rome, as well as Asia, is full of the history and deeds of Noah,
which it is impossible to misunderstand. In India, the god Vishnu, ”the
Preserver,” who is celebrated as having miraculously preserved one righteous
family at the time when the world was drowned, not only has the story of Noah
wrought up with his legend, but is called by his very name. Vishnu is just the
Sanscrit form of the Chaldee ”Ish-nuh,” ”the man Noah,” or the ”Man of rest.”
In the case of Indra, the ”king of the gods,” and god of rain, which is
evidently only another form of the same god, the name is found in the precise
form of Ishnu. Now, the very legend of Vishnu, that pretends to make him no
mere creature, but the supreme and ”eternal god,” shows that this
interpretation of the name is no mere unfounded imagination. Thus is he
celebrated in the ”Matsya Puran”: ”The sun, the wind, the ether, all things
incorporeal, were absorbed into his Divine essence; and the universe being
consumed, the eternal and omnipotent god, having assumed an ancient form,
REPOSED mysteriously upon the surface of that (universal) ocean. But no one is
capable of knowing whether that being was then visible or invisible, or what
the holy name of that person was, or what the cause of his mysterious SLUMBER.
Nor can any one tell how long he thus REPOSED until he conceived the thought of
acting; for no one saw him, no one approached him, and none can penetrate the
mystery of his real essence.” (Col. KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology) In conformity
with this ancient legend, Vishnu is still represented as sleeping four months
every year. Now, connect this story with the name of Noah, the man of ”Rest,” and
with his personal history during the period of the flood, when the world was
destroyed, when for forty days and forty nights all was chaos, when neither sun
nor moon nor twinkling star appeared, when sea and sky were mingled, and all
was one wide universal ”ocean,” on the bosom of which the patriarch floated,
when there was no human being to ”approach” him but those who were with him in
the ark, and ”the mystery of his real essence is penetrated” at once, ”the holy
name of that person” is ascertained, and his ”mysterious slumber” fully
accounted for. Now, wherever Noah is celebrated, whether by the name of Saturn,
”the hidden one,”–for that name was applied to him as well as to Nimrod, on
account of his having been ”hidden” in the ark, in the ”day of the Lord’s
fierce anger,”–or, ”Oannes,” or ”Janus,” the ”Man of the Sea,” he is generally
described in such a way as shows that he was looked upon as Diphues,
”twice-born,” or ”regenerate.” The ”twice-born” Brahmins, who are all so many
gods upon earth, by the very title they take to themselves, show that the god
whom they represent, and to whose prerogatives they lay claim, had been known
as the ”twice-born” god. The connection of ”regeneration” with the history of
Noah, comes out with special evidence in the accounts handed down to us of the
Mysteries as celebrated in Egypt. The most learned explorers of Egyptian
antiquities, including Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, admit that the story of Noah was
mixed up with the story of Osiris. The ship of Isis, and the coffin of Osiris,
floating on the waters, point distinctly to that remarkable event. There were
different periods, in different places in Egypt, when the fate of Osiris was
lamented; and at one time there was more special reference to the personal
history of ”the mighty hunter before the Lord,” and at another to the awful
catastrophe through which Noah passed. In the great and solemn festival called
”The Disappearance of Osiris,” it is evident that it is Noah himself who was
then supposed to have been lost. The time when Osiris was ”shut up in his
coffin,” and when that coffin was set afloat on the waters, as stated by
Plutarch, agrees exactly with the period when Noah entered the ark. That time
was ”the 17th day of the month Athyr, when the overflowing of the Nile had
ceased, when the nights were growing long and the days decreasing.” The month
Athyr was the second month after the autumnal equinox, at which time the civil
year of the Jews and the patriarchs began. According to this statement, then,
Osiris was ”shut up in his coffin” on the 17th day of the second month of the
patriarchal year. Compare this with the Scriptural account of Noah’s entering
into the ark, and it will be seen how remarkably they agree (Gen 7:11), ”In the
six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the SECOND MONTH, in the SEVENTEENTH DAY
of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up; in the
self-same day entered Noah into the ark.” The period, too, that Osiris
(otherwise Adonis) was believed to have been shut up in his coffin, was precisely
the same as Noah was confined in the ark, a whole year. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* APOLLODORUS. THEOCRITUS, Idyll. Theocritus is speaking of Adonis as
delivered by Venus from Acheron, or the infernal regions, after being there for
a year; but as the scene is laid in Egypt, it is evident that it is Osiris he
refers to, as he was the Adonis of the Egyptians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the statements of Plutarch demonstrate that, as Osiris at this
festival was looked upon as dead and buried when put into his ark or coffin,
and committed to the deep, so, when at length he came out of it again, that new
state was regarded as a state of ”new life,” or ”REGENERATION.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride. It was in the character of
Pthah-Sokari-Osiris that he was represented as having been thus ”buried” in the
waters. In his own character, simply as Osiris, he had another burial
altogether.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There seems every reason to believe that by the ark and the flood God
actually gave to the patriarchal saints, and especially to righteous Noah, a
vivid typical representation of the power of the blood and Spirit of Christ, at
once in saving from wrath, and cleansing from all sin–a representation which
was a most cheering ”seal” and confirmation to the faith of those who really
believed. To this Peter seems distinctly to allude, when he says, speaking of
this very event, ”The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us.”
Whatever primitive truth the Chaldean priests held, they utterly perverted and
corrupted it. They willingly overlooked the fact, that it was ”the
righteousness of the faith” which Noah ”had before” the flood, that carried him
safely through the avenging waters of that dread catastrophe, and ushered him,
as it were, from the womb of the ark, by a new birth, into a new world, when on
the ark resting on Mount Ararat, he was released from his long confinement.
They led their votaries to believe that, if they only passed through the
baptismal waters, and the penances therewith connected, that of itself would
make them like the second father of mankind, ”Diphueis,” ”twice-born,” or
”regenerate,” would entitle them to all the privileges of ”righteous” Noah, and
give them that ”new birth” (palingenesia) which their consciences told them
they so much needed. The Papacy acts on precisely the same principle; and from
this very source has its doctrine of baptismal regeneration been derived, about
which so much has been written and so many controversies been waged. Let men
contend as they may, this, and this only, will be found to be the real origin
of the anti-Scriptural dogma. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* There have been considerable speculations about the meaning of the name
Shinar, as applied to the region of which Babylon was the capital. Do not the
facts above stated cast light on it? What so likely a derivation of this name
as to derive it from ”shene,” ”to repeat,” and ”naar,” ”childhood.” The land of
”Shinar,” then, according to this view, is just the land of the ”Regenerator.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The reader has seen already how faithfully Rome has copied the Pagan
exorcism in connection with baptism. All the other peculiarities attending the
Romish baptism, such as the use of salt, spittle, chrism, or anointing with
oil, and marking the forehead with the sign of the cross, are equally Pagan.
Some of the continental advocates of Rome have admitted that some of these at
least have not been derived from Scripture. Thus Jodocus Tiletanus of Louvaine,
defending the doctrine of ”Unwritten Tradition,” does not hesitate to say, ”We
are not satisfied with that which the apostles or the Gospel do declare, but we
say that, as well before as after, there are divers matters of importance and
weight accepted and received out of a doctrine which is nowhere set forth in
writing. For we do blesse the water wherewith we baptize, and the oyle
wherewith we annoynt; yea, and besides that, him that is christened. And (I
pray you) out of what Scripture have we learned the same? Have we it not of a
secret and unwritten ordinance? And further, what Scripture hath taught us to
grease with oyle? Yea, I pray you, whence cometh it, that we do dype the childe
three times in the water? Doth it not come out of this hidden and undisclosed
doctrine, which our forefathers have received closely without any curiosity,
and do observe it still.” This learned divine of Louvaine, of course, maintains
that ”the hidden and undisclosed doctrine” of which he speaks, was the
”unwritten word” handed down through the channel of infallibility, from the
Apostles of Christ to his own time. But, after what we have already seen, the
reader will probably entertain a different opinion of the source from which the
hidden and undisclosed doctrine must have come. And, indeed, Father Newman
himself admits, in regard to ”holy water” (that is, water impregnated with
”salt,” and consecrated), and many other things that were, as he says, ”the
very instruments and appendages of demon-worship”–that they were all of ”Pagan”
origin, and ”sanctified by adoption into the Church.” What plea, then, what
palliation can he offer, for so extraordinary an adoption? Why, this: that the
Church had ”confidence in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of
evil,” and to transmute them to ”an evangelical use.” What right had the Church
to entertain any such ”confidence”? What fellowship could light have with
darkness? what concord between Christ and Belial? Let the history of the Church
bear testimony to the vanity, yea, impiety of such a hope. Let the progress of
our inquiries shed light upon the same. At the present stage, there is only one
of the concomitant rites of baptism to which I will refer–viz., the use of
”spittle” in that ordinance; and an examination of the very words of the Roman
ritual, in applying it, will prove that its use in baptism must have come from
the Mysteries. The following is the account of its application, as given by
Bishop Hay: ”The priest recites another exorcism, and at the end of it touches
the ear and nostrils of the person to be baptised with a little spittle,
saying, ‘Ephpheta, that is, Be thou opened into an odour of sweetness; but be
thou put to flight, O Devil, for the judgment of God will be at hand.’” Now,
surely the reader will at once ask, what possible, what conceivable connection
can there be between spittle, and an ”odour of sweetness”? If the secret
doctrine of the Chaldean mysteries be set side by side with this statement, it
will be seen that, absurd and nonsensical as this collocation of terms may
appear, it was not at random that ”spittle” and an ”odour of sweetness” were
brought together. We have seen already how thoroughly Paganism was acquainted
with the attributes and work of the promised Messiah, though all that
acquaintance with these grand themes was used for the purpose of corrupting the
minds of mankind, and keeping them in spiritual bondage. We have now to see
that, as they were well aware of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so,
intellectually, they were just as well acquainted with His work, though their
knowledge on that subject was equally debased and degraded. Servius, in his
comments upon Virgil’s First Georgic, after quoting the well known expression,
”Mystica vannus Iacchi,” ”the mystic fan of Bacchus,” says that that ”mystic
fan” symbolised the ”purifying of souls.” Now, how could the fan be a symbol of
the purification of souls? The answer is, The fan is an instrument for
producing ”wind”; * and in Chaldee, as has been already observed, it is one and
the same word which signifies ”wind” and the ”Holy Spirit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* There is an evident allusion to the ”mystic fan” of the Babylonian god,
in the doom of Babylon, as pronounced by Jeremiah 51:1, 2: ”Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in
the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; and will send
unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There can be no doubt, that, from the very beginning, the ”wind” was one of
the Divine patriarchal emblems by which the power of the Holy Ghost was
shadowed forth, even as our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, ”The wind
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the
Spirit.” Hence, when Bacchus was represented with ”the mystic fan,” that was to
declare him to be the mighty One with whom was ”the residue of the Spirit.”
Hence came the idea of purifying the soul by means of the wind, according to
the description of Virgil, who represents the stain and pollution of sin as
being removed in this very way:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”For this are various penances
enjoined,<br />
And some are hung to bleach upon the WIND.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Hence the priests of Jupiter (who was originally just another form of
Bacchus), were called Flamens, * — that is Breathers, or bestowers of the Holy
Ghost, by breathing upon their votaries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From ”Flo,” ”I breathe.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, in the Mysteries, the ”spittle” was just another symbol for the same
thing. In Egypt, through which the Babylonian system passed to Western Europe,
the name of the ”Pure or Purifying Spirit” was ”Rekh” (BUNSEN). But ”Rekh” also
signified ”spittle” (PARKHURST’S Lexicon); so that to anoint the nose and ears
of the initiated with ”spittle,” according to the mystic system, was held to be
anointing them with the ”Purifying Spirit.” That Rome in adopting the ”spittle”
actually copied from some Chaldean ritual in which ”spittle” was the appointed
emblem of the ”Spirit,” is plain from the account which she gives in her own
recognised formularies of the reason for anointing the ears with it. The reason
for anointing the ears with ”spittle” says Bishop Hay, is because ”by the grace
of baptism, the ears of our soul are opened to hear the Word of God, and the
inspirations of His Holy Spirit.” But what, it may be asked, has the ”spittle”
to do with the ”odour of sweetness”? I answer, The very word ”Rekh,” which
signified the ”Holy Spirit,” and was visibly represented by the ”spittle,” was
intimately connected with ”Rikh,” which signifies a ”fragrant smell,” or ”odour
of sweetness.” Thus, a knowledge of the Mysteries gives sense and a consistent
meaning to the cabalistic saying addressed by the Papal baptiser to the person
about to be baptised, when the ”spittle” is daubed on his nose and ears, which
otherwise would have no meaning at all–”Ephpheta, Be thou opened into an odour
of sweetness.” While this was the primitive truth concealed under the
”spittle,” yet the whole spirit of Paganism was so opposed to the spirituality
of the patriarchal religion, and indeed intended to make it void, and to draw
men utterly away from it, while pretending to do homage to it, that among the
multitude in general the magic use of ”spittle” became the symbol of the
grossest superstition. Theocritus shows with what debasing rites it was mixed
up in Sicily and Greece; and Persius thus holds up to scorn the people of Rome
in his day for their reliance on it to avert the influence of the ”evil eye”:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Our superstitions with our
life begin;<br />
The obscene old grandam, or the next of kin,<br />
The new-born infant from the cradle takes,<br />
And first of spittle a lustration makes;<br />
Then in the spawl her middle finger dips,<br />
Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips,<br />
Pretending force of magic to prevent<br />
By virtue of her nasty excrement.”–DRYDEN</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While thus far we have seen how the Papal baptism is just a reproduction of
the Chaldean, there is still one other point to be noticed, which makes the
demonstration complete. That point is contained in the following tremendous
curse fulminated against a man who committed the unpardonable offence of
leaving the Church of Rome, and published grave and weighty reasons for so
doing: ”May the Father, who creates man, curse him! May the Son, who suffered
for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost who suffered for us in baptism, curse
him!” I do not stop to show how absolutely and utterly opposed such a curse as
this is to the whole spirit of the Gospel. But what I call the reader’s
attention to is the astounding statement that ”the Holy Ghost suffered for us
in baptism.” Where in the whole compass of Scripture could warrant be found for
such an assertion as this, or anything that could even suggest it? But let the
reader revert to the Babylonian account of the personality of the Holy Ghost,
and the amount of blasphemy contained in this language will be apparent.
According to the Chaldean doctrine, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Nimrod,
when exalted to divinity under the name of the Queen of Heaven, came, as we
have seen, to be worshipped as Juno, the ”Dove”–in other words, the Holy Spirit
incarnate. Now, when her husband, for his blasphemous rebellion against the
majesty of heaven, was cut off, for a season it was a time of tribulation also
for her. The fragments of ancient history that have come down to us give an
account of her trepidation and flight, to save herself from her adversaries. In
the fables of the mythology, this flight was mystically represented in
accordance with what was attributed to her husband. The bards of Greece
represented Bacchus, when overcome by his enemies, as taking refuge in the
depths of the ocean. Thus, Homer:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”In a mad mood, while Bacchus
blindly raged,<br />
Lycurgus drove his trembling bands, confused,<br />
O’er the vast plains of Nusa. They in haste<br />
Threw down their sacred implements, and fled<br />
In fearful dissipation. Bacchus saw<br />
Rout upon rout, and, lost in wild dismay,<br />
Plunged in the deep. Here Thetis in her arms<br />
Received him shuddering at the dire event.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, as identified with Noah, was
represented, when overcome by his grand enemy Typhon, or the ”Evil One,” as
passing through the waters. The poets represented Semiramis as sharing in his
distress, and likewise seeking safety in the same way. We have seen already,
that, under the name of Astarte, she was said to have come forth from the
wondrous egg that was found floating on the waters of the Euphrates. Now
Manilius tells, in his Astronomical Poetics, what induced her to take refuge in
these waters. ”Venus plunged into the Babylonia waters,” says he, ”to shun the
fury of the snake-footed Typhon.” When Venus Urania, or Dione, the ”Heavenly
Dove,” plunged in deep distress into these waters of Babylon, be it observed
what, according to the Chaldean doctrine, this amounted to. It was neither more
nor less than saying that the Holy Ghost incarnate in deep tribulation entered
these waters, and that on purpose that these waters might be fit, not only by
the temporary abode of the Messiah in the midst of them, but by the Spirit’s
efficacy thus imparted to them, for giving new life and regeneration, by
baptism, to the worshippers of the Chaldean Madonna. We have evidence that the
purifying virtue of the waters, which in Pagan esteem had such efficacy in
cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the
passing of the Mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these
waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the
Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had sprung up from that
persuasion. So far as heathenism is concerned, the following extracts from
Potter and Athenaeus speak distinctly enough: ”Every person,” says the former,
”who came to the solemn sacrifices [of the Greeks] was purified by water. To
which end, at the entrance of the temples there was commonly placed a vessel
full of holy water.” How did this water get its holiness? This water ”was
consecrated,” says Athenaeus, ”by putting into it a BURNING TORCH taken from
the altar.” The burning torch was the express symbol of the god of fire; and by
the light of this torch, so indispensable for consecrating ”the holy water,” we
may easily see whence came one great part of the purifying virtue of ”the water
of the loud resounding sea,” which was held to be so efficacious in purging
away the guilt and stain of sin, *–even from the sun-god having taken refuge in
its waters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”All human ills,” says Euripides, in a well known passage, ”are washed
away by the sea.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now this very same method is used in the Romish Church for consecrating the
water for baptism. The unsuspicious testimony of Bishop Hay leaves no doubt on
this point: ”It” [the water kept in the baptismal font], says he, ”is blessed
on the eve of Pentecost, because it is the Holy Ghost who gives to the waters
of baptism the power and efficacy of sanctifying our souls, and because the
baptism of Christ is ‘with the Holy Ghost, and with fire’ (Matt 3:11). In blessing
the waters a LIGHTED TORCH is put into the font.” Here, then, it is manifest
that the baptismal regenerating water of Rome is consecrated just as the
regenerating and purifying water of the Pagans was. Of what avail is it for
Bishop Hay to say, with the view of sanctifying superstition and ”making
apostacy plausible,” that this is done ”to represent the fire of Divine love,
which is communicated to the soul by baptism, and the light of good example,
which all who are baptised ought to give.” This is the fair face put on the
matter; but the fact still remains that while the Romish doctrine in regard to
baptism is purely Pagan, in the ceremonies connected with the Papal baptism one
of the essential rites of the ancient fire-worship is still practised at this
day, just as it was practised by the worshippers of Bacchus, the Babylonian
Messiah. As Rome keeps up the remembrance of the fire-god passing through the
waters and giving virtue to them, so when it speaks of the ”Holy Ghost
suffering for us in baptism,” it in like manner commemorates the part which
Paganism assigned to the Babylonian goddess when she plunged into the waters.
The sorrows of Nimrod, or Bacchus, when in the waters were meritorious sorrows.
The sorrows of his wife, in whom the Holy Ghost miraculously dwelt, were the
same. The sorrows of the Madonna, then, when in these waters, fleeing from
Typhon’s rage, were the birth-throes by which children were born to God. And
thus, even in the Far West, Chalchivitlycue, the Mexican ”goddess of the waters,”
and ”mother” of all the regenerate, was represented as purging the new-born
infant from original sin, and ”bringing it anew into the world.” Now, the Holy
Ghost was idolatrously worshipped in Babylon under the form of a ”Dove.” Under
the same form, and with equal idolatry, the Holy Ghost is worshipped in Rome.
When, therefore, we read, in opposition to every Scripture principle, that ”the
Holy Ghost suffered for us in baptism,” surely it must now be manifest who is
that Holy Ghost that is really intended. It is no other than Semiramis, the
very incarnation of lust and all uncleanness.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect41.htm#backa"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></a></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The Identity of the
Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">1. Nimrod, or Adon, or Adonis, of Babylon, was the great war-god. Odin, as
is well known, was the same. 2 Nimrod, in the character of Bacchus, was
regarded as the god of wine; Odin is represented as taking no food but wine.
For thus we read in the Edda: ”As to himself he [Odin] stands in no need of
food; wine is to him instead of every other aliment, according to what is said
in these verses: The illustrious father of armies, with his own hand, fattens
his two wolves; but the victorious Odin takes no other nourishment to himself
than what arises from the unintermitted quaffing of wine” (MALLET, 20th Fable).
3. The name of one of Odin’s sons indicates the meaning of Odin’s own name.
Balder, for whose death such lamentations were made, seems evidently just the
Chaldee form of Baal-zer, ”The seed of Baal”; for the Hebrew z, as is well
known, frequently, in the later Chaldee, becomes d. Now, Baal and Adon both
alike signify ”Lord”; and, therefore, if Balder be admitted to be the seed or
son of Baal, that is as much as to say that he is the son of Adon; and,
consequently, Adon and Odin must be the same. This, of course, puts Odin a step
back; makes his son to be the object of lamentation and not himself; but the
same was the case also in Egypt; for there Horus the child was sometimes represented
as torn in pieces, as Osiris had been. Clemens Alexandrinus says (Cohortatio),
”they 03 lament an infant torn in pieces by the Titans.” The lamentations for
Balder are very plainly the counterpart of the lamentations for Adonis; and, of
course, if Balder was, as the lamentations prove him to have been, the
favourite form of the Scandinavian Messiah, he was Adon, or ”Lord,” as well as
his father. 4. Then, lastly, the name of the other son of Odin, the mighty and
warlike Thor, strengthens all the foregoing conclusions. Ninyas, the son of
Ninus or Nimrod, on his father’s death, when idolatry rose again, was, of
course, from the nature of the mystic system, set up as Adon, ”the Lord.” Now,
as Odin had a son called Thor, so the second Assyrian Adon had a son called
Thouros. The name Thouros seems just to be another form of Zoro, or Doro, ”the
seed”; for Photius tells us that among the Greeks Thoros signified ”Seed.” The
D is often pronounced as Th,–Adon, in the pointed Hebrew, being pronounced
Athon.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />
Section II<br />
Justification by Works</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The worshippers of Nimrod and his queen were looked upon as regenerated and
purged from sin by baptism, which baptism received its virtue from the
sufferings of these two great Babylonian divinities. But yet in regard to
justification, the Chaldean doctrine was that it was by works and merits of men
themselves that they must be justified and accepted of God. The following
remarks of Christie in his observations appended to Ouvaroff’s <i>Eleusinian
Mysteries</i>, show that such was the case: ”Mr. Ouvaroff has suggested that
one of the great objects of the Mysteries was the presenting to fallen man the
means of his return to God. These means were the cathartic virtues–(i.e., the
virtues by which sin is removed), by the exercise of which a corporeal life was
to be vanquished. Accordingly the Mysteries were termed Teletae, ‘perfections,’
because they were supposed to induce a perfectness of life. Those who were
purified by them were styled Teloumenoi and Tetelesmenoi, that is, ‘brought…to
perfection,’ which depended on the exertions of the individual.” In the <i>Metamorphosis</i> of
Apuleius, who was himself initiated in the mysteries of Isis, we find this same
doctrine of human merits distinctly set forth. Thus the goddess is herself
represented as addressing the hero of his tale: ”If you shall be found to
DESERVE the protection of my divinity by <i>sedulous obedience, religious
devotion</i> and <i>inviolable chastity</i>, you shall be sensible
that it is possible for me, and me alone, to extend your life beyond the limits
that have been appointed to it by your destiny.” When the same individual has
received a proof of the supposed favour of the divinity, thus do the onlookers
express their congratulations: ”Happy, by Hercules! and thrice blessed he to
have MERITED, by the innocence and probity of his past life, such special
patronage of heaven.” Thus was it in life. At death, also, the grand passport
into the unseen world was still through the merits of men themselves, although
the name of Osiris was, as we shall by-and-by see, given to those who departed
in the faith. ”When the bodies of persons of distinction” [in Egypt], says
Wilkinson, quoting Porphyry, ”were embalmed, they took out the intestines and
put them into a vessel, over which (after some other rites had been performed
for the dead) one of the embalmers pronounced an invocation to the sun in
behalf of the deceased.” The formula, according to Euphantus, who translated it
from the original into Greek, was as follows: ”O thou Sun, our sovereign lord!
and all ye Deities who have given life to man, receive me, and grant me an
abode with the eternal gods. During the whole course of my life I have
scrupulously worshipped the gods my father taught me to adore; I have ever
honoured my parents, who begat this body; I have killed no one; I have not
defrauded any, nor have I done any injury to any man.” Thus the merits, the
obedience, or the innocence of man was the grand plea. The doctrine of Rome in
regard to the vital article of a sinner’s justification is the very same. Of
course this of itself would prove little in regard to the affiliation of the
two systems, the Babylonian and the Roman; for, from the days of Cain downward,
the doctrine of human merit and of self-justification has everywhere been
indigenous in the heart of depraved humanity. But, what is worthy of notice in
regard to this subject is, that in the two systems, it was <i>symbolised</i> in
precisely the same way. In the Papal legends it is taught that St. Michael the
Archangel has committed to him the balance of God’s justice, and that in the
two opposite scales of that balance the merits and the demerits of the departed
are put that they may be fairly weighed, the one over against the other, and
that as the scale turns to the favourable or unfavourable side they may be
justified or condemned as the case may be. Now, the Chaldean doctrine of
justification, as we get light on it from the monuments of Egypt, is symbolised
in precisely the same way, except that in the land of Ham the scales of justice
were committed to the charge of the god Anubis instead of St. Michael the
Archangel, and that the good deeds and the bad seem to have been weighed
separately, and a distinct record made of each, so that when both were summed
up and the balance struck, judgment was pronounced accordingly. Wilkinson
states that Anubis and his scales are often represented; and that in some cases
there is some difference in the <i>details</i>. But it is evident from his
statements, that the<i>principle</i> in all is the same. The following is
the account which he gives of one of these judgment scenes, previous to the
admission of the dead to Paradise: ”Cerberus is present as the guardian of the
gates, near which the scales of justice are erected; and Anubis, the director
of the weight, having placed a vase representing the good actions of the
deceased in one scale, and the figure or emblem of truth in the other, proceeds
to ascertain his claims for admission. If, on being weighed, he is found
wanting, he is rejected, and Osiris, the judge of the dead, inclining his
sceptre in token of condemnation, pronounces judgment upon him, and condemns
his soul to return to earth under the form of a pig or some unclean animal…But
if, when the SUM of his deeds are recorded by Thoth [who stands by to mark the
results of the different weighings of Anubis], his virtues so far PREDOMINATE
as to entitle him to admission to the mansions of the blessed, Horus, taking in
his hand the tablet of Thoth, introduces him to the presence of Osiris, who, in
his palace, attended by Isis and Nepthys, sits on his throne in the midst of
the waters, from which rises the lotus, bearing upon its expanded flowers the
four Genii of Amenti.” The same mode of symbolising the justification by works
had evidently been in use in Babylon itself; and, therefore, there was great
force in the Divine handwriting on the wall, when the doom of Belshazzar went
forth: ”Tekel,” ”Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” In
the Parsee system, which has largely borrowed from Chaldea, the principle of
weighing the good deeds over against the bad deeds is fully developed. ”For
three days after dissolution,” says Vaux, in his <i>Nineveh and Persepolis</i>,
giving an account of Parsee doctrines in regard to the dead, ”the soul is
supposed to flit round its tenement of clay, in hopes of reunion; on the
fourth, the Angel Seroch appears, and conducts it to the bridge of Chinevad. On
this structure, which they assert connects heaven and earth, sits the Angel of
Justice, to weigh the actions of mortals; when the good deeds prevail, the soul
is met on the bridge by a dazzling figure, which says, ‘I am thy good angel, I
was pure originally, but thy good deeds have rendered me purer’; and passing
his hand over the neck of the blessed soul, leads it to Paradise. If iniquities
preponderate, the soul is meet by a hideous spectre, which howls out, ‘I am thy
evil genius; I was impure from the first, but thy misdeeds have made me fouler;
through thee we shall remain miserable until the resurrection’; the sinning
soul is then dragged away to hell, where Ahriman sits to taunt it with its
crimes.” Such is the doctrine of Parseeism. The same is the case in China,
where Bishop Hurd, giving an account of the Chinese descriptions of the
infernal regions, and of the figures that refer to them, says, ”One of them
always represents a sinner in a pair of scales, with his iniquities in the one,
and his good works in another.” ”We meet with several such representations,” he
adds, ”in the Grecian mythology.” Thus does Sir J. F. Davis describe the
operation of the principle in China: ”In a work of some note on morals,
called <i>Merits and Demerits Examined</i>, a man is directed to keep a
debtor and creditor account with himself of the acts of each day, and at the
end of the year to wind it up. If the balance is in his favour, it serves as
the foundation of a stock of merits for the ensuing year: and if against him,
it must be liquidated by future good deeds. Various lists and comparative
tables are given of both good and bad actions in the several relations of life;
and benevolence is strongly inculcated in regard first to man, and, secondly,
to the brute creation. To cause another’s death is reckoned at one hundred on
the side of demerit; while a single act of charitable relief counts as one on
the other side…To save a person’s life ranks in the above work as an exact
set-off to the opposite act of taking it away; and it is said that this deed of
merit will prolong a person’s life twelve years.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While such a mode of justification is, on the one hand, in the very nature
of the case, utterly demoralising, there never could by means of it, on the
other, be in the bosom of any man whose conscience is aroused, any solid
feeling of comfort, or assurance as to his prospects in the eternal world. Who
could ever tell, however good he might suppose himself to be, whether the ”<i>sum</i>of
his good actions” would or would not counterbalance the amount of sins and
transgressions that his conscience might charge against him. How very different
the Scriptural, the god-like plan of ”justification by faith,” and ”faith
alone, without the deeds of the law,” absolutely irrespective of human merits,
simply and solely through the ”righteousness of Christ, that is unto all and
upon all them that believe,” that delivers at once and for ever ”from all condemnation,”
those who accept of the offered Saviour, and by faith are vitally united to
Him. It is not the will of our Father in heaven, that His children in this
world should be ever in doubt and darkness as to the vital point of their
eternal salvation. Even a genuine saint, no doubt, may for a season, if need
be, be in heaviness through manifold temptations, but such is not the natural,
the normal state of a healthful Christian, of one who knows the fulness and the
freeness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace. God has laid the most solid
foundation for all His people to say, with John, ”We have KNOWN and believed
the love which God hath to us” (1 John 4:16); or with Paul, ”I am PERSUADED
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus” (Rom 8:38,39). But this no man can every say, who ”goes about to
establish his own righteousness” (Rom 10:3), who seeks, in any shape, to be
justified by works. Such assurance, such comfort, can come only from a simple
and believing reliance on the free, unmerited grace of God, given <i>in
and along</i> with Christ, the unspeakable gift of the Father’s love. It
was this that made Luther’s spirit to be, as he himself declared, ”as free as a
flower of the field,” when, single and alone, he went up to the Diet of Worms,
to confront all the prelates and potentates there convened to condemn the doctrine
which he held. It was this that in every age made the martyrs go with such
sublime heroism not only to prison but to death. It is this that emancipates
the soul, restores the true dignity of humanity, and cuts up by the roots all
the imposing pretensions of priestcraft. It is this only that can produce a
life of loving, filial, hearty obedience to the law and commandments of God;
and that, when nature fails, and when the king of terrors is at hand, can
enable poor, guilty sons of men, with the deepest sense of unworthiness, yet to
say, ”O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be
unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor
15:55,57).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, to all such confidence in God, such assurance of salvation, spiritual
despotism in every age, both Pagan and Papal, has ever shown itself unfriendly.
Its grand object has always been to keep the souls of its votaries away from
direct and immediate intercourse with a living and merciful Saviour, and
consequently from assurance of His favour, to inspire a sense of the necessity
of human mediation, and so to establish itself on the ruins of the hopes and
the happiness of the world. Considering the pretensions which the Papacy makes
to absolute infallibility, and the supernatural powers which it attributes to
the functions of its priests, in regard to regeneration and the forgiveness of
sins, it might have been supposed, as a matter of course, that all its
adherents would have been encouraged to rejoice in the continual assurance of
their personal salvation. But the very contrary is the fact. After all its
boastings and high pretensions, perpetual doubt on the subject of a man’s
salvation, to his life’s end, is inculcated as a duty; it being peremptorily
decreed as an article of faith by the Council of Trent, ”That <i>no man</i> can
know with infallible assurance of faith that he HAS OBTAINED the grace of God.”
This very decree of Rome, while directly opposed to the Word of God, stamps its
own lofty claims with the brand of imposture; for if no man who has been
regenerated by its baptism, and who has received its absolution from sin, can
yet have any <i>certain assurance</i> after all that ”the grace of
God” has been<i>conferred</i> upon him, what can be the worth of its <i>opus
operatum</i>? Yet, in seeking to keep its devotees in continual doubt and
uncertainty as to their final state, it is ”wise after its generation.” In the
Pagan system, it was the priest alone who could at all pretend to anticipate
the operation of the scales of Anubis; and, in the confessional, there was from
time to time, after a sort, a mimic rehearsal of the dread weighing that was to
take place at last in the judgment scene before the tribunal of Osiris. There
the priest sat in judgment on the good deeds and bad deeds of his penitents;
and, as his power and influence were founded to a large extent on the mere
principle of slavish dread, he took care that the scale should generally turn
in the wrong direction, that they might be more subservient to his will in
casting in a due amount of good works into the opposite scale. As he was the
grand judge of what these works should be, it was his interest to appoint what
should be most for the selfish aggrandisement of himself, or the glory of his
order; and yet so to weigh and counterweigh merits and demerits, that there
should always be left a large balance to be settled, not only by the man
himself, but by his heirs. If any man had been allowed to believe himself
beforehand absolutely sure of glory, the priests might have been in danger of
being robbed of their dues after death–an issue by all means to be guarded
against. Now, the priests of Rome have in every respect copied after the
priests of Anubis, the god of the scales. In the confessional, when they have
an object to gain, they make the sins and transgressions good weight; and then,
when they have a man of influence, or power, or wealth to deal with, they will
not give him the slightest hope till round sums of money, or the founding of an
abbey, or some other object on which they have set their heart, be cast into
the other scale. In the famous letter of Pere La Chaise, the confessor of Louis
XIV of France, giving an account of the method which he adopted to gain the
consent of that licentious monarch to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by
which such cruelties were inflicted on his innocent Huguenot subjects, we see
how the fear of the scales of St. Michael operated in bringing about the
desired result: ”Many a time since,” says the accomplished Jesuit, referring to
an atrocious sin of which the king had been guilty, ”many a time since, when I
have had him at confession, <i>I have shook hell about his ears, and made
him sigh, fear and tremble</i>, before I would give him absolution. By this I
saw that he had still an inclination to me, and was willing to be under my
government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling the whole
story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be forgiven till he had
done some good action to BALANCE that, and expiate the crime. Whereupon he at
last asked me what he must do. I told him that he must root out all heretics
from his kingdom.” This was the ”good action” to be cast into the <i>scale</i> of
St. Michael the Archangel, to ”BALANCE” his crime. The king, wicked as he
was–sore against his will-consented; the ”good action” was cast in, the
”heretics” were extirpated; and the king was absolved. But yet the absolution
was not such but that, when he went the way of all the earth, there was still
much to be cast in before the scales could be fairly adjusted. Thus Paganism
and Popery alike ”make merchandise of the souls of men” (Rev 18:13). Thus the
one with the scales of Anubis, the other with the scales of St. Michael,
exactly answer to the Divine description of Ephraim in his apostacy: ”Ephraim
is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand” (Hosea 12:7). The Anubis
of the Egyptians was precisely the same as the Mercury of the Greeks–the ”god
of thieves.” St. Michael, in the hands of Rome, answers exactly to the same
character. By means of him and his scales, and their doctrine of human merits,
they have made what they call the house of God to be nothing else than a ”den
of thieves.” To rob men of their money is bad, but infinitely worse to cheat
them also of their souls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Into the scales of Anubis, the ancient Pagans, by way of securing their
justification, were required to put not merely good deeds, properly so called,
but deeds of austerity and self-mortification inflicted on their own persons,
for averting the wrath of the gods. The scales of St. Michael inflexibly
required to be balanced in the very same way. The priests of Rome teach that
when sin is forgiven, the <i>punishment</i> is not thereby fully
taken away. However perfect may be the pardon that God, through the priests,
may bestow, yet punishment, greater or less, still remains behind, which men
must endure, and that to ”<i>satisfy the justice of God</i>.” Again and again
has it been shown that man cannot do anything to satisfy the justice of God,
that to that justice he is hopelessly indebted, that he ”has” absolutely
”nothing to pay”; and more than that, that there is no need that he should
attempt to pay one farthing; for that, in behalf of all who believe, Christ has
finished transgression, made an end of sin, and made <i>all</i> the
satisfaction to the broken law that that law could possibly demand. Still Rome
insists that every man must be punished for his own sins, and that God <i>cannot
be satisfied</i> * without groans and sighs, lacerations of the flesh,
tortures of the body, and penances without number, on the part of the offender,
however broken in heart, however contrite that offender may be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop HAY’S <i>Sincere Christian</i>. The words of Bishop Hay are:
”But He absolutely demands that, by penitential works, we PUNISH ourselves for
our shocking ingratitude, and satisfy the Divine justice for the abuse of His
mercy.” The established modes of ”punishment,” as is well known, are just such
as are described in the text.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, looking simply at the Scripture, this perverse demand for self-torture
on the part of those for whom Christ has made a <i>complete</i> and <i>perfect</i> atonement,
might seem exceedingly strange; but, looking at the real character of the god
whom the Papacy has set up for the worship of its deluded devotees, there is
nothing in the least strange about it. That god is Moloch, the god of barbarity
and blood. Moloch signifies ”king”; and Nimrod was the first after the flood
that violated the patriarchal system, and set up as ”king” over his fellows. At
first he was worshipped as the ”revealer of goodness and truth,” but by-and-by
his worship was made to correspond with his dark and forbidding countenance and
complexion. The name Moloch originally suggested nothing of cruelty or terror;
but now the well known rites associated with that name have made it for ages a
synonym for all that is most revolting to the heart of humanity, and amply
justify the description of Milton (<i>Paradise Lost</i>):</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”First Moloch, horrid king,
besmeared with blood<br />
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,<br />
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,<br />
Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire<br />
To his grim idol.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In almost every land the bloody worship prevailed; ”horrid cruelty,” hand
in hand with abject superstition, filled not only ”the dark places of the
earth,” but also regions that boasted of their enlightenment. Greece, Rome,
Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria, and our own land under the savage Druids, at one
period or other in their history, worshipped the same god and in the same way.
Human victims were his most acceptable offerings; human groans and wailings
were the sweetest music in his ears; human tortures were believed to delight
his heart. His image bore, as the symbol of ”majesty,” a <i>whip</i>, and
with whips his worshippers, at some of his festivals, were required unmercifully
to scourge themselves. ”After the ceremonies of sacrifice,” says Herodotus,
speaking of the feast of Isis at Busiris, ”the whole assembly, to the amount of
many thousands, scourge themselves; but in whose honour they do this I am not
at liberty to disclose.” This reserve Herodotus generally uses, out of respect
to his oath as an initiated man; but subsequent researches leave no doubt as to
the god ”in whose honour” the scourgings took place. In Pagan Rome the
worshippers of Isis observed the same practice in honour of Osiris. In Greece,
Apollo, the Delian god, who was identical with Osiris, * was propitiated with
similar penances by the sailors who visited his shrine, as we learn from the
following lines of Callimachus in his hymn to Delos:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Soon as they reach thy
soundings, down at once<br />
They drop slack sails and all the naval gear.<br />
The ship is moored; nor do the crew presume<br />
To quit thy sacred limits, till they’ve passed<br />
A fearful penance; with the galling whip<br />
Lashed thrice around thine altar.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* We have seen already, that the Egyptian Horus was just a new incarnation
of Osiris or Nimrod. Now, Herodotus calls Horus by the name of Apollo. Diodorus
Siculus, also, says that ”Horus, the son of Isis, is interpreted to be Apollo.”
Wilkinson seems, on one occasion, to call this identity of Horus and Apollo in
question; but he elsewhere admits that the story of Apollo’s ”combat with the
serpent Pytho is evidently derived from the Egyptian mythology,” where the
allusion is to the representation of Horus piercing the snake with a spear.
From divers considerations, it may be shown that this conclusion is correct: 1.
Horus, or Osiris, was the sun-god, so was Apollo. 2. Osiris, whom Horus
represented, was the great Revealer; the Pythian Apollo was the god of oracles.
3. Osiris, in the character of Horus, was born when his mother was said to be
persecuted by the malice of her enemies. Latona, the mother of Apollo, was a
fugitive for a similar reason when Apollo was born. 4. Horus, according to one
version of the myth, was said, like Osiris, to have been cut in pieces
(PLUTARCH, <i>De Iside</i>). In the classic story of Greece, this part of
the myth of Apollo was generally kept in the background; and he was represented
as victor in the conflict with the serpent; but even there it was sometimes
admitted that he had suffered a violent death, for by Porphyry he is said to
have been slain by the serpent, and Pythagoras affirmed that he had seen his
tomb at Tripos in Delphi (BRYANT). 5. Horus was the war-god. Apollo was represented
in the same way as the great god represented in Layard, with the bow and arrow,
who was evidently the Babylonian war-god, Apollo’s well known title of
”Arcitenens,”–”the bearer of the bow,” having evidently been borrowed from that
source. Fuss tells us that Apollo was regarded as the inventor of the art of
shooting with the bow, which identifies him with Sagittarius, whose origin we
have already seen. 6. Lastly, from Ovid (<i>Metam</i>.) we learn that, before
engaging with Python, Apollo had used his arrows only on fallow-deer, stags,
&c. All which sufficiently proves his substantial identification with the
mighty <i>Hunter of Babel</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Over and above the scourgings, there were also slashings and cuttings of
the flesh required as propitiatory rites on the part of his worshippers. ”In
the solemn celebration of the Mysteries,” says Julius Firmicus, ”all things in
order had to be done, which the youth either did or <i>suffered</i> at
his death.” Osiris was cut in pieces; therefore, to imitate his fate, so far as
living men might do so, they were required to cut and wound their own bodies.
Therefore, when the priests of Baal contended with Elijah, to gain the favour
of their god, and induce him to work the desired miracle in their behalf, ”they
cried aloud and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and with
lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Kings 18:28). In Egypt, the
natives in general, though liberal in the use of the whip, seem to have been
sparing of the knife; but even there, there were men also who mimicked on their
own persons the dismemberment of Osiris. ”The Carians of Egypt,” says
Herodotus, in the place already quoted, ”treat themselves at this solemnity
with still more severity, for they cut themselves in the face with swords”
(HERODOTUS). To this practice, there can be no doubt, there is a direct
allusion in the command in the Mosaic law, ”Ye shall make no cuttings in your
flesh for the dead” (Lev 19:28). * These cuttings in the flesh are largely
practised in the worship of the Hindoo divinities, as propitiatory rites or
meritorious penances. They are well known to have been practised in the rites
of Bellona, ** the ”sister” or ”wife of the Roman war-god Mars,” whose name,
”The lamenter of Bel,” clearly proves the original of her husband to whom the
Romans were so fond of tracing back their pedigree.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Every person who died in the faith was believed to be identified with
Osiris, and called by his name. (WILKINSON)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** ”The priests of Bellona,” says Lactantius, ”sacrificed not with any
other men’s blood but their own, their shoulders being lanced, and with both
hands brandishing naked swords, they ran and leaped up and down like mad men.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">They were practised also in the most savage form in the gladiatorial shows,
in which the Roman people, with all their boasted civilisation, so much
delighted. The miserable men who were doomed to engage in these bloody
exhibitions did not do so generally of their own free will. But yet, the
principle on which these shows were conducted was the very same as that which
influenced the priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory
sacrifices. From Fuss we learn that ”gladiatorial shows were sacred” to Saturn;
and in Ausonius we read that ”the amphitheatre claims its gladiators for
itself, when at the end of December they PROPITIATE with their blood the
sickle-bearing Son of Heaven.” On this passage, Justus Lipsius, who quotes it,
thus comments: ”Where you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators
fought on the Saturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and
PROPITIATING Saturn.” ”The reason of this,” he adds, ”I should suppose to be,
that Saturn is not among the celestial but the infernal gods. Plutarch, in his
book of ‘Summaries,’ says that ‘the Romans looked upon Kronos as a subterranean
and infernal God.’” There can be no doubt that this is so far true, for the
name of Pluto is only a synonym for Saturn, ”The Hidden One.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name Pluto is evidently from ”Lut,” to hide, which with the Egyptian
definite article prefixed, becomes ”P’Lut.” The Greek ”wealth,” ”the <i>hidden</i> thing,”
is obviously formed in the same way. Hades is just another synonym of the same
name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But yet, in the light of the real history of the historical Saturn, we find
a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous custom that so much disgraced the
escutcheon of Rome in all its glory, when mistress of the world, when such
multitudes of men were</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Butchered to make a Roman
holiday.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When it is remembered that Saturn himself was cut in pieces, it is easy to
see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to him by setting
men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way of propitiating his
favour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The practice of such penances, then, on the part of those of the Pagans who
cut and slashed themselves, was intended to propitiate and please their god,
and so to lay up a stock of merit that might tell in their behalf in the scales
of Anubis. In the Papacy, the penances are not only intended to answer the same
end, but, to a large extent,they are identical. I do not know, indeed, that
they use the <i>knife</i> as the priests of Baal did; but it is
certain that they look upon the shedding of their own <i>blood</i> as
a most meritorious penance, that gains them high favour with God, and wipes
away many sins. Let the reader look at the pilgrims at Lough Dergh, in Ireland,
crawling on their bare knees over the sharp rocks, and leaving the bloody
tracks behind them, and say what substantial difference there is between that
and cutting themselves with knives. In the matter of scourging themselves,
however, the adherents of the Papacy have literally borrowed the lash of
Osiris. Everyone has heard of the Flagellants, who publicly scourge themselves
on the festivals of the Roman Church, and who are regarded as saints of the
first water. In the early ages of Christianity such flagellations were regarded
as purely and entirely Pagan. Athenagoras, one of the early Christian
Apologists, holds up the Pagans to ridicule for thinking that sin could be
atoned for, or God propitiated, by any such means. But now, in the high places
of the Papal Church, such practices are regarded as the grand means of gaining
the favour of God. On Good Friday, at Rome and Madrid, and other chief seats of
Roman idolatry, multitudes flock together to witness the performances of the
saintly whippers, who lash themselves till the blood gushes in streams from
every part of their body. They pretend to do this in honour of Christ, on the
festival set apart professedly to commemorate His death, just as the
worshippers of Osiris did the same on the festival when they lamented for his
loss. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The priests of Cybele at Rome observed the same practice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">But can any man of the least Christian enlightenment believe that the
exalted Saviour can look on such rites as doing honour to Him, which pour
contempt on His all-perfect atonement, and represent His most ”precious blood”
as needing to have its virtue <i>supplemented</i> by that of blood
drawn from the backs of wretched and misguided sinners? Such offerings were
altogether fit for the worship of Moloch; but they are the very opposite of
being fit for the service of Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">It is not in one point only, but in manifold respects, that the ceremonies
of ”Holy Week” at Rome, as it is termed, recall to memory the rites of the
great Babylonian god. The more we look at these rites, the more we shall be
struck with the wonderful resemblance that subsists between them and those
observed at the Egyptian festival of burning lamps and the other ceremonies of
the fire-worshippers in different countries. In Egypt the <i>grand
illumination</i> took place beside the sepulchre of Osiris at Sais. In
Rome in ”Holy Week,” a sepulchre of Christ also figures in connection with a
brilliant illumination of burning tapers. In Crete, where the tomb of Jupiter
was exhibited, that tomb was an object of worship to the Cretans. In Rome, if
the devotees do not worship the so-called sepulchre of Christ, they worship
what is entombed within it. As there is reason to believe that the Pagan
festival of burning lamps was observed in commemoration of the ancient
fire-worship, so there is a ceremony at Rome in the Easter week, which is an
unmistakable act of fire-worship, when a <i>cross of fire</i> is the
grand object of worship. This ceremony is thus graphically described by the
authoress of <i>Rome in the 19th Century</i>: ”The effect of the blazing
cross of fire suspended from the dome above the confession or tomb of St.
Peter’s, was strikingly brilliant at night. It is covered with innumerable
lamps, which have the effect of one blaze of fire…The whole church was thronged
with a vast multitude of all classes and countries, from royalty to the meanest
beggar, all gazing upon this one object. In a few minutes the Pope and all his
Cardinals descended into St. Peter’s, and room being kept for them by the Swiss
guards, the aged Pontiff…prostrated himself in silent adoration before the
CROSS OF FIRE. A long train of Cardinals knelt before him, whose splendid robes
and attendant train-bearers, formed a striking contrast to the humility of
their attitude.” What could be a more clear and unequivocal act of fire-worship
than this? Now, view this in connection with the fact stated in the following
extract from the same work, and how does the one cast light on the other: ”With
Holy Thursday our miseries began [that is, from crowding]. On this disastrous
day we went before nine to the Sistine chapel…and beheld a procession led by
the inferior orders of clergy, followed up by the Cardinals in superb dresses,
bearing long wax tapers in their hands, and ending with the Pope himself, who
walked beneath a crimson canopy, with his head uncovered, bearing the Host in a
box; and this being, as you know, the real flesh and blood of Christ, was
carried from the Sistine chapel through the intermediate hall to the Paulina chapel,
where it was deposited in the sepulchre prepared to receive it beneath the
altar…I never could learn why Christ was to be buried before He was dead, for,
as the crucifixion did not take place till Good Friday, it seems odd to inter
Him on Thursday. His body, however, is laid in the sepulchre, in all the
churches of Rome, where this rite is practised, on Thursday forenoon, and it
remains there till Saturday at mid-day, when, for some reason best known to
themselves, He is supposed to rise from the grave amidst the firing of cannon,
and blowing of trumpets, and jingling of bells, which have been carefully tied
up ever since the dawn of Holy Thursday, lest the devil should get into them.”
The worship of the cross of fire on Good Friday explains at once the anomaly
otherwise so perplexing, that Christ should be buried on Thursday, and rise
from the dead on Saturday. If the festival of Holy Week be really, as its rites
declare, one of the old festivals of Saturn, the Babylonian fire-god, who,
though an infernal god, was yet Phoroneus, the great ”Deliverer,” it is
altogether natural that the god of the Papal idolatry, though called by
Christ’s <i>name</i>, should rise from the dead on his <i>own</i> day–the <i>Dies
Saturni</i>, or ”Saturn’s day.” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The above account referred to the ceremonies as witnessed by the
authoress in 1817 and 1818. It would seem that some change has taken place
since then, caused probably by the very attention called by her to the gross
anomaly mentioned above; for Count Vlodaisky, formerly a Roman Catholic priest,
who visited Rome in 1845, has informed me that in that year the resurrection
took place, not at mid-day, but at nine o’clock on the evening of Saturday.
This may have been intended to make the inconsistency between Roman practice
and Scriptural fact appear somewhat less glaring. Still the fact remains, that
the resurrection of Christ, as celebrated at Rome, takes place, not on His own
day–”The Lord’s day”–but–on the day of Saturn, the god of fire!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">On the day before the <i>Miserere</i> is sung with such overwhelming
pathos, that few can listen to it unmoved, and many even swoon with the
emotions that are excited. What if this be at bottom only the old song of
Linus, of whose very touching and melancholy character Herodotus speaks so
strikingly? Certain it is, that much of the pathos of that <i>Miserere</i> depends
on the part borne in singing it by the <i>sopranos</i>; and equally
certain it is that Semiramis, the wife of him who, historically, was the
original of that god whose tragic death was so pathetically celebrated in many
countries, enjoys the fame, such as it is, of having been the inventress of the
practice from which <i>soprano singing</i> took its rise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, the flagellations which form an important part of the penances that
take place at Rome on the evening of Good Friday, formed an equally important
part in the rites of that fire-god, from which, as we have seen, the Papacy has
borrowed so much. These flagellations, then, of ”Passion Week,” taken in
connection with the other ceremonies of that period, bear their additional
testimony to the real character of that god whose death and resurrection Rome
then celebrates. Wonderful it is to consider that, in the very high place of
what is called Catholic Christendom, the essential rites at this day are seen
to be the very rites of the old Chaldean fire-worshippers.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<hr align="center" noshade="noshade" size="2" style="color: #a0a0a0;" width="100%" />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
The Two Babylons</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />
Section III<br />
The Sacrifice of the Mass</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">If baptismal regeneration, the initiating ordinance of Rome, and
justification by works, be both Chaldean, the principle embodied in the
”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass is not less so. We have evidence that goes to
show the Babylonian origin of the idea of that ”unbloody sacrifice” very
distinctly. From Tacitus we learn that no blood was allowed to be offered on
the altars of Paphian Venus. Victims were used for the purposes of the
Haruspex, that presages of the issues of events might be drawn from the
inspection of the entrails of these victims; but the altars of the Paphian
goddess were required to be kept pure from blood. Tacitus shows that the
Haruspex of the temple of the Paphian Venus was brought from <i>Cilicia</i>,
for his knowledge of her rites, that they might be duly performed according to
the supposed will of the goddess, the Cilicians having peculiar knowledge of
her rites. Now, Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was built by Sennacerib, the
Assyrian king, in express imitation of Babylon. Its religion would naturally
correspond; and when we find ”unbloody sacrifice” in Cyprus, whose priest came
from Cilicia, that, in the circumstances, is itself a strong presumption that
the ”unbloody sacrifice” came to it through Cilicia from Babylon. This
presumption is greatly strengthened when we find from Herodotus that the
peculiar and abominable institution of Babylon in prostituting virgins in
honour of Mylitta, was observed also in Cyprus in honour of Venus. But the
positive testimony of Pausanias brings this presumption to a certainty. ”Near
this,” says that historian, speaking of the temple of Vulcan at Athens, ”is the
temple of Celestial Venus, who was first worshipped by the Assyrians, and after
these by the Paphians in Cyprus, and the Phoenicians who inhabited the city of
Ascalon in Palestine. But the Cythereans venerated this goddess in consequence
of learning her sacred rites from the Phoenicians.” The Assyrian Venus,
then–that is, the great goddess of Babylon–and the Cyprian Venus were one and
the same, and consequently the ”bloodless” altars of the Paphian goddess show
the character of the worship peculiar to the Babylonian goddess, from whom she
was derived. In this respect the goddess-queen of Chaldea differed from her
son, who was worshipped in her arms. <i>He</i> was, as we have seen,
represented as delighting in blood. But <i>she</i>, as the mother of grace
and mercy, as the celestial ”Dove,” as ”the hope of the whole world,” (BRYANT)
was averse to blood, and was represented in a benign and gentle character.
Accordingly, in Babylon she bore the name of Mylitta–that is, ”The Mediatrix.”
*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Mylitta is the same as Melitta, the feminine of Melitz, ”a mediator,”
which in Chaldee becomes Melitt. Melitz is the word used in Job 33:23, 24: ”If
there be a messenger with him, an <i>interpreter</i> (Heb. Melitz, ”<i>a
mediator</i>”), one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, then he
is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have
found a ransom.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Every one who reads the Bible, and sees how expressly it declares that, as
there is only ”one God,” so there is only ”one Mediator between God and man” (1
Tim 2:5), must marvel how it could ever have entered the mind of any one to
bestow on Mary, as is done by the Church of Rome, the character of the
”Mediatrix.” But the character ascribed to the Babylonian goddess as Mylitta
sufficiently accounts for this. In accordance with this character of Mediatrix,
she was called Aphrodite–that is, ”the wrath-subduer” *–who by her charms could
soothe the breast of angry Jove, and soften the most rugged spirits of gods or
mortal-men. In Athens she was called Amarusia (PAUSANIAS)–that is, ”The Mother
of gracious acceptance.” **</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* From Chaldee ”aph,” ”wrath,” and ”radah,” ”to subdue”; ”radite” is the
feminine emphatic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">** From ”Ama,” ”mother,” and ”Retza,” ”to accept graciously,” which in the
participle active is ”Rutza.” Pausanias expresses his perplexity as to the
meaning of the name Amarusia as applied to Diana, saying, ”Concerning which
appellation I never could find any one able to give a satisfactory account.”
The sacred tongue plainly shows the meaning of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Rome she was called ”Bona Dea,” ”the good goddess,” the mysteries of
this goddess being celebrated by women with peculiar secrecy. In India the
goddess Lakshmi, ”the Mother of the Universe,” the consort of Vishnu, is
represented also as possessing the most gracious and genial disposition; and
that disposition is indicated in the same way as in the case of the Babylonian
goddess. ”In the festivals of Lakshmi,” says Coleman, ”no <i>sanguinary
sacrifices are offered</i>.” In China, the great gods, on whom the final
destinies of mankind depend, are held up to the popular mind as objects of
dread; but the goddess Kuanyin, ”the goddess of mercy,” whom the Chinese of
Canton recognise as bearing an analogy to the Virgin or Rome, is described as
looking with an eye of compassion on the guilty, and interposing to save
miserable souls even from torments to which in the world of spirits they have
been doomed. Therefore she is regarded with peculiar favour by the Chinese.
This character of the goddess-mother has evidently radiated in all directions
from Chaldea. Now, thus we see how it comes that Rome represents Christ, the
”Lamb of God,” meek and lowly in heart, who never brake the bruised reed, nor
quenched the smoking flax–who spake words of sweetest encouragement to every
mourning penitent–who wept over Jerusalem–who prayed for His murderers–as a
stern and inexorable judge, before whom the sinner ”might grovel in the dust,
and still never be sure that his prayers would be heard,” while Mary is set off
in the most winning and engaging light, as the hope of the guilty, as the grand
refuge of sinners; how it is that the former is said to have ”reserved justice
and judgment to Himself,” but to have committed the exercise of all mercy to
His Mother! The most standard devotional works of Rome are pervaded by this
very principle, exalting the compassion and gentleness of the mother at the expense
of the loving character of the Son. Thus, St. Alphonsus Liguori tells his
readers that the sinner that ventures to come directly to Christ may come with
dread and apprehension of His wrath; but let him only employ the mediation of
the Virgin with her Son, and she has only to ”<i>show</i>” that Son ”<i>the
breasts that gave him suck</i>,” (<i>Catholic Layman</i>, July, 1856) and His
wrath will immediately be appeased. But where in the Word of God could such an
idea have been found? Not surely in the answer of the Lord Jesus to the woman
who exclaimed, ”Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast
sucked!” Jesus answered and said unto her, ”<i>Yea, rather</i>, blessed are
they that hear the Word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27,28). There cannot be a
doubt that this answer was given by the prescient Saviour, to check in the very
bud every idea akin to that expressed by Liguori. Yet this idea, which is not
to be found in Scripture, which the Scripture expressly repudiates, was widely
diffused in the realms of Paganism. Thus we find an exactly parallel
representation in the Hindoo mythology in regard to the god Siva and his wife
Kali, when that god appeared as a little child. ”Siva,” says the Lainga Puran,
”appeared as an infant in a cemetery, surrounded by ghosts, and on beholding
him, Kali (his wife) took him up, and, <i>caressing him, gave him her
breast</i>. He sucked the nectareous fluid; but becoming ANGRY, in order to
divert and PACIFY him, Kali <i>clasping him to her bosom</i>, danced with
her attendant goblins and demons amongst the dead, until he was <i>pleased
and delighted</i>; while Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and all the gods, bowing
themselves, praised with laudatory strains the god of gods, Kal and Parvati.”
Kali, in India, is the goddess of destruction; but even into the myth that
concerns this goddess of destruction, the power of the goddess <i>mother</i>,
in appeasing an offended god, by means only suited to PACIFY a peevish child,
has found an introduction. If the Hindoo story exhibits its ”god of gods” in
such a degrading light, how much more honouring is the Papal story to the Son
of the Blessed, when it represents Him as needing to be <i>pacified</i> by
His mother exposing to Him ”the breasts that He has sucked.” All this is done
only to exalt the Mother, as <i>more</i> gracious and <i>more</i> compassionate
than her glorious Son. Now, this was the very case in Babylon: and to this
character of the goddess queen her favourite offerings exactly corresponded.
Therefore, we find the women of Judah represented as simply ”burning incense,
pouring out drink-offerings, and offering <i>cakes</i> to the queen
of heaven” (Jer 44:19). The cakes were ”the unbloody sacrifice” she required.
That ”unbloody sacrifice” her votaries not only offered, but when admitted to
the higher mysteries, they partook of, swearing anew fidelity to her. In the
fourth century, when the queen of heaven, under the name of Mary, was beginning
to be worshipped in the Christian Church, this ”unbloody sacrifice” also was
brought in. Epiphanius states that the practice of offering and eating it began
among the women of Arabia; and at that time it was well known to have been
adopted from the Pagans. The very shape of the unbloody sacrifice of Rome may
indicate whence it came. It is a small thin, <i>round</i> wafer; and
on its <i>roundness</i> the Church of Rome lays so much stress, to
use the pithy language of John Knox in regard to the wafer-god, ”If, in making
the <i>roundness</i> the ring be broken, then must another of his
fellow-cakes receive that honour to be made a god, and the crazed or cracked
miserable cake, that once was in hope to be made a god, must be given to a baby
to play withal.” What could have induced the Papacy to insist so much on the ”<i>roundness</i>”
of its ”unbloody sacrifice”? Clearly not any reference to the Divine
institution of the Supper of our Lord; for in all the accounts that are given
of it, no reference whatever is made to the <i>form</i> of the bread
which our Lord took, when He blessed and break it, and gave it to His
disciples, saying, ”Take, eat; this is My body: this do in remembrance of Me.”
As little can it be taken from any regard to injunctions about the form of the
Jewish Paschal bread; for no injunctions on that subject are given in the books
of Moses. The importance, however, which Rome attaches to the <i>roundness</i> of
the wafer, must have a reason; and that reason will be found, if we look at the
altars of Egypt. ”The thin, <i>round</i> cake,” says Wilkinson,
”occurs on all altars.” Almost every jot or tittle in the Egyptian worship had
a symbolical meaning. The <i>round disk</i>, so frequent in the sacred emblems
of Egypt, symbolised the <i>sun</i>. Now, when Osiris, the sun-divinity,
became incarnate, and was born, it was not merely that he should give his life
as a <i>sacrifice</i> for men, but that he might also be the life
and <i>nourishment</i> of the souls of men. It is universally
admitted that Isis was the original of the Greek and Roman Ceres. But Ceres, be
it observed, was worshipped not simply as the <i>discoverer</i> of
corn; she was worshipped as ”the MOTHER of Corn.” The child she brought forth
was He-Siri, ”the Seed,” or, as he was most frequently called in Assyria,
”Bar,” which signifies at once ”the <i>Son</i>” and ”the <i>Corn</i>.”
The uninitiated might reverence Ceres for the gift of material corn to nourish
their <i>bodies</i>, but the initiated adored her for a higher gift–for
food to nourish their souls–for giving them that bread of God that cometh down
from heaven–for the life of the world, of which, ”if a man eat, he shall never
die.” Does any one imagine that it is a mere <i>New Testament</i> doctrine,
that Christ is the ”bread of life”? There never <i>was</i>, there
never <i>could</i> be, spiritual life in any soul, since the world
began, at least since the expulsion from Eden, that was not nourished and
supported by a continual feeding by faith on the Son of God, ”in whom it hath
pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell” (Col 1:19), ”that out of His
fulness we might receive, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). Paul tells us that
the manna of which the Israelites ate in the wilderness was to them a type and
lively symbol of ”the bread of life”; (1 Cor 10:3), ”They did all eat the
same <i>spiritual</i> meat”–i.e., meat which was intended not only to
support their natural lives, but to point them to Him who was the life of their
souls. Now, Clement of Alexandria, to whom we are largely indebted for all the
discoveries that, in modern times, have been made in Egypt, expressly assures
us that, ”in their <i>hidden character</i>, the enigmas of the Egyptians
were VERY SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE JEWS.” That the initiated Pagans actually
believed that the ”Corn” which Ceres bestowed on the world was not the ”Corn”
of this earth, but the Divine ”Son,” through whom alone spiritual and eternal
life could be enjoyed, we have clear and decisive proof. The Druids were
devoted worshippers of Ceres, and as such they were celebrated in their mystic
poems as ”bearers of the ears of corn.” Now, the following is the account which
the Druids give of their great divinity, under the form of ”<i>Corn</i>.” That
divinity was represented as having, in the first instance, incurred, for some
reason or other, the displeasure of Ceres, and was fleeing in terror from her.
In his terror, ”he took the form of a bird, and mounted into the air. That
element afforded him no refuge: for <i>The Lady</i>, in the form of a
sparrow-hawk, was gaining upon him–she was just in the act of pouncing upon
him. Shuddering with dread, he perceived a heap of clean wheat upon a floor,
dropped into the midst of it, and assumed the form of a <i>single grain</i>.
Ceridwen [i.e., the British Ceres] took the form of a black high-crested hen,
descended into the wheat, scratched him out, distinguished, and swallowed him.
And, as the history relates, she was pregnant of him nine months, and when
delivered of him, she found him <i>so lovely a babe</i>, that she had not
resolution to put him to death” (”Song of Taliesin,” DAVIES’S <i>British
Druids</i>). Here it is evident that the <i>grain of corn</i>, is
expressly identified with ”<i>the lovely babe</i>”; from which it is still
further evident that Ceres, who, to the profane vulgar was known only as the
Mother of ”Bar,” ”the Corn,” was known to the initiated as the Mother of ”Bar,”
”the Son.” And now, the reader will be prepared to understand the full
significance of the representation in the Celestial sphere of ”the Virgin with
the ear of wheat in her hand.” That <i>ear of wheat</i> in the
Virgin’s <i>hand</i> is just another symbol for the <i>child</i> in
the <i>arms</i>of the Virgin Mother.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Now, this Son, who was symbolised as ”Corn,” was the SUN-divinity
incarnate, according to the sacred oracle of the great goddess of Egypt: ”No
mortal hath lifted my veil. The fruit which I have brought forth is the SUN”
(BUNSEN’S <i>Egypt</i>). What more natural then, if this incarnate
divinity is symbolised as the ”<i>bread</i> of God,” than that he should
be represented as a ”<i>round</i>wafer,” to identify him with the Sun? Is this
a mere fancy? Let the reader peruse the following extract from Hurd, in which
he describes the embellishments of the Romish altar, on which the sacrament or
consecrated wafer is deposited, and then he will be able to judge: ”A plate of
silver, in the form of a SUN, is fixed opposite to the SACRAMENT on the altar;
which, with the light of the tapers, makes a most brilliant appearance.” What
has that ”brilliant” ”<i>Sun</i>” to do there, on the altar, over against the ”<i>sacrament</i>,”
or <i>round</i> wafer? In Egypt, the <i>disk</i> of the Sun
was represented in the temples, and the sovereign and his wife and children
were represented as adoring it. Near the small town of Babin, in Upper Egypt,
there still exists in a grotto, a representation of a sacrifice to the sun,
where two priests are seen worshipping the sun’s image. In the great temple of
Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the
Babylonians. In the temple of Cuzco, in Peru, the disk of the sun was fixed up
in flaming gold upon the wall, that all who entered might bow down before it.
The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers; and in their worship they adored
an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole. In the
worship of Baal, as practised by the idolatrous Israelites in the days of their
apostacy, the worship of the sun’s image was equally observed; and it is
striking to find that the image of the sun, which apostate Israel worshipped,
was erected <i>above the altar</i>. When the good king Josiah set about
the work of reformation, we read that his servants in carrying out the work,
proceeded thus (2 Chron 34:4): ”And they brake down the <i>altars</i> of
Baalim in his presence, and the images (margin, SUN-IMAGES) that were on high
above them, he cut down.” Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives
a striking account of sun-worship even in comparatively modern times, as
subsisting among the Cushites of the East, from which we find that the image of
the sun was, even in his day, worshipped on the altar. ”There is a temple,”
says he, ”of the posterity of Chus, addicted to the contemplation of the stars.
They worship the sun as a god, and the whole country, for half-a-mile round
their town, is filled with great altars dedicated to him. By the dawn of morn
they get up and run out of town, to wait the rising sun, to whom, <i>on
every altar</i>, there is a <i>consecrated image</i>, not in the likeness
of a man, but <i>of the solar orb</i>, framed by magic art. These orbs, as
soon as the sun rises, take fire, and resound with a great noise, while
everybody there, men and women, hold censers in their hands, and all burn
incense to the sun.” From all this, it is manifest that the image of the sun
above, or on the altar, was one of the recognised symbols of those who
worshipped Baal or the sun. And here, in a so-called Christian Church, a
brilliant plate of silver, ”in the form of a SUN,” is so placed on the altar,
that every one who adores at that altar must bow down in lowly reverence before
that image of the ”<i>Sun</i>.” Whence, I ask, could that have come, but from
the ancient sun-worship, or the worship of Baal? And when the wafer is so
placed that the silver ”SUN” is fronting the ”<i>round</i>” wafer, whose ”<i>roundness</i>”
is so important an element in the Romish Mystery, what can be the meaning of
it, but just to show to those who have eyes to see, that the ”Wafer” itself is
only another symbol of Baal, or the Sun. If the sun-divinity was worshipped in
Egypt as ”the Seed,” or in Babylon as the ”Corn,” precisely so is the wafer
adored in Rome. ”Bread-<i>corn</i> of the elect, have mercy upon us,” is
one of the appointed prayers of the Roman Litany, addressed to the wafer, in
the celebration of the mass. And one at least of the imperative requirements as
to the way in which that wafer is to be partaken of, is the very same as was
enforced in the old worship of the Babylonian divinity. Those who partake of it
are required to partake absolutely fasting. This is very stringently laid down.
Bishop Hay, laying down the law on the subject, says that it is indispensable,
”that we be fasting from midnight, so as to have taken nothing into our stomach
from twelve o’clock at night before we receive, neither food, nor drink, nor
medicine.” Considering that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Communion
immediately after His disciples had partaken of the paschal feast, such a
strict requirement of fasting might seem very unaccountable. But look at this
provision in regard to the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass in the light of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, and it is accounted for at once; for there the first
question put to those who sought initiation was, ”Are you fasting?”
(POTTER, <i>Eleusiania</i>) and unless that question was answered in the
affirmative, no initiation could take place. There is no question that fasting
is in certain circumstances a Christian duty; but while neither the letter nor
the spirit of the Divine institution requires any such stringent regulation as
the above, the regulations in regard to the Babylonian Mysteries make it
evident whence this requirement has really come.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Although the god whom Isis or Ceres brought forth, and who was offered to
her under the symbol of the wafer or thin round cake, as ”the bread of life,”
was in reality the fierce, scorching Sun, or terrible Moloch, yet in that
offering all his terror was veiled, and everything repulsive was cast into the
shade. In the appointed symbol he is offered up to the benignant Mother, who
tempers judgment with mercy, and to whom all spiritual blessings are ultimately
referred; and blessed by that mother, he is given back to be feasted upon, as
the staff of life, as the nourishment of her worshippers’ souls. Thus the
Mother was held up as the favourite divinity. And thus, also, and for an
entirely similar reason, does the Madonna of Rome entirely eclipse her son as
the ”Mother of grace and mercy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In regard to the Pagan character of the ”unbloody sacrifice” of the mass,
we have seen not little already. But there is something yet to be considered,
in which the working of the mystery of iniquity will still further appear.
There are letters on the wafer that are worth reading. These letters are I. H.
S. What mean these mystical letters? To a Christian these letters are
represented as signifying, ”<i>Iesus Hominum Salvator</i>,” ”Jesus the Saviour
of men.” But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors
there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them,
and how will he read them? He will read them, of course, according to his own
well known system of idolatry: ”<i>Isis, Horus, Seb</i>,” that is, ”The Mother,
the Child, and the Father of the gods,”–in other words, ”The Egyptian Trinity.”
Can the reader imagine that this double sense is accidental? Surely not. The
very same spirit that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast
of the Christian Joannes, retaining at the same time all its ancient Paganism,
has skilfully planned the initials I. H. S. to pay the <i>semblance</i> of
a tribute to Christianity, while Paganism in reality has all the <i>substance</i> of
the homage bestowed upon it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the ”unbloody
sacrifice,” all genuine Christians saw at once the real character of their
sacrifice. They were treated as heretics, and branded with the name of
Collyridians, from the Greek name for the cake which they employed. But Rome
saw that the heresy might be turned to account; and therefore, though condemned
by the sound portion of the Church, the practice of offering and eating this
”unbloody sacrifice” was patronised by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole
bounds of the Romish communion, it has superseded the simple but most precious
sacrament of the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Intimately connected with the sacrifice of the mass is the subject of
transubstantiation; but the consideration of it will come more conveniently at
a subsequent stage of this inquiry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Two Babylons</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />
Section IV<br />
Extreme Unction</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The last office which Popery performs for living men is to give them
”extreme unction,” to anoint them in the name of the Lord, after they have been
shriven and absolved, and thus to prepare them for their last and unseen
journey. The pretence for this ”unction” of dying men is professedly taken from
a command of James in regard to the visitation of the sick; but when the
passage in question is fairly quoted it will be seen that such a practice could
never have arisen from the apostolic direction–that it must have come from an
entirely different source. ”Is any sick among you?” says James (v 14,15), ”let
him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing
him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the
sick, and the Lord shall RAISE HIM UP.” Now, it is evident that this prayer and
anointing were intended for the recovery of the sick. Apostolic men, for the
laying of the foundations of the Christian Church, were, by their great King
and Head, invested with miraculous powers–powers which were intended only for a
time, and were destined, as the apostles themselves declared, while exercising
them, to ”vanish away” (1 Cor 13:8). These powers were every day exercised by
the ”elders of the Church,” when James wrote his epistle, and that for healing
the bodies of men, even as our Lord Himself did. The ”extreme unction” of Rome,
as the very expression itself declares, is not intended for any such purpose.
It is not intended for healing the sick, or ”raising them up”; for it is not on
any account to be administered till all hope of recovery is gone, and death is
visibly at the very doors. As the object of this anointing is the very opposite
of the Scriptural anointing, it must have come from a quite different quarter.
That quarter is the very same from which the Papacy has imported so much
heathenism, as we have seen already, into its own foul bosom. From the Chaldean
Mysteries, extreme unction has obviously come. Among the many names of the
Babylonian god was the name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” which is the name
of the sun, but also of course of the sun-god. But Beel-samen also properly
signifies ”Lord of Oil,” and was evidently intended as a synonym of the Divine
name, ”The Messiah.” In Herodotus we find a statement made which this name
alone can fully explain. There an individual is represented as having dreamt
that the sun had anointed her father. That the sun should anoint any one is
certainly not an idea that could naturally have presented itself; but when the
name ”Beel-samen,” ”Lord of Heaven,” is seen also to signify ”Lord of Oil,” it
is easy to see how that idea would be suggested. This also accounts for the
fact that the body of the Babylonian Belus was represented as having been
preserved in his sepulchre in Babylon till the time of Xerxes, floating in oil
(CLERICUS, Philosoph. Orient.). And for the same reason, no doubt, it was that
at Rome the ”statue of Saturn” was ”made hollow, and filled with oil” (SMITH’S
Classical Dictionary).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The olive branch, which we have already seen to have been one of the
symbols of the Chaldean god, had evidently the same hieroglyphical meaning;
for, as the olive was the oil-tree, so an olive branch emblematically signified
a ”son of oil,” or an ”anointed one” (Zech 4:12-14). Hence the reason that the
Greeks, in coming before their gods in the attitude of suppliants deprecating
their wrath and entreating their favour, came to the temple on many occasions
bearing an olive branch in their hands. As the olive branch was one of the
recognised symbols of their Messiah, whose great mission it was to make peace
between God and man, so, in bearing this branch of the anointed one, they
thereby testified that in the name of that anointed one they came seeking
peace. Now, the worshippers of this Beel-samen, ”Lord of Heaven,” and ”Lord of
Oil,” were anointed in the name of their god. It was not enough that they were
anointed with ”spittle”; they were also anointed with ”magical ointments” of
the most powerful kind; and these ointments were the means of introducing into
their bodily systems such drugs as tended to excite their imaginations and add
to the power of the magical drinks they received, that they might be prepared
for the visions and revelations that were to be made to them in the Mysteries.
These ”unctions,” says Salverte, ”were exceedingly frequent in the ancient
ceremonies…Before consulting the oracle of Trophonius, they were rubbed with
oil over the whole body. This preparation certainly concurred to produce the
desired vision. Before being admitted to the Mysteries of the Indian sages,
Apollonius and his companion were rubbed with an oil so powerful that they felt
as if bathed with fire.” This was professedly an unction in the name of the
”Lord of Heaven,” to fit and prepare them for being admitted in vision into his
awful presence. The very same reason that suggested such an unction before
initiation on this present scene of things, would naturally plead more powerfully
still for a special ”unction” when the individual was called, not in vision,
but in reality, to face the ”Mystery of mysteries,” his personal introduction
into the world unseen and eternal. Thus the Pagan system naturally developed
itself into ”extreme unction” (Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, January, 1853).
Its votaries were anointed for their last journey, that by the double influence
of superstition and powerful stimulants introduced into the frame by the only
way in which it might then be possible, their minds might be fortified at once
against the sense of guilt and the assaults of the king of terrors. From this
source, and this alone, there can be no doubt came the ”extreme unction” of the
Papacy, which was entirely unknown among Christians till corruption was far
advanced in the Church. *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Bishop GIBSON says that it was not known in the Church for a thousand
years. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">(Preservative
against Popery)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter IV<br />
Section V<br />
Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Extreme unction,” however, to a burdened soul, was but a miserable
resource, after all, in the prospect of death. No wonder, therefore, that
something else was found to be needed by those who had received all that
priestly assumption could pretend to confer, to comfort them in the prospect of
eternity. In every system, therefore, except that of the Bible, the doctrine of
a purgatory after death, and prayers for the dead, has always been found to
occupy a place. Go wherever we may, in ancient or modern times, we shall find
that Paganism leaves hope after death for sinners, who, at the time of their
departure, were consciously unfit for the abodes of the blest. For this purpose
a middle state has been feigned, in which, by means of purgatorial pains, guilt
unremoved in time may in a future world be purged away, and the soul be made
meet for final beatitude. In Greece the doctrine of a purgatory was inculcated
by the very chief of the philosophers. Thus Plato, speaking of the future
judgment of the dead, holds out the hope of final deliverance for all, but
maintains that, of ”those who are judged,” ”some” must first ”proceed to a
subterranean place of judgment, where they shall sustain the punishment they
have deserved”; while others, in consequence of a favourable judgment, being
elevated at once into a certain celestial place, ”shall pass their time in a
manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape.” In Pagan Rome,
purgatory was equally held up before the minds of men; but there, there seems
to have been no hope held out to any of exemption from its pains. Therefore,
Virgil, describing its different tortures, thus speaks:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Nor can the grovelling mind,<br />
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,<br />
Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind.<br />
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;<br />
But long-contracted filth, even in the soul, remains<br />
The relics of inveterate vice they wear,<br />
And spots of sin obscene in every face appear.<br />
For this are various penances enjoined;<br />
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,<br />
Some plunged in water, others purged in fires,<br />
Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.<br />
All have their Manes, and those Manes bear.<br />
The few so cleansed to these abodes repair,<br />
And breathe in ample fields the soft Elysian air,<br />
Then are they happy, when by length of time<br />
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime.<br />
No speck is left of their habitual stains,<br />
But the pure ether of the soul remains.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In Egypt, substantially the same doctrine of purgatory was inculcated. But
when once this doctrine of purgatory was admitted into the popular mind, then
the door was opened for all manner of priestly extortions. Prayers for the dead
ever go hand in hand with purgatory; but no prayers can be completely
efficacious without the interposition of the priests; and no priestly functions
can be rendered unless there be special pay for them. Therefore, in every land
we find the Pagan priesthood ”devouring widows’ houses,” and making merchandise
of the tender feelings of sorrowing relatives, sensitively alive to the
immortal happiness of the beloved dead. From all quarters there is one
universal testimony as to the burdensome character and the expense of these
posthumous devotions. One of the oppressions under which the poor Romanists in
Ireland groan, is the periodical special devotions, for which they are required
to pay, when death has carried away one of the inmates of their dwelling. Not
only are there funeral services and funeral dues for the repose of the
departed, at the time of burial, but the priest pays repeated visits to the
family for the same purpose, which entail heavy expense, beginning with what is
called ”the month’s mind,” that is, a service in behalf of the deceased when a
month after death has elapsed. Something entirely similar to this had evidently
been the case in ancient Greece; for, says Muller in his History of the
Dorians, ”the Argives sacrificed on the thirtieth day [after death] to Mercury
as the conductor of the dead.” In India many and burdensome are the services of
the Sradd’ha, or funeral obsequies for the repose of the dead; and for securing
the due efficacy of these, it is inculcated that ”donations of cattle, land,
gold, silver, and other things,” should be made by the man himself at the
approach of death; or, ”if he be too weak, by another in his name” (Asiatic
Researches). Wherever we look, the case is nearly the same. In Tartary, ”The
Gurjumi, or prayers for the dead,” says the Asiatic Journal, ”are very
expensive.” In Greece, says Suidas, ”the greatest and most expensive sacrifice
was the mysterious sacrifice called the Telete,” a sacrifice which, according
to Plato, ”was offered for the living and the dead, and was supposed to free
them from all the evils to which the wicked are liable when they have left this
world.” In Egypt the exactions of the priests for funeral dues and masses for
the dead were far from being trifling. ”The priests,” says Wilkinson, ”induced
the people to expend large sums on the celebration of funeral rites; and many
who had barely sufficient to obtain the necessaries of life were anxious to
save something for the expenses of their death. For, beside the embalming
process, which sometimes cost a talent of silver, or about 250 pounds English
money, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense; and numerous
demands were made upon the estate of the deceased, for the celebration of
prayer and other services for the soul.” ”The ceremonies,” we find him
elsewhere saying, ”consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in the
temples, vowed for the deceased to one or more gods (as Osisris, Anubis, and
others connected with Amenti); incense and libation were also presented; and a
prayer was sometimes read, the relations and friends being present as mourners.
They even joined their prayers to those of the priest. The priest who
officiated at the burial service was selected from the grade of Pontiffs, who
wore the leopard skin; but various other rites were performed by one of the
minor priests to the mummies, previous to their being lowered into the pit of
the tomb after that ceremony. Indeed, they continued to be administered at intervals,
as long as the family paid for their performance.” Such was the operation of
the doctrine of purgatory and prayers for the dead among avowed and
acknowledged Pagans; and in what essential respect does it differ from the
operation of the same doctrine in Papal Rome? There are the same extortions in
the one as there were in the other. The doctrine of purgatory is purely Pagan,
and cannot for a moment stand in the light of Scripture. For those who die in
Christ no purgatory is, or can be, needed; for ”the blood of Jesus Christ,
God’s Son, cleanseth from ALL sin.” If this be true, where can there be the
need for any other cleansing? On the other hand, for those who die without
personal union to Christ, and consequently unwashed, unjustified, unsaved, there
can be no other cleansing; for, while ”he that hath the son hath life, he that
hath not the Son hath not life,” and never can have it. Search the Scripture
through, and it will be found that, in regard to all who ”die in their sins,”
the decree of God is irreversible: ”Let him that is unjust be unjust still, and
let him that is filthy be filthy still.” Thus the whole doctrine of purgatory
is a system of pure bare-faced Pagan imposture, dishonouring to God, deluding
men who live in sin with the hope of atoning for it after death, and cheating
them at once out of their property and their salvation. In the Pagan purgatory,
fire, water, wind, were represented (as may be seen from the lines of Virgil)
as combining to purge away the stain of sin. In the purgatory of the Papacy,
ever since the days of Pope Gregory, FIRE itself has been the grand means of
purgation (Catechismus Romanus). Thus, while the purgatorial fires of the
future world are just the carrying out of the principle embodied in the blazing
and purifying Baal-fires of the eve of St. John, they form another link in
identifying the system of Rome with the system of Tammuz or Zoroaster, the
great God of the ancient fire-worshippers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now, if baptismal regeneration, justification by
works, penance as a satisfaction to God’s justice, the unbloody sacrifice of
the mass, extreme unction, purgatory, and prayers for the dead, were all
derived from Babylon, how justly may the general system of Rome be styled
Babylonian?</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> And if the account already given be true,
what thanks ought we to render to God, that, from a system such as this, we
were set free at the blessed Reformation! How great a boon is it to be
delivered from trusting in such refuges of lies as could no more take away sin
than the blood of bulls or of goats! How blessed to feel that the blood of the
Lamb, applied by the Spirit of God to the most defiled conscience, completely
purges it from dead works and from sin! How fervent ought our gratitude to be,
when we know that, in all our trials and distresses, we may come boldly unto
the throne of grace, in the name of no creature, but of God’s eternal and
well-beloved Son; and that that Son is exhibited as a most tender and
compassionate high priest, who is TOUCHED with a feeling of our infirmities,
having been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Surely the
thought of all this, while inspiring tender compassion for the deluded slaves
of Papal tyranny, ought to make us ourselves stand fast in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free, and quit ourselves like men, that neither we
nor our children may ever again be entangled in the yoke of bondage.</span></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter 5<br />
Rites and Ceremonies<br />
Section I<br />
Idol Processions</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Those who have read the account of the last idol procession in the capital
of Scotland, in John Knox’s <i>History of the Reformation</i>, cannot
easily have forgot the tragi-comedy with which it ended. The light of the
Gospel had widely spread, the Popish idols had lost their fascination, and
popular antipathy was everywhere rising against them. ”The images,” says the
historian, ”were stolen away in all parts of the country; and in Edinburgh was
that great idol called Sanct Geyle [the patron saint of the capital], first
drowned in the North Loch, after burnt, which raised no small trouble in the
town.” The bishops demanded of the Town Council either ”to get them again the
old Sanct Geyle, or else, upon their (own) expenses, to make a new image.” The
Town Council <i>could</i> not do the one, and the other they
absolutely <i>refused</i> to do; for they were now convinced of the
sin of idolatry. The bishops and priests, however, were still made upon their
idols; and, as the anniversary of the feast of St. Giles was approaching, when
the saint used to be carried in procession through the town, they determined to
do their best, that the accustomed procession should take place with as much
pomp as possible. For this purpose, ”a marmouset idole” was borrowed from the
Grey friars, which the people, in derision, called ”Young Sanct Geyle,” and
which was made to do service instead of the old one. On the appointed day, says
Know, ”there assembled priests, friars, canons…with taborns and trumpets,
banners, and bagpipes; and who was there to lead the ring but the Queen Regent
herself, with all her shavelings, for honour of that feast. West about goes it,
and comes down the High Street, and down to the Canno Cross.” As long as the
Queen was present, all went to the heart’s content of the priests and their
partisans. But no sooner had majesty retired to dine, than some in the crowd,
who had viewed the whole concern with an evil eye, ”drew nigh to the idol, as
willing to help to bear him, and getting the fertour (or barrow) on their
shoulders, began to shudder, thinking that thereby the idol should have fallen.
But that was provided and prevented by the iron nails [with which it was
fastened to the fertour]; and so began one to cry, ‘Down with the idol, down
with it’; and so without delay it was pulled down. Some brag made the priests’
patrons at the first; but when they saw the feebleness of their god, for one
took him by the heels, and dadding [knocking] his head to the calsay
[pavement], left Dagon without head or hands, and said, ‘Fye upon thee, thou
young Sanct Geyle, thy father would have tarried [withstood] four such
[blows]‘; this considered, we say, the priests and friars fled faster than they
did at Pinkey Cleuch. There might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has
been seen amongst that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the
crosses, off goes the surplice, round caps corner with the crowns. The Grey
friars gaped, the Black friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was
he that first gat the house; for such ane sudden fray came never amongst the
generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Such an idol procession among a people who had begun to study and relish
the Word of God, elicited nothing but indignation and scorn. But in Popish
lands, among a people studiously kept in the dark, such processions are among
the favourite means which the Romish Church employs to bind its votaries to
itself. The long processions with images borne on men’s shoulders, with the
gorgeous dresses of the priests, and the various habits of different orders of
monks and nuns, with the aids of flying banners and the thrilling strains of
instrumental music, if not too closely scanned, are well fitted ”plausibly to
amuse” the worldly mind, to gratify the love for the picturesque, and when the
emotions thereby called forth are dignified with the names of piety and
religion, to minister to the purposes of spiritual despotism. Accordingly,
Popery has ever largely availed itself of such pageants. On joyous occasions,
it has sought to consecrate the hilarity and excitement created by such
processions to the service of its idols; and in seasons of sorrow, it has made use
of the same means to draw forth the deeper wail of distress from the multitudes
that throng the procession, as if the mere loudness of the cry would avert the
displeasure of a justly offended God. Gregory, commonly called the Great, seems
to have been the first who, on a <i>large</i> scale, introduced those
religious processions into the Roman Church. In 590, when Rome was suffering
under the heavy hand of God from the pestilence, he exhorted the people to
unite publicly in supplication to God, appointing that they should meet at
daybreak in SEVEN DIFFERENT COMPANIES, according to their respective ages,
SEXES, and stations, and walk in seven different processions, reciting litanies
or supplications, till they all met at one place. They did so, and proceeded singing
and uttering the words, ”Lord, have mercy upon us,” carrying along with them,
as Baronius relates, by Gregory’s express command, an image of the Virgin. The
very idea of such processions was an affront to the majesty of heaven; it
implied that God who is a Spirit ”saw with eyes of flesh,” and might be moved
by the imposing picturesqueness of such a spectacle, just as sensuous mortals
might. As an experiment it had but slender success. In the space of one hour,
while thus engaged, eighty persons fell to the ground, and breathed their last.
Yet this is now held up to Britons as ”the more excellent way” for deprecating
the wrath of God in a season of national distress. ”Had this calamity,” says
Dr. Wiseman, referring to the Indian disasters, ”had this calamity fallen upon
our forefathers in Catholic days, one would have seen the streets of this city
[London] trodden in every direction by penitential processions, crying out,
like David, when pestilence had struck the people.” If this allusion to David
has any pertinence or meaning, it must imply that David, in the time of
pestilence, headed some such ”penitential procession.” But Dr. Wiseman knows,
or ought to know, that David did nothing of the sort, that his penitence was
expressed in no such way as by processions, and far less by idol processions,
as ”in the Catholic days of our forefathers,” to which we are invited to turn
back. This reference to David, then, is a mere blind, intended to mislead those
who are not given to Bible reading, as if such ”penitential processions” had
something of Scripture warrant to rest upon. The <i>Times</i>, commenting
on this recommendation of the Papal dignitary, has hit the nail on the head.
”The historic idea,” says that journal, ”is simple enough, and as old as old
can be. We have it in Homer–the procession of Hecuba and the ladies of Troy to
the shrine of Minerva, in the Acropolis of that city.” It was a time of terror
and dismay in Troy, when Diomede, with resistless might, was driving everything
before him, and the overthrow of the proud city seemed at hand. To avert the
apparently inevitable doom, the Trojan Queen was divinely directed.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”To lead the assembled train<br />
Of Troy’s chief matron’s to Minerva’s fane.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">And she did so:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Herself…the long procession
leads;<br />
The train majestically slow proceeds.<br />
Soon as to Ilion’s topmost tower they come,<br />
And awful reach the high Palladian dome,<br />
Antenor’s consort, fair Theano, waits<br />
As Pallas’ priestess, and unbars the gates.<br />
With hands uplifted and imploring eyes,<br />
They fill the dome with supplicating cries.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here is a precedent for ”penitential processions” in connection with
idolatry entirely to the point, such as will be sought for in vain in the
history of David, or any of the Old Testament saints. Religious processions,
and especially processions with images, whether of a jubilant or sorrowful
description, are purely Pagan. In the Word of God we find two instances in
which there were processions practised with Divine sanction; but when the
object of these processions is compared with the avowed object and character of
Romish processions, it will be seen that there is no analogy between them and
the processions of Rome. The two cases to which I refer are the seven days’
encompassing of Jericho, and the procession at the bringing up of the ark of
God from Kirjath-jearim to the city of David. The processions, in the first
case, though attended with the symbols of Divine worship, were not intended as
acts of religious worship, but were a miraculous mode of conducting war, when a
signal interposition of Divine power was to be vouchsafed. In the other, there
was simply the removing of the ark, the symbol of Jehovah’s presence, from the
place where, for a long period, it had been allowed to lie in obscurity, to the
place which the Lord Himself had chosen for its abode; and on such an occasion
it was entirely fitting and proper that the transference should be made with
all religious solemnity. But these were simply occasional things, and have
nothing at all in common with Romish processions, which form a regular part of
the Papal ceremonial. But, though Scripture speaks nothing of religious
processions in the approved worship of God, it refers once and again to Pagan
processions, and these, too, accompanied with images; and it vividly exposes
the folly of those who can expect any good from gods that cannot move from one
place to another, unless they are carried. Speaking of the gods of Babylon,
thus saith the prophet Isaiah (46:6), ”They lavish gold out of the bag, and
weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they
fall down, yea, they worship. <i>They bear him upon the shoulder, they
carry him</i>, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place he
shall not remove.” In the sculptures of Nineveh these processions of idols,
borne on men’s shoulders, are forcibly represented, and form at once a striking
illustration of the prophetic language, and of the real <i>origin</i> of
the Popish processions. In Egypt, the same practice was observed. In ”the
procession of shrines,” says Wilkinson, ”it was usual to carry the statue of
the principal deity, in whose honour the procession took place, together with
that of the king, and the figures of his ancestors, borne in the same manner,
on men’s shoulders.” But not only are the processions in general identified
with the Babylonian system. We have evidence that these processions trace their
origin to that very disastrous event in the history of Nimrod, which has
already occupied so much of our attention. Wilkinson says ”that Diodorus speaks
of an Ethiopian festival of Jupiter, when his statue was carried in procession,
probably to commemorate the supposed refuge of the gods in that country,
which,” says he, ”may have been a memorial of the flight of the Egyptians with
their gods.” The passage of Diodorus, to which Wilkinson refers, is not very
decisive as to the object for which the statues of Jupiter and Juno (for
Diodorus mentions the shrine of Juno as well as of Jupiter) were annually
carried into the land of Ethiopia, and then, after a certain period of sojourn
there, were brought back to Egypt again. But, on comparing it with other
passages of antiquity, its object very clearly appears. Eustathius says, that
at the festival in question, ”according to some, the <i>Ethiopians</i> used
to fetch the images of Zeus, and other gods from the great temple of Zeus at
Thebes. With these images they went about at a certain period in Libya, and
celebrated a splendid festival for twelve gods.” As the festival was called an
Ethiopian festival; and as it was Ethiopians that both carried away the idols
and brought them back again, this indicates that the idols must have been
Ethiopian idols; and as we have seen that Egypt was under the power of Nimrod,
and consequently of the Cushites or Ethiopians, when idolatry was for a time
put down in Egypt, what would this carrying of the idols into Ethiopia, the
land of the Cushites, that was solemnly commemorated every year, be, but just
the natural result of the temporary suppression of the idol-worship inaugurated
by Nimrod. In Mexico, we have an account of an exact counterpart of this
Ethiopian festival. There, at a certain period, the images of the gods were
carried out of the country in a mourning procession, as if taking their leave
of it, and then, after a time, they were brought back to it again with every
demonstration of joy. In Greece, we find a festival of an entirely similar
kind, which, while it connects itself with the Ethiopian festival of Egypt on
the one hand, brings that festival, on the other, into the closest relation to
the penitential procession of Pope Gregory. Thus we find Potter referring first
to a ”Delphian festival in memory of a JOURNEY of Apollo”; and then under the
head of the festival called Apollonia, we thus read: ”To Apollo, at Aegialea on
this account: Apollo having obtained a victory over Python, went to Aegialea,
accompanied with his sister Diana; but, <i>being frightened from thence,
fled into Crete</i>. After this, the Aegialeans were infected with an
epidemical distemper; and, being advised by the prophets to appease the two
offended deities, sent SEVEN boys and as many virgins to entreat them to
return. [Here is the typical germ of 'The Sevenfold Litany' of Pope Gregory.]
Apollo and Diana accepted their piety,…and it became a <i>custom</i> to
appoint chosen boys and virgins, to make a solemn procession, in show, as if
they designed to bring back Apollo and Diana, which continued till Pausanias’
time.” The contest between Python and Apollo, in Greece, is just the
counterpart of that between Typho and Osiris in Egypt; in other words, between
Shem and Nimrod. Thus we see the real meaning and origin of the Ethiopian
festival, when the Ethiopians carried away the gods from the Egyptian temples.
That festival evidently goes back to the time when Nimrod being cut off,
idolatry durst not show itself except among the devoted adherents of the
”Mighty hunter” (who were found in his own family–the family of Cush), when,
with great weepings and lamentations, the idolaters fled with their gods on
their shoulders, to hide themselves where they might. In commemoration of the
suppression of idolatry, and the unhappy consequences that were supposed to
flow from that suppression, the first part of the festival, as we get light
upon it both from Mexico and Greece, had consisted of a procession of mourners;
and then the mourning was turned into joy, in memory of the happy return of
these banished gods to their former exaltation. Truly a worthy origin for Pope
Gregory’s ”Sevenfold Litany” and the Popish processions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">
The Two Babylons</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />
Section II<br />
Relic Worship</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Nothing is more characteristic of Rome than the worship of relics. Wherever
a chapel is opened, or a temple consecrated, it cannot be thoroughly complete
without some relic or other of he-saint or she-saint to give sanctity to it.
The relics of the saints and rotten bones of the martyrs form a great part of
the wealth of the Church. The grossest impostures have been practised in regard
to such relics; and the most drivelling tales have been told of their
wonder-working powers, and that too by Fathers of high name in the records of
Christendom. Even Augustine, with all his philosophical acuteness and zeal
against some forms of false doctrine, was deeply infected with the grovelling
spirit that led to relic worship. Let any one read the stuff with which he
concludes his famous ”City of God,” and he will in no wise wonder that Rome has
made a saint of him, and set him up for the worship of her devotees. Take only
a specimen or two of the stories with which he bolsters up the prevalent
delusions of his day: ”When the Bishop Projectius brought the relics of St.
Stephen to the town called Aquae Tibiltinae, the people came in great crowds to
honour them. Amongst these was a blind woman, who entreated the people to lead
her to the bishop who had the HOLY RELICS. They did so, and the bishop gave her
some flowers which he had in his hand. She took them, and put them to her eyes,
and immediately her sight was restored, so that she passed speedily on before
all the others, no longer requiring to be guided.” In Augustine’s day, the formal
”worship” of the relics was not yet established; but the martyrs to whom they
were supposed to have belonged were already invoked with prayers and
supplications, and that with the high approval of the Bishop of Hippo, as the
following story will abundantly show: Here, in Hippo, says he, there was a poor
and holy old man, by name Florentius, who obtained a living by tailoring. This
man once lost his coat, and not being able to purchase another to replace it,
he came to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, in this city, and prayed aloud to
them, beseeching that they would enable him to get another garment. A crowd of
silly boys who overheard him, followed him at his departure, scoffing at him,
and asking him whether he had begged fifty pence from the martyrs to buy a
coat. The poor man went silently on towards home, and as he passed near the
sea, he saw a large fish which had been cast up on the sand, and was still
panting. The other persons who were present allowed him to take up this fish,
which he brought to one Catosus, a cook, and a good Christian, who bought it
from him for three hundred pence. With this he meant to purchase wool, which
his wife might spin, and make into a garment for him. When the cook cut up the
fish, he found within its belly a ring of gold, which his conscience persuaded
him to give to the poor man from whom he bought the fish. He did so, saying, at
the same time, ”Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed you!” *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* De Civitate. The story of the fish and the ring is an old Egyptian story.
(WILKINSON) Catosus, ”the good Christian,” was evidently a tool of the priests,
who could afford to give him a ring to put into the fish’s belly. The miracle
would draw worshippers to the shrine of the Twenty Martyrs, and thus bring
grist to their mill, and amply repay them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus did the great Augustine inculcate the worship of dead men, and the
honouring of their wonder-working relics. The ”silly children” who ”scoffed” at
the tailor’s prayer seem to have had more sense than either the ”holy old
tailor” or the bishop. Now, if men professing Christianity were thus, in the
fifth century, paving the way for the worship of all manner of rags and rotten
bones; in the realms of Heathendom the same worship had flourished for ages
before Christian saints or martyrs had appeared in the world. In Greece, the
superstitious regard to relics, and especially to the bones of the deified
heroes, was a conspicuous part of the popular idolatry. The work of Pausanias,
the learned Grecian antiquary, is full of reference to this superstition. Thus,
of the shoulder-blade of Pelops, we read that, after passing through divers
adventures, being appointed by the oracle of Delphi, as a divine means of
delivering the Eleans from a pestilence under which they suffered, it ”was committed,”
as a sacred relic, ”to the custody” of the man who had fished it out of the
sea, and of his posterity after him. The bones of the Trojan Hector were
preserved as a precious deposit at Thebes. ”They” [the Thebans], says
Pausanias, ”say that his [Hector's] bones were brought hither from Troy, in
consequence of the following oracle: ‘Thebans, who inhabit the city of Cadmus,
if you wish to reside in your country, blest with the possession of blameless
wealth, bring the bones of Hector, the son of Priam, into your dominions from
Asia, and reverence the hero agreeably to the mandate of Jupiter.’” Many other
similar instances from the same author might be adduced. The bones thus
carefully kept and reverenced were all believed to be miracle-working bones. From
the earliest periods, the system of Buddhism has been propped up by relics,
that have wrought miracles at least as well vouched as those wrought by the
relics of St. Stephen, or by the ”Twenty Martyrs.” In the ”Mahawanso,” one of
the great standards of the Buddhist faith, reference is thus made to the
enshrining of the relics of Buddha: ”The vanquisher of foes having perfected
the works to be executed within the relic receptacle, convening an assembly of
the priesthood, thus addressed them: ‘The works that were to be executed by me,
in the relic receptacle, are completed. Tomorrow, I shall enshrine the relics.
Lords, bear in mind the relics.’” Who has not heard of the Holy Coat of Treves,
and its exhibition to the people? From the following, the reader will see that
there was an exactly similar exhibition of the Holy Coat of Buddha: ”Thereupon
(the nephew of the Naga Rajah) by his supernatural gift, springing up into the
air to the height of seven palmyra trees, and stretching out his arm brought to
the spot where he was poised, the Dupathupo (or shrine) in which the DRESS laid
aside by Buddho, as Prince Siddhatto, on his entering the priesthood, was
enshrined…and EXHIBITED IT TO THE PEOPLE.” This ”Holy Coat” of Buddha was no
doubt as genuine, and as well entitled to worship, as the ”Holy Coat” of
Treves. The resemblance does not stop here. It is only a year or two ago since
the Pope presented to his beloved son, Francis Joseph of Austria, a ”TOOTH” of
”St. Peter,” as a mark of his special favour and regard. The teeth of Buddha
are in equal request among his worshippers. ”King of Devas,” said a Buddhist
missionary, who was sent to one of the principal courts of Ceylon to demand a
relic or two from the Rajah, ”King of Devas, thou possessest the right canine
tooth relic (of Buddha), as well as the right collar bone of the divine
teacher. Lord of Devas, demur not in matter involving the salvation of the land
of Lanka.” Then the miraculous efficacy of these relics is shown in the
following: ”The Saviour of the world (Buddha) even after he had attained to
Parinibanan or final emancipation (i.e., after his death), by means of a
corporeal relic, performed infinite acts to the utmost perfection, for the
spiritual comfort and mundane prosperity of mankind. While the Vanquisher
(Jeyus) yet lived, what must he not have done?” Now, in the Asiatic Researches,
a statement is made in regard to these relics of Buddha, which marvellously
reveals to us the real origin of this Buddhist relic worship. The statement is
this: ”The bones or limbs of Buddha were scattered all over the world, like
those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his
descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the
remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one,
with all possible marks of grief and sorrow till a priest announced that the
sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several
Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of
the Son of the Spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese and some tribes in
Tartary.” Here, then, it is evident that the worship of relics is just a part
of those ceremonies instituted to commemorate the tragic death of Osiris or
Nimrod, who, as the reader may remember, was divided into fourteen pieces,
which were sent into so many different regions infected by his apostacy and
false worship, to operate in terrorem upon all who might seek to follow his
example. When the apostates regained their power, the very first thing they did
was to seek for these dismembered relics of the great ringleader in idolatry,
and to entomb them with every mark of devotion. Thus does Plutarch describe the
search: ”Being acquainted with this even [viz., the dismemberment of Osiris],
Isis set out once more in search of the scattered members of her husband’s
body, using a boat made of the papyrus rush in order more easily to pass
through the lower and fenny parts of the country…And one reason assigned for
the different sepulchres of Osiris shown in Egypt is, that wherever any one of
his scattered limbs was discovered she buried it on the spot; though others
suppose that it was owing to an artifice of the queen, who presented each of
those cities with an image of her husband, in order that, if Typho should
overcome Horus in the approaching contest, he might be unable to find the real
sepulchre. Isis succeeded in recovering all the different members, with the
exception of one, which had been devoured by the Lepidotus, the Phagrus, and
the Oxyrhynchus, for which reason these fish are held in abhorrence by the
Egyptians. To make amends, she consecrated the Phallus, and instituted a solemn
festival to its memory.” Not only does this show the real origin of relic
worship it shows also that the multiplication of relics can pretend to the most
venerable antiquity. If, therefore, Rome can boast that she has sixteen or
twenty holy coats, seven or eight arms of St. Matthew, two or three heads of
St. Peter, this is nothing more than Egypt could do in regard to the relics of
Osiris. Egypt was covered with sepulchres of its martyred god; and many a leg
and arm and skull, all vouched to be genuine, were exhibited in the rival
burying-places for the adoration of the Egyptian faithful. Nay, not only were
these Egyptian relics sacred themselves, they CONSECRATED THE VERY GROUND in
which they were entombed. This fact is brought out by Wilkinson, from a
statement of Plutarch: ”The Temple of this deity at Abydos,” says he, ”was also
particularly honoured, and so holy was the place considered by the Egyptians,
that persons living at some distance from it sought, and perhaps with
difficulty obtained, permission to possess a sepulchre within its Necropolis,
in order that, after death, they might repose in GROUND HALLOWED BY THE TOMB of
this great and mysterious deity.” If the places where the relics of Osiris were
buried were accounted peculiarly holy, it is easy to see how naturally this
would give rise to the pilgrimages so frequent among the heathen. The reader
does not need to be told what merit Rome attaches to such pilgrimages to the
tombs of saints, and how, in the Middle Ages, one of the most favourite ways of
washing away sin was to undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Jago di
Compostella in Spain, or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Now, in the Scripture
there is not the slightest trace of any such thing as a pilgrimage to the tomb
of saint, martyr, prophet, or apostle. The very way in which the Lord saw fit
to dispose of the body of Moses in burying it Himself in the plains of Moab, so
that no man should ever known where his sepulchre was, was evidently designed
to rebuke every such feeling as that from which such pilgrimages arise. And
considering whence Israel had come, the Egyptian ideas with which they were
infected, as shown in the matter of the golden calf, and the high reverence
they must have entertained for Moses, the wisdom of God in so disposing of his
body must be apparent. In the land where Israel had so long sojourned, there
were great and pompous pilgrimages at certain season of the year, and these
often attended with gross excesses. Herodotus tells us, that in his time the
multitude who went annually on pilgrimage to Bubastis amounted to 700,000
individuals, and that then more wine was drunk than at any other time in the
year. Wilkinson thus refers to a similar pilgrimage to Philae: ”Besides the
celebration of the great mysteries which took place at Philae, a grand ceremony
was performed at a particular time, when the priests, in solemn procession,
visited his tomb, and crowned it with flowers. Plutarch even pretends that all
access to the island was forbidden at every other period, and that no bird
would fly over it, or fish swim near this CONSECRATED GROUND.” This seems not
to have been a procession merely of the priests in the immediate neighbourhood
of the tomb, but a truly national pilgrimage; for, says Diodorus, ”the
sepulchre of Osiris at Philae is revered by all the priests throughout Egypt.”
We have not the same minute information about the relic worship in Assyria or
Babylon; but we have enough to show that, as it was the Babylonian god that was
worshipped in Egypt under the name of Osiris, so in his own country there was
the same superstitious reverence paid to his relics. We have seen already, that
when the Babylonian Zoroaster died, he was said voluntarily to have given his
life as a sacrifice, and to have ”charged his countrymen to preserve his
remains,” assuring them that on the observance or neglect of this dying
command, the fate of their empire would hinge. And, accordingly, we learn from
Ovid, that the ”Busta Nini,” or ”Tomb of Ninus,” long ages thereafter, was one
of the monuments of Babylon. Now, in comparing the death and fabled
resurrection of the false Messiah with the death and resurrection of the true,
when he actually appeared, it will be found that there is a very remarkable
contrast. When the false Messiah died, limb was severed from limb, and his
bones were scattered over the country. When the death of the true Messiah took
place, Providence so arranged it that the body should be kept entire, and that
the prophetic word should be exactly fulfilled–”a bone of Him shall not be
broken.” When, again, the false Messiah was pretended to have had a resurrection,
that resurrection was in a new body, while the old body, with all its members,
was left behind, thereby showing that the resurrection was nothing but a
pretence and a sham. When, however, the true Messiah was ”declared to be the
Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead,” the tomb, though
jealously watched by the armed unbelieving soldiery of Rome, was found to be
absolutely empty, and no dead body of the Lord was ever afterwards found, or
even pretended to have been found. The resurrection of Christ, therefore,
stands on a very different footing from the resurrection of Osiris. Of the body
of Christ, of course, in the nature of the case, there could be no relics.
Rome, however to carry out the Babylonian system, has supplied the deficiency
by means of the relics of the saints; and now the relics of St. Peter and St.
Paul, of St. Thomas A’ Beckett and St. Lawrence O’Toole, occupy the very same
place in the worship of the Papacy as the relics of Osiris in Egypt, or of
Zoroaster in Babylon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />
Section III<br />
The Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Church of Rome, the clothing and crowning of images form no
insignificant part of the ceremonial. The sacred images are not represented,
like ordinary statues, with the garments formed of the same material as
themselves, but they have garments put on them from time to time, like ordinary
mortals of living flesh and blood. Great expense is often lavished on their
drapery; and those who present to them splendid robes are believed thereby to
gain their signal favour, and to lay up a large stock of merit for themselves.
Thus, in September, 1852, we find the duke and Duchess of Montpensier
celebrated in the Tablet, not only for their charity in ”giving 3000 reals in
alms to the poor,” but especially, and above all, for their piety in ”presenting
the Virgin with a magnificent dress of tissue of gold, with white lace and a
silver crown.” Somewhat about the same time the piety of the dissolute Queen of
Spain was testified by a similar benefaction, when she deposited at the feet of
the Queen of Heaven the homage of the dress and jewels she wore on a previous
occasion of solemn thanksgiving, as well as the dress in which she was attired
when she was stabbed by the assassin Merino. ”The mantle,” says the Spanish
journal Espana, ”exhibited the marks of the wound, and its ermine lining was
stained with the precious blood of Her Majesty. In the basket (that bore the
dresses) were likewise the jewels which adorned Her Majesty’s head and breast.
Among them was a diamond stomacher, so exquisitely wrought, and so dazzling,
that it appeared to be wrought of a single stone.” This is all sufficiently
childish, and presents human nature in a most humiliating aspect; but it is
just copied from the old Pagan worship. The same clothing and adorning of the gods
went on in Egypt, and there were sacred persons who alone could be permitted to
interfere with so high a function. Thus, in the Rosetta Stone we find these
sacred functionaries distinctly referred to: ”The chief priests and prophets,
and those who have access to the adytum to clothe the gods,…assembled in the
temple at Memphis, established the following decree.” The ”clothing of the
gods” occupied an equally important place in the sacred ceremonial of ancient
Greece. Thus, we find Pausanias referring to a present made to Minerva: ”In
after times Laodice, the daughter of Agapenor, sent a veil to Tegea, to Minerva
Alea.” The epigram [inscription] on this offering indicates, at the same time,
the origin of Laodice:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”Laodice, from Cyprus, the
divine,<br />
To her paternal wide-extended land,<br />
This veil–an offering to Minerva–sent.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Thus, also, when Hecuba, the Trojan queen, in the instance already referred
to, was directed to lead the penitential procession through the streets of Troy
to Minverva’s temple, she was commanded not to go empty-handed, but to carry
along with her, as her most acceptable offering:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The largest mantle your full
wardrobes hold,<br />
Most prized for art, and laboured o’er with gold.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The royal lady punctually obeyed:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”The Phrygian queen to her rich
wardrobe went,<br />
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent;<br />
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art;<br />
Sidonian maids embroidered every part,<br />
Whom from soft Sydon youthful Paris bore,<br />
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.<br />
Here, as the Queen revolved with careful eyes<br />
The various textures and the various dyes,<br />
She chose a veil that shone superior far,<br />
And glowed refulgent as the morning star.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">There is surely a wonderful resemblance here between the piety of the Queen
of Troy and that of the Queen of Spain. Now, in ancient Paganism there was a
mystery couched under the clothing of the gods. If gods and goddesses were so
much pleased by being clothed, it was because there had once been a time in
their history when they stood greatly in need of clothing. Yes, it can be
distinctly established, as has been already hinted, that ultimately the great
god and great goddess of Heathenism, while the facts of their own history were
interwoven with their idolatrous system, were worshipped also as incarnations
of our great progenitors, whose disastrous fall stripped them of their primeval
glory, and made it needful that the hand Divine should cover their nakedness
with clothing specially prepared for them. I cannot enter here into an
elaborate proof of this point; but let the statement of Herodotus be pondered
in regard to the annual ceremony, observed in Egypt, of slaying a ram, and
clothing the FATHER OF THE GODS with its skin. Compare this statement with the
Divine record in Genesis about the clothing of the ”Father of Mankind” in a
coat of sheepskin; and after all that we have seen of the deification of dead
men, can there be a doubt what it was that was thus annually commemorated?
Nimrod himself, when he was cut in pieces, was necessarily stripped. That
exposure was identified with the nakedness of Noah, and ultimately with that of
Adam. His sufferings were represented as voluntarily undergone for the good of
mankind. His nakedness, therefore, and the nakedness of the ”Father of the
gods,” of whom he was an incarnation, was held to be a voluntary humiliation
too. When, therefore, his suffering was over, and his humiliation past, the
clothing in which he was invested was regarded as a meritorious clothing,
available not only for himself, but for all who were initiated in his
mysteries. In the sacred rites of the Babylonian god, both the exposure and the
clothing that were represented as having taken place, in his own history, were
repeated on all his worshippers, in accordance with the statement of Firmicus,
that the initiated underwent what their god had undergone. First, after being
duly prepared by magic rites and ceremonies, they were ushered, in a state of
absolute nudity, into the innermost recesses of the temple. This appears from
the following statement of Proclus: ”In the most holy of the mysteries, they
say that the mystics at first meet with the many-shaped genera [i.e., with evil
demons], which are hurled forth before the gods: but on entering the interior
parts of the temple, unmoved and guarded by the mystic rites, they genuinely
receive in their bosom divine illumination, and, DIVESTED OF THEIR GARMENTS,
participate, as they would say, of a divine nature.” When the initiated, thus
”illuminated” and made partakers of a ”divine nature,” after being ”divested of
their garments,” were clothed anew, the garments with which they were invested
were looked upon as ”sacred garments,” and possessing distinguished virtues.
”The coat of skin” with which the Father of mankind was divinely invested after
he was made so painfully sensible of his nakedness, was, as all intelligent
theologians admit, a typical emblem of the glorious righteousness of
Christ–”the garment of salvation,” which is ”unto all and upon all them that
believe.” The garments put upon the initiated after their disrobing of their
former clothes, were evidently intended as a counterfeit of the same. ”The
garments of those initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries,” says Potter, ”were
accounted sacred, and of no less efficacy to avert evils than charms and incantations.
They were never cast off till completely worn out.” And of course, if possible,
in these ”sacred garments” they were buried; for Herodotus, speaking of Egypt,
whence these mysteries were derived, tells us that ”religion” prescribed the
garments of the dead. The efficacy of ”sacred garments” as a means of salvation
and delivering from evil in the unseen and eternal world, occupies a foremost
place in many religions. Thus the Parsees, the fundamental elements of whose
system came from the Chaldean Zoroaster, believe that ”the sadra or sacred
vest” tends essentially to ”preserve the departed soul from the calamities
accruing from Ahriman,” or the Devil; and they represent those who neglect the
use of this ”sacred vest” as suffering in their souls, and ”uttering the most
dreadful and appalling cries,” on account of the torments inflicted on them ”by
all kinds of reptiles and noxious animals, who assail them with their teeth and
stings, and give them not a moment’s respite.” What could have ever led mankind
to attribute such virtue to a ”sacred vest”? If it be admitted that it is just
a perversion of the ”sacred garment” put on our first parents, all is clear.
This, too, accounts for the superstitious feeling in the Papacy, otherwise so
unaccountable, that led so many in the dark ages to fortify themselves against
the fears of the judgment to come, by seeking to be buried in a monk’s dress.
”To be buried in a friar’s cast-off habit, accompanied by letters enrolling the
deceased in a monastic order, was accounted a sure deliverance from eternal
condemnation! In ‘Piers the Ploughman’s Creed,’ a friar is described as
wheedling a poor man out of his money by assuring him that, if he will only
contribute to his monastery,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">‘St. Francis himself shall
fold thee in his cope,<br />
And present thee to the Trinity, and pray for thy sins.’”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In virtue of the same superstitious belief, King John of England was buried
in a monk’s cowl; and many a royal and noble personage besides, ”before life
and immortality” were anew ”brought to light” at the Reformation, could think
of no better way to cover their naked and polluted souls in prospect of death,
than by wrapping themselves in the garment of some monk or friar as unholy as
themselves. Now, all these refuges of lies, in Popery as well as Paganism,
taken in connection with the clothing of the saints of the one system, and of
the gods of the other, when traced to their source, show that since sin entered
the world, man has ever felt the need of a better righteousness than his own to
cover him, and that the time was when all the tribes of the earth knew that the
only righteousness that could avail for such a purpose was ”the righteousness
of God,” and that of ”God manifest in the flesh.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Intimately connected with the ”clothing of the images of the saints” is
also the ”crowning” of them. For the last two centuries, in the Popish
communion, the festivals for crowning the ”sacred images” have been more and
more celebrated. In Florence, a few years ago, the image of the Madonna with
the child in her arms was ”crowned” with unusual pomp and solemnity. Now, this
too arose out of the facts commemorated in the history of Bacchus or Osiris. As
Nimrod was the first king after the Flood, so Bacchus was celebrated as the
first who wore a crown. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* PLINY, Hist. Nat. Under the name of Saturn, also, the same thing was
attributed to Nimrod.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">When, however, he fell into the hands of his enemies, as he was stripped of
all his glory and power, he was stripped also of his crown. The ”Falling of the
crown from the head of Osiris” was specially commemorated in Egypt. That crown
at different times was represented in different ways, but in the most famous
myth of Osiris it was represented as a ”Melilot garland.” Melilot is a species
of trefoil; and trefoil in the Pagan system was one of the emblems of the
Trinity. Among the Tractarians at this day, trefoil is used in the same
symbolical sense as it has long been in the Papacy, from which Puseyism has
borrowed it. Thus, in a blasphemous Popish representation of what is called God
the Father (of the fourteenth century), we find him represented as wearing a
crown with three points, each of which is surmounted with a leaf of white
clover. But long before Tractarianism or Romanism was known, trefoil was a
sacred symbol. The clover leaf was evidently a symbol of high import among the
ancient Persians; for thus we find Herodotus referring to it, in describing the
rites of the Persian Magi–”If any (Persian) intends to offer to a god, he leads
the animal to a consecrated spot. Then, dividing the victim into parts, he
boils the flesh, and lays it upon the most tender herbs, especially TREFOIL.
This done, a magus–without a magus no sacrifice can be performed–sings a sacred
hymn.” In Greece, the clover, or trefoil, in some form or other, had also
occupied an important place; for the rod of Mercury, the conductor of souls, to
which such potency was ascribed, was called ”Rabdos Tripetelos,” or ”the
three-leaved rod.” Among the British Druids the white clover leaf was held in
high esteem as an emblem of their Triune God, and was borrowed from the same
Babylonian source as the rest of their religion. The Melilot, or trefoil
garland, then, with which the head of Osiris was bound, was the crown of the
Trinity–the crown set on his head as the representative of the Eternal–”The
crown of all the earth,” in accordance with the voice divine at his birth, ”The
Lord of all the earth is born.” Now, as that ”Melilot garland,” that crown of
universal dominion, fell ”from his head” before his death, so, when he rose to
new life, the crown must be again set upon his head, and his universal dominion
solemnly avouched. Hence, therefore, came the solemn crowning of the statues of
the great god, and also the laying of the ”chaplet” on his altar, as a trophy
of his recovered ”dominion.” But if the great god was crowned, it was needful
also that the great goddess should receive a similar honour. Therefore it was
fabled that when Bacchus carried his wife Ariadne to heaven, in token of the
high dignity bestowed upon her, he set a crown upon her head; and the
remembrance of this crowning of the wife of the Babylonian god is perpetuated
to this hour by the well-known figure in the sphere called Ariadnoea corona, or
”Ariadne’s crown.” This is, beyond question, the real source of the Popish rite
of crowning the image of the Virgin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From the fact that the Melilot garland occupied so conspicuous a place in
the myth of Osiris, and that the ”chaplet” was laid on his altar, and his tomb
was ”crowned” with flowers, arose the custom, so prevalent in heathenism, of
adorning the altars of the gods with ”chaplets” of all sorts, and with a gay
profusion of flowers. Side by side with this reason for decorating the altars
with flowers, there was also another. When in</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”That fair field<br />
Of Enna, Proserpine gathering flowers,<br />
Herself, a fairer flower, by gloom Dis,<br />
Was gathered;”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">and all the flowers she had stored up in her lap were lost, the loss
thereby sustained by the world not only drew forth her own tears, but was
lamented in the Mysteries as a loss of no ordinary kind, a loss which not only
stripped her of her own spiritual glory, but blasted the fertility and beauty
of the earth itself. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* OVID, Metamorphoses. Ovid speaks of the tears which Proserpine shed when,
on her robe being torn from top to bottom, all the flowers which she had been
gathering up in it fell to the ground, as showing only the simplicity of a
girlish mind. But this is evidently only for the uninitiated. The lamentations
of Ceres, which were intimately connected with the fall of these flowers, and
the curse upon the ground that immediately followed, indicated something
entirely different. But on that I cannot enter here.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">That loss, however, the wife of Nimrod, under the name of Astarte, or
Venus, was believed to have more than repaired. Therefore, while the sacred
”chaplet” of the discrowned god was placed in triumph anew on his head and on
his altars, the recovered flowers which Proserpine had lost were also laid on
these altars along with it, in token of gratitude to that mother of grace and
goodness, for the beauty and temporal blessings that the earth owed to her
interposition and love. In Pagan Rome especially this was the case. The altars
were profusely adorned with flowers. From that source directly the Papacy has
borrowed the custom of adorning the altar with flowers; and from the Papacy,
Puseyism, in Protestant England, is labouring to introduce the custom among
ourselves. But, viewing it in connection with its source, surely men with the
slightest spark of Christian feeling may well blush to think of such a thing.
It is not only opposed to the genius of the Gospel dispensation, which requires
that they who worship God, who is a Spirit, ”worship Him in spirit and in
truth”; but it is a direct symbolising with those who rejoiced in the
re-establishment of Paganism in opposition to the worship of the one living and
true God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />
Section IV<br />
The Rosary and the Worship of the Sacred Heart</span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Every one knows how thoroughly Romanist is the use of the rosary; and how
the devotees of Rome mechanically tell their prayers upon their beads. The
rosary, however, is no invention of the Papacy. It is of the highest antiquity,
and almost universally found among Pagan nations. The rosary was used as a
sacred instrument among the ancient Mexicans. It is commonly employed among the
Brahmins of Hindustan; and in the Hindoo sacred books reference is made to it
again and again. Thus, in an account of the death of Sati, the wife of Shiva,
we find the rosary introduced: ”On hearing of this event, Shiva fainted from
grief; then, having recovered, he hastened to the banks of the river of heaven,
where he beheld lying the body of his beloved Sati, arrayed in white garments,
holding a rosary in her hand, and glowing with splendour, bright as burnished
gold.” In Thibet it has been used from time immemorial, and among all the
millions in the East that adhere to the Buddhist faith. The following, from Sir
John F. Davis, will show how it is employed in China: ”From the Tartar religion
of the Lamas, the rosary of 108 beads has become a part of the ceremonial dress
attached to the nine grades of official rank. It consists of a necklace of
stones and coral, nearly as large as a pigeon’s egg, descending to the waist,
and distinguished by various beads, according to the quality of the wearer.
There is a small rosary of eighteen beads, of inferior size, with which the
bonzes count their prayers and ejaculations exactly as in the Romish ritual.
The laity in China sometimes wear this at the wrist, perfumed with musk, and
give it the name of Heang-choo, or fragrant beads.” In Asiatic Greece the
rosary was commonly used, as may be seen from the image of the Ephesian Diana.
In Pagan Rome the same appears to have been the case. The necklaces which the
Roman ladies wore were not merely ornamental bands about the neck, but hung
down the breast, just as the modern rosaries do; and the name by which they
were called indicates the use to which they were applied. ”Monile,” the
ordinary word for a necklace, can have no other meaning than that of a
”Remembrancer.” Now, whatever might be the pretence, in the first instance, for
the introduction of such ”Rosaries” or ”Remembrancers,” the very idea of such a
thing is thoroughly Pagan. * It supposes that a certain number of prayers must
be regularly gone over; it overlooks the grand demand which God makes for the
heart, and leads those who use them to believe that form and routine are
everything, and that ”they must be heard for their much speaking.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* ”Rosary” itself seems to be from the Chaldee ”Ro,” ”thought,” and
”Shareh,” ”director.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In the Church of Rome a new kind of devotion has of late been largely
introduced, in which the beads play an important part, and which shows what new
and additional strides in the direction of the old Babylonian Paganism the
Papacy every day is steadily making. I refer to the ”Rosary of the Sacred
Heart.” It is not very long since the worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was first
introduced; and now, everywhere it is the favourite worship. It was so in
ancient Babylon, as is evident from the Babylonian system as it appeared in
Egypt. There also a ”Sacred Heart” was venerated. The ”Heart” was one of the
sacred symbols of Osiris when he was born again, and appeared as Harpocrates,
or the infant divinity, * borne in the arms of his mother Isis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* The name Harpocrates, as shown by Bunsen, signifies ”Horus, the child.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Therefore, the fruit of the Egyptian Persea was peculiarly sacred to him,
from its resemblance to the ”HUMAN HEART.” Hence this infant divinity was
frequently represented with a heart, or the heart-shaped fruit of the Persea,
in one of his hands. The following extract, from John Bell’s criticism on the
antiques in the Picture Gallery of Florence, will show that the boyish divinity
had been represented elsewhere also in ancient times in the same manner.
Speaking of a statue of Cupid, he says it is ”a fair, full, fleshy, round boy,
in fine and sportive action, tossing back a heart.” Thus the boy-god came to be
regarded as the ”god of the heart,” in other words, as Cupid, or the god of
love. To identify this infant divinity, with his father ”the mighty hunter,” he
was equipped with ”bow and arrows”; and in the hands of the poets, for the
amusement of the profane vulgar, this sportive boy-god was celebrated as taking
aim with his gold-tipped shafts at the hearts of mankind. His real character,
however, as the above statement shows, and as we have seen reason already to
conclude, was far higher and of a very different kind. He was the woman’s seed.
Venus and her son Cupid, then, were none other than the Madonna and the child.
Looking at the subject in this light, the real force and meaning of the
language will appear, which Virgil puts into the mouth of Venus, when
addressing the youthful Cupid:–</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">”My son, my strength, whose
mighty power alone<br />
Controls the thunderer on his awful throne,<br />
To thee thy much afflicted mother flies,<br />
And on thy succour and thy faith relies.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">From what we have seen already as to the power and glory of the Goddess
Mother being entirely built on the divine character attributed to her Son, the
reader must see how exactly this is brought out, when the Son is called ”THE
STRENGTH” of his Mother. As the boy-god, whose symbol was the heart, was
recognised as the god of childhood, this very satisfactorily accounts for one
of the peculiar customs of the Romans. Kennett tells us, in his Antiquities,
that the Roman youths, in their tender years, used to wear a golden ornament
suspended from their necks, called bulla, which was hollow, and heart-shaped.
Barker, in his work on Cilicia, while admitting that the Roman bulla was
heart-shaped, further states, that ”it was usual at the birth of a child to
name it after some divine personage, who was supposed to receive it under his
care”; but that the ”name was not retained beyond infancy, when the bulla was
given up.” Who so likely to be the god under whose guardianship the Roman
children were put, as the god under one or other of his many names whose
express symbol they wore, and who, while he was recognised as the great and mighty
war-god, who also exhibited himself in his favourite form as a little child?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">The veneration of the ”sacred heart” seems also to have extended to India,
for there Vishnu, the Mediatorial god, in one of his forms, with the mark of
the wound in his foot, in consequence of which he died, and for which such
lamentation is annually made, is represented as wearing a heart suspended on
his breast. It is asked, How came it that the ”Heart” became the recognised
symbol of the Child of the great Mother? The answer is, ”The Heart” in Chaldee
is ”BEL”; and as, at first, after the check given to idolatry, almost all the
most important elements of the Chaldean system were introduced under a veil, so
under that veil they continued to be shrouded from the gaze of the uninitiated,
after the first reason–the reason of fear–had long ceased to operate. Now, the
worship of the ”Sacred Heart” was just, under a symbol, the worship of the
”Sacred Bel,” that mighty one of Babylon, who had died a martyr for idolatry;
for Harpocrates, or Horus, the infant god, was regarded as Bel, born again.
That this was in very deed the case, the following extract from Taylor, in one
of his notes to his translation of the Orphic Hymns, will show. ”While
Bacchus,” says he, was ”beholding himself” with admiration ”in a mirror, he was
miserably torn to pieces by the Titans, who, not content with this cruelty,
first boiled his members in water, and afterwards roasted them in the fire; but
while they were tasting his flesh thus dressed, Jupiter, excited by the steam,
and perceiving the cruelty of the deed, hurled his thunder at the Titans, but
committed his members to Apollo, the brother of Bacchus, that they might be
properly interred. And this being performed, Dionysius [i.e., Bacchus], (whose
HEART, during his laceration, was snatched away by Minerva and preserved) by a
new REGENERATION, again emerged, and he being restored to his pristine life and
integrity, afterwards filled up the number of the gods.” This surely shows, in
a striking light, the peculiar sacredness of the heart of Bacchus; and that the
regeneration of his heart has the very meaning I have attached to it–viz., the
new birth or new incarnation of Nimrod or Bel. When Bel, however was born again
as a child, he was, as we have seen, represented as an incarnation of the sun.
Therefore, to indicate his connection with the fiery and burning sun, the
”sacred heart” was frequently represented as a ”heart of flame.” So the ”Sacred
Heart” of Rome is actually worshipped as a flaming heart, as may be seen on the
rosaries devoted to that worship. Of what use, then, is it to say that the
”Sacred Heart” which Rome worships is called by the name of ”Jesus,” when not
only is the devotion given to a material image borrowed from the worship of the
Babylonian Antichrist, but when the attributes ascribed to that ”Jesus” are not
the attributes of the living and loving Saviour, but the genuine attributes of
the ancient Moloch or Bel?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/00index.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Table of Contents</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Two Babylons<br />
Alexander Hislop</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Chapter V<br />
Section V<br />
Lamps and Wax-Candles</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Another peculiarity of the Papal worship is the use of lamps and wax-candles.
If the Madonna and child are set up in a niche, they must have a lamp to burn
before them; if mass is to be celebrated, though in broad daylight, there must
be wax-candles lighted on the altar; if a grand procession is to be formed, it
cannot be thorough and complete without lighted tapers to grace the goodly
show. The use of these lamps and tapers comes from the same source as all the
rest of the Papal superstition. That which caused the ”Heart,” when it became
an emblem of the incarnate Son, to be represented as a heart on fire, required
also that burning lamps and lighted candles should form part of the worship of
that Son; for so, according to the established rites of Zoroaster, was the
sun-god worshipped. When every Egyptian on the same night was required to light
a lamp before his house in the open air, this was an act of homage to the sun,
that had veiled its glory by enshrouding itself in a human form. When the
Yezidis of Koordistan, at this day, once a year celebrate their festival of
”burning lamps,” that, too, is to the honour of Sheikh Shems, or the Sun. Now,
what on these high occasions was done on a grand scale was also done on a
smaller scale, in the individual acts of worship to their god, by the lighting
of lamps and tapers before the favourite divinity. In Babylon, this practice
had been exceedingly prevalent, as we learn from the Apocryphal writer of the
Book of Baruch. ”They (the Babylonians),” says he, ”light up lamps to their
gods, and that in greater numbers, too, than they do for themselves, although
the gods cannot see one of them, and are senseless as the beams of their
houses.” In Pagan Rome, the same practice was observed. Thus we find Licinius,
the Pagan Emperor, before joining battle with Constantine, his rival, calling a
council of his friends in a thick wood, and there offering sacrifices to his
gods, ”lighting up wax-tapers” before them, and at the same time, in his
speech, giving his gods a hint, that if they did not give him the victory
against Constantine, his enemy and theirs, he would be under the necessity of
abandoning their worship, and lighting up no more ”wax-tapers to their honour.”
In the Pagan processions, also, at Rome, the wax-candles largely figured. ”At
these solemnities,” says Dr. Middleton, referring to Apuleius as his authority,
”at these solemnities, the chief magistrate used frequently to assist, in robes
of ceremony, attended by the priests in surplices, with wax-candles in their
hands, carrying upon a pageant or thensa, the images of their gods, dressed out
in their best clothes; these were usually followed by the principal youth of
the place, in white linen vestments or surplices, singing hymns in honour of
the gods whose festivals they were celebrating, accompanied by crowds of all
sorts that were initiated in the same religion, all with flambeaux or
wax-candles in their hands.” Now, so thoroughly and exclusively Pagan was this
custom of lighting up lamps and candles in daylight, that we find Christian
writers, such as Lactantius, in the fourth century, exposing the absurdity of
the practice, and deriding the Romans ”for lighting up candles to God, as if He
lived in the dark.” Had such a custom at that time gained the least footing
among Christians, Lactantius could never have ridiculed it as he does, as a
practice peculiar to Paganism. But what was unknown to the Christian Church in
the beginning of the fourth century, soon thereafter began to creep in, and now
forms one of the most marked peculiarities of that community that boasts that
it is the ”Mother and mistress of all Churches.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">While Rome uses both lamps and wax-candles in her sacred rites, it is
evident, however, that she attributes some pre-eminent virtue to the latter
above all other lights. Up to the time of the Council of Trent, she thus prayed
on Easter Eve, at the blessing of the Easter candles: ”Calling upon thee in thy
works, this holy Eve of Easter, we offer most humbly unto thy Majesty this
sacrifice; namely, a fire not defiled with the fat of flesh, nor polluted with
unholy oil or ointment, nor attained with any profane fire; but we offer unto
thee with obedience, proceeding from perfect devotion, a fire of wrought WAX
and wick, kindled and made to burn in honour of thy name. This so great a
MYSTERY therefore, and the marvellous sacrament of this holy eve, must needs be
extolled with due and deserved praises.” That there was some occult ”Mystery,”
as is here declared, couched under the ”wax-candles,” in the original system of
idolatry, from which Rome derived its ritual, may be well believed, when it is
observed with what unanimity nations the most remote have agreed to use
wax-candles in their sacred rites. Among the Tungusians, near the Lake Baikal
in Siberia, ”wax-tapers are placed before the Burchans,” the gods or idols of
that country. In the Molucca Islands, wax-tapers are used in the worship of
Nito, or Devil, whom these islanders adore. ”Twenty or thirty persons having
assembled,” says Hurd, ”they summon the Nito, by beating a small consecrated
drum, whilst two or more of the company light up wax-tapers, and pronounce
several mysterious words, which they consider as able to conjure him up.” In
the worship of Ceylon, the use of wax-candles is an indispensable requisite.
”In Ceylon,” says the same author, ”some devotees, who are not priests, erect
chapels for themselves, but in each of them they are obliged to have an image
of Buddha, and light up tapers or wax-candles before it, and adorn it with
flowers.” A practice thus so general must have come from some primeval source,
and must have originally had some mystic reason at the bottom of it. The
wax-candle was, in fact, a hieroglyphic, like so many other things which we
have already seen, and was intended to exhibit the Babylonian god in one of the
essential characters of the Great Mediator. The classic reader may remember
that one of the gods of primeval antiquity was called Ouranos, * that is, ”The
Enlightener.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* For Aor or our, ”light,” and an, ”to act upon” or produce, the same as
our English particle en, ”to make.” Ouranos, then, is ”The Enlightener.” This
Ouranos is, by Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician, called the son of Elioun–i.e., as
he himself, or Philo-Byblius, interprets the name, ”The Most High.” (SANCH)
Ouranos, in the physical sense, is ”The Shiner”; and by Hesychius it is made
equivalent to Kronos, which also has the same meaning, for Krn, the verb from
which it comes, signifies either ”to put forth horns,” or ”to send forth rays
of light”; and, therefore, while the epithet Kronos, or ”The Horned One,” had
primarily reference to the physical power of Nimrod as a ”mighty” king; when
that king was deified, and made ”Lord of Heaven,” that name, Kronos, was still
applied to him in his new character as ”The Shiner or Lightgiver.” The
distinction made by Hesiod between Ouranos and Kronos, is no argument against
the real substantial identity of these divinities originally as Pagan
divinities; for Herodotus states that Hesiod had a hand in ”inventing a
theogony” for the Greeks, which implies that some at least of the details of
that theogony must have come from his own fancy; and, on examination, it will
be found, when the veil of allegory is removed, that Hesiod’s ”Ouranos,” though
introduced as one of the Pagan gods, was really at bottom the ”God of Heaven,”
the living and true God.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">In this very character was Nimrod worshipped when he was deified. As the
Sun-god he was regarded not only as the illuminator of the material world, but
as the enlightener of the souls of men, for he was recognised as the revealer
of ”goodness and truth.” It is evident, from the Old Testament, not less than
the New, that the proper and personal name of our Lord Jesus Christ is, ”The
Word of God,” as the Revealer of the heart and counsels of the Godhead. Now, to
identify the Sun-god with the Great Revealer of the Godhead, while under the
name of Mithra, he was exhibited in sculpture as a Lion; that Lion had a Bee
represented between his lips. The bee between the lips of the sun-god was
intended to point him out as ”the Word”; for Dabar, the expression which signifies
in Chaldee a ”Bee,” signifies also a ”Word”; and the position of that bee in
the mouth leaves no doubt as to the idea intended to be conveyed. It was
intended to impress the belief that Mithra (who, says Plutarch, was worshipped
as Mesites, ”The Mediator”), in his character as Ouranos, ”The Enlightener,”
was no other than that glorious one of whom the Evangelist John says, ”In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God…In Him was life; and the life was THE LIGHT
OF MEN.” The Lord Jesus Christ ever was the revealer of the Godhead, and must
have been known to the patriarchs as such; for the same Evangelist says, ”No
man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared,” that is, He hath revealed ”Him.” Before the
Saviour came, the ancient Jews commonly spoke of the Messiah, or the Son of
God, under the name of Dabar, or the ”Word.” This will appear from a
consideration of what is stated in the 3rd chapter of 1st Samuel. In the first
verse of that chapter it is said, ”The WORD of the Lord was precious in those
days; there was no open vision,” that is, in consequence of the sin of Eli, the
Lord had not, for a long time, revealed Himself in vision to him, as He did to
the prophets. When the Lord had called Samuel, this ”vision” of the God of
Israel was restored (though not to Eli), for it is said in the last verse (v
21), ”And the Lord APPEARED again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed Himself to
Samuel by the WORD of the Lord.” Although the Lord spake to Samuel, this
language implies more than speech, for it is said, ”The LORD appeared”–i.e.,
was seen. When the Lord revealed Himself, or was seen by Samuel, it is said
that it was ”by (Dabar) the Word of the Lord.” The ”Word of the Lord” to be
visible, must have been the personal ”Word of God,” that is, Christ. *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* After the Babylonish captivity, as the Chaldee Targums or Paraphrases of
the Old Testament show, Christ was commonly called by the title ”The Word of
the Lord.” In these Targums of later Chaldee, the term for ”The Word” is
”Mimra”; but this word, though a synonym for that which is used in the Hebrew
Scriptures, is never used there. Dabar is the word employed. This is so well
recognised that, in the Hebrew translation of John’s Gospel in Bagster’s
Polyglott, the first verse runs thus: ”In the beginning was the Word (Dabar).”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">This had evidently been a primitive name by which He was known; and
therefore it is not wonderful that Plato should speak of the second person of
his Trinity under the name of the Logos, which is just a translation of
”Dabar,” or ”the Word.” Now, the light of the wax-candle, as the light from
Dabar, ”the Bee,” was set up as the substitute of the light of Dabar, ”the
Word.” Thus the apostates turned away from the ”True Light,” and set up a
shadow in His stead. That this was really the case is plain; for, says Crabb,
speaking of Saturn, ”on his altars were placed wax-tapers lighted, because by
Saturn men were reduced from the darkness of error to the light of truth.” In
Asiatic Greece, the Babylonian god was evidently recognised as the Light-giving
”Word,” for there we find the Bee occupying such a position as makes it very
clear that it was a symbol of the great Revealer. Thus we find Muller referring
to the symbols connected with the worship of the Ephesian Diana: ”Her constant
symbol is the bee, which is not otherwise attributed to Diana…The chief priest
himself was called Essen, or the king-bee.” The character of the chief priest
shows the character of the god he represented. The contemplar divinity of
Diana, the tower-bearing goddess, was of course the same divinity as invariably
accompanied the Babylonian goddess: and this title of the priest shows that the
Bee which appeared on her medals was just another symbol for her child, as the
”Seed of the Woman,” in his assumed character, as Dabar, ”The Word” that
enlightened the souls of men. That this is the precise ”Mystery” couched under
the wax-candles burning on the altars of the Papacy, we have very remarkable
evidence from its own formularies; for, in the very same place in which the
”Mystery” of the wax-candle is spoken of, thus does Rome refer to the Bee, by
which the wax is produced: ”Forasmuch as we do marvellously wonder, in
considering the first beginning of this substance, to wit, wax-tapers, then
must we of necessity greatly extol the original of Bees, for…they gather the
flowers with their feet, yet the flowers are not injured thereby; they bring
forth no young ones, but deliver their young swarms through their mouths, like
as Christ (for a wonderful example) is proceeded from His Father’s MOUTH.” *</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">* Review of Epistle of DR. GENTIANUS HARVET of Louvaine. This work, which
is commonly called The Beehive of the Roman Church, contains the original Latin
of the passage translated above. The passage in question is to be found in at
least two Roman Missals, which, however, are now very rare–viz., one printed at
Vienna in 1506, with which the quotation in the text has been compared and
verified; and one printed at Venice in 1522. These dates are antecedent to the
establishment of the Reformation; and it appears that this passage was expunged
from subsequent editions, as being unfit to stand the searching scrutiny to which
everything in regard to religion was subjected in consequence of that great
event. The ceremonial of blessing the candles, however, which has no place in
the Pontificale Romanum in the Edinburgh Advocates’ Library, is to be found in
the Pontificale Romanum, Venice, 1542, and in Pontificale Romanum, Venice,
1572. In the ceremony of blessing the candles, given in the Roman Missal,
printed at Paris, 1677, there is great praise of the Bee, strongly resembling
the passage quoted in the text. The introduction of such an extraordinary
formula into a religious ceremony is of very ancient date, and is distinctly
traced to an Italian source; for, in the words of the Popish Bishop Ennodius,
who occupied an Italian diocese in the sixth century, we find the counterpart
of that under consideration. Thus, in a prayer in regard to the ”Easter
Candle,” the reason for offering up the wax-candle is expressly declared to be,
because that through means of the bees that produce the wax of which it is
made, ”earth has an image of what is PECULIAR TO HEAVEN,” and that in regard to
the very subject of GENERATION; the bees being able, ”through the virtue of
herbs, to pour forth their young through their MOUTHS with less waste of time
than all other creatures do in the ordinary way.” This prayer contains the
precise idea of the prayer in the text; and there is only one way of accounting
for the origin of such an idea. It must have come from a Chaldean Liturgy.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Here it is evident that Christ is referred to as the ”Word of God”; and how
could any imagination ever have conceived such a parallel as is contained in
this passage, had it not been for the equivoque [wordplay, double meaning]
between ”Dabar,” ”the Bee,” and ”Dabar,” ”The Word.” In a Popish work already
quoted, the Pancarpium Marianum, I find the Lord Jesus expressly called by the
name of the Bee. Referring to Mary, under the title of ”The Paradise of
Delight,” the author thus speaks: ”In this Paradise that celestial Bee, that
is, the incarnate Wisdom, did feed. Here it found that dropping honeycomb, with
which the whole bitterness of the corrupted world has been turned into
sweetness.” This blasphemously represents the Lord Jesus as having derived
everything necessary to bless the world from His mother! Could this ever have come
from the Bible? No. It must have come only from the source where the writer
learned to call ”the incarnate Wisdom” by the name of the Bee. Now, as the
equivoque from which such a name applied to the Lord Jesus springs, is founded
only on the Babylonian tongue, it shows whence his theology has come, and it
proves also to demonstration that this whole prayer about the blessing of
wax-candles must have been drawn from a Babylonian prayer-book. Surely, at
every step, the reader must see more and more the exactitude of the Divine name
given to the woman on the seven mountains, ”Mystery, Babylon the Great”! </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>Continue in Part 3</b></span><br />
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GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-78599831069838652342014-01-16T07:51:00.002-08:002014-01-16T08:00:36.337-08:00Men of destruction seek the priesthood.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeL7V6RLYKDCyWo0TFqEbo-qZBP7FP1Wkr8bAaMuz0ohNBOA3J4H3U7FFBORBWrPZ6K5LMOjg_Wa6w8qmkGIJSJodH1fh7_Vx_fPSkZFys_WZHXWxoV5MwpRqAdFSZF42Rx0iE3auuaIN7/s1600/bow+for+the+popery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeL7V6RLYKDCyWo0TFqEbo-qZBP7FP1Wkr8bAaMuz0ohNBOA3J4H3U7FFBORBWrPZ6K5LMOjg_Wa6w8qmkGIJSJodH1fh7_Vx_fPSkZFys_WZHXWxoV5MwpRqAdFSZF42Rx0iE3auuaIN7/s1600/bow+for+the+popery.jpg" height="232" width="320" /></a></span></b></div>
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<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then shall
the end come</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Old
Testament (Hebrew) for "end"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H314</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">'acharown</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">last,
after(ward)(s), latter, end, utmost, following, hinder, hindermost,
hindmost, rereward, uttermost</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H319</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">'achariyth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end,
latter, last, posterity, reward, hindermost, misc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H656</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">'aphec</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">fail,
gone, end, brought to nought</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H1104</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">bala`</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">swallow ..., destroy, devour, covered, at...end</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to swallow
down, swallow up, engulf, eat up</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Qal)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to swallow
down</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to swallow
up, engulf</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Niphal) to
be swallowed up</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Piel)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to swallow</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to swallow
up, engulf</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">squandering
(fig.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Pual) to
be swallowed up</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Hithpael)
to be ended</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Gen 41:7</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the seven thin ears devoured </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, <i>it
was</i> a dream.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Gen 41:24</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the thin ears devoured </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> the seven good ears: and I told <i>this </i>unto the magicians;
but <i>there was</i> none that could declare <i>it</i> to
me.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Exd 7:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's
rod swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> their rods.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Exd 15:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Num 4:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But they shall not go in to see when the holy things are covered, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <span lang="EN-US">lest they die.</span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Num 16:30</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But if the LORD
make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> with all
that <i>appertain</i> unto them, and they go down quick into the pit;
<u>then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD</u>.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Num 16:32</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the earth
opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> and their
houses, and all the men that <i>appertained</i> unto Korah, and
all <i>their </i>goods.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">appertained - belong, be associated with,</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Num 16:33</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>They, and all that <i><span style="color: grey;">appertained</span></i> to them</u></b>, went down alive into
the pit, and the earth closed upon them:</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">and they perished from among the congregation.
</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">appertain (v.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">late 14c., from Anglo-French <i>apartenir</i>,
Old French <i>apartenir</i> (12c.) "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">be related to; be incumbent upon,"</b> from Late Latin <i>appertinere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to pertain to," from <i>ad-</i> "to,
completely" (see </b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ad-&allowed_in_frame=0"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ad-</span></i></a></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">) + <i>pertinere</i> "to belong
to" </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">(see </span><span style="mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pertain&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">pertain</span></i></b></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">). <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To belong as parts to the whole, or as members to a family or class.</b>
Related: <i>Appertained</i>; <i>appertaining</i>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ad-</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">word-forming element expressing direction toward or in addition to, from
Latin <i>ad</i> "to, toward" in space or time; "with
regard to, in relation to," as a prefix, sometimes merely emphatic, from
PIE <i>*ad-</i> "to, near, at" (cognate with Old
English <i>æt</i>; see </span><span style="mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=at&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">at</span></i></b></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">). Simplified to <i>a-</i> before <i>sc-</i>, <i>sp-</i> and <i>st-</i>;
modified to <i>ac-</i> before many consonants and then re-spelled<i>af-</i>, <i>ag-</i>, <i>al-</i>,
etc., in conformity with the following consonant (e.g. <i>affection</i>, <i>aggression</i>).
In Old French, reduced to <i>a-</i> in all cases (an evolution
already underway in Merovingian Latin), but written forms were refashioned after
Latin in 14c. in French and 15c. in English words picked up from Old French. In
many cases pronunciation followed the shift.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">pertain (v.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">early 14c., from Old French <i>partenir</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to belong to</b>" and directly from
Latin <i>pertinere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
reach, stretch; relate, have reference to; belong, be the right of; be
applicable,"</b> from <i>per-</i>"through" (see <b><i><span style="color: #800020;">per</span></i></b>) + <i>tenere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to hold</b>" (see <b><i><span style="color: #800020;">tenet</span></i></b>). Related: <i>Pertained</i>; <i>pertaining</i>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">per (prep.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">1580s (earlier in various Latin and French phrases), from Latin <i>per</i> "through,
during, by means of, on account of, as in," from PIE root <i>*per-</i> (1)
"Base of prepositions and preverbs with the basic meanings of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">'forward,' 'through</b>,' and a wide range
of extended senses such as '<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in front
of,' 'before,' 'early,' 'first,' 'chief,' 'toward,' 'against,' 'near,' 'at,'
'around'" </b>[Watkins]. Cf. Sanskrit <i>pari-</i> "around,
about, through," <i>pura</i> "before, formerly;"
Avestan <i>pairi-</i> "around," <i>paro</i> "before;"
Old Persian <i>pariy</i>; Hittite <i>para-</i> "on,
forth;" Greek <i>peri</i>"around, about, near,
beyond," <i>paros</i> "before," <i>para</i> "from
beside, beyond," <i>pro</i> "before;" Latin <i>pro</i> "before,
for, on behalf of, instead of," <i>porro</i> "forward," <i>prae</i> "before;"
Old English <i>fore</i> (prep.) "before, in front of;"
(adv.) "before, previously;" German <i>vor</i> "for;"
Old Church Slavonic <i>pra-dedu</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">great-grandfather</b>;" Russian <i>pere-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">through</b>;" Lithuanian<i>per</i> "through;"
Old Irish <i>air-</i> Gothic <i>fair-</i>, German <i>ver-</i>,
Old English <i>fer-</i>, intensive prefixes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">tenet (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ideology, theory, belief,
principle, precept, view, opinion, rule, hypothesis, speculation, assumption,
conjecture, presumption, supposition, guess, premise, philosophy, model,
concept, system, scheme, idea, notion,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"principle," properly "a thing held (to be true),"</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> early 15c.,
from Latin <i>tenet</i> "</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">he holds</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">," third person
singular present indicative of <i>tenere</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to hold, to keep, to maintain</b>"
from PIE root <i>*ten-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to
stretch</b>" (cf. Sanskrit <i>tantram</i> "loom," <i>tanoti</i> "stretches,
lasts;" Persian <i>tar</i> "string;" Lithuanian <i>tankus</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">compact," i.e. "tightened</b>;"
Greek <i>teinein</i> "to stretch," <i>tasis</i>"a
stretching, tension," <i>tenos</i> "sinew," <i>tetanos</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stiff, rigid</b>," <i>tonos</i> "string,"
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hence "sound, pitch</b>;"
Latin <i>tendere</i> "to stretch," <i>tenuis</i> "thin,
rare, fine;" Old Church Slavonic <i>tento</i>"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cord</b>;" Old English <i>thynne</i> "thin").
Connection notion between "stretch" and "hold" is "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to cause to maintain</b>." The modern
sense is probably because <i>tenet</i> was used in Medieval Latin to
introduce a statement of doctrine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H7585</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sh<sup>e</sup>'ôl<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>sh<sup>e</sup>'ôl</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From <u><span style="color: green;">H7592</span></u>; <i>hades</i>
or the world of the dead (as if a subterranian <i>retreat</i>), including its
accessories and inmates: - grave, hell, pit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H7585</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">she'ôl</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) sheol, underworld, grave,
hell, pit</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) the underworld</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) Sheol - the OT designation
for the abode of the dead</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b1) place of no return</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b2) without praise of God</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b3) wicked sent there for
punishment</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b4) righteous not abandoned to
it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b5) of the place of exile
(figuratively)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b6) of extreme degradation in
sin</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> noun
feminine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
from <u><span style="color: green;">H7592</span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2303c</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H7585</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">she'ôl</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Total KJV Occurrences:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 65</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 10.8pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">hell, 31</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Deu_32:22</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, <u><span style="color: green;">2Sa_22:6</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Job_11:8</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Job_26:6</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_9:17</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_16:10</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_18:5</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_55:15</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_86:13</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_116:3</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_139:8</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Pro_5:5</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Pro_7:27</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Pro_9:18</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Pro_15:11</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Pro_15:24</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Pro_23:14</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Pro_27:20</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_5:14</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Isa_14:9</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_28:15</span></u>
(2), <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_28:18</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_57:9</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Eze_31:16-17</span></u>
(2), <u><span style="color: green;">Eze_32:21</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Eze_32:27</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Jon_2:2</span></u>
(2), <u><span style="color: green;">Hab_2:5</span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 10.8pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">grave, 30</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Gen_37:35</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, <u><span style="color: green;">Gen_42:38</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Gen_44:29</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Gen_44:31</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">1Ki_2:6</span></u> (2), <u><span style="color: green;">1Ki_2:9</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Job_7:9</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Job_21:13</span></u> (3), <u><span style="color: green;">Job_24:19</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_6:5</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_30:3</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_31:17</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_49:14-15</span></u>
(3), <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_88:3</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_89:48</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Pro_1:12</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Pro_30:16</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Ecc_9:10</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Son_8:6</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_14:11</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Isa_38:10</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_38:18</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Eze_31:15</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Hos_13:14</span></u>
(2)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 10.8pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">pit, 3</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Num_16:30</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, <u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:33</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Job_17:16</span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 10.8pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">grave’s, 1</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Psa_141:7</span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H7592</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">shâ'al<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shâ'êl</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A primitive root; to <i>inquire</i>; by implication to <i>request</i>;
by extension to <i>demand: - </i>ask <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(counsel,</b>
on), beg, borrow, lay to charge, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">consult,</b>
demand, desire, X earnestly, enquire, + greet, obtain leave, lend, pray,
request, require, + salute, X straitly, X surely, wish.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H776</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">'erets</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From an unused root probably meaning to <i>be</i> <i>firm</i>;
the <i>earth</i> (at large, or partitively a <i>land</i>): -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>X common, country, earth, field, ground,
land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">common, 1</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Lev_4:27</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">field, 1</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Eze_29:5</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">nations, 1</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Isa_37:18</span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H3680</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">kâsâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A primitive root; properly to <i>plump</i>, that is, <i>fill</i>
<i>up</i> hollows; by implication to <i>cover</i> (for clothing or secrecy): -
clad self, close, clothe, conceal, cover (self), (flee to) hide, overwhelm. Compare
<u><span style="color: green;">H3780</span></u>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H3680</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">kâsâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) to cover, conceal, hide</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) (Qal) conceal, covered
(participle)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) (Niphal) to be covered</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) (Piel)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c1) to cover, clothe</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c2) to cover, conceal</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c3) to cover (for protection)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c4) to cover over, spread over</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c5) to cover, overwhelm</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1d) (Pual)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1d1) to be covered</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1d2) to be clothed</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1e) (Hithpael) to cover oneself,
clothe oneself</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> a
primitive root</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1008</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H3780</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">kâśâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A primitive root; to <i>grow</i> <i>fat</i> (that is, be <i>covered</i>
with flesh): - be covered. Compare <u><span style="color: green;">H3680</span></u>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H3780</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">kâśâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) (Qal) to become sated, be <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gorged</b> with food</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">swollen, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, overstuffed, full, overfed, blown
up, puffy, ballooned, overfed, inflated, bloated, bulbous, bulging,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> a
primitive root</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1049</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H6</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">'âbad</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A primitive root; properly to <i>wander</i> away, that is
<i>lose</i> oneself; by implication to <i>perish</i> (causatively, <i>destroy</i>):
- break, destroy (-uction), + not escape, fail, lose, (cause to, make) perish,
spend, X and surely, take, be undone, X utterly, be void of, have no way to
flee.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H6</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">'âbad</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) perish, vanish, go astray, be
destroyed</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) (Qal)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a1) perish, die, be exterminated</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a2) perish, vanish
(figuratively)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a3) be lost, strayed</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) (Piel)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b1) to destroy, kill, cause to
perish, to give up</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b2) to blot out, do away with,
cause to vanish, (figuratively)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b3) cause to stray, lose</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) (Hiphil)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c1) to destroy, put to death</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 72.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c1a) of divine judgment</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c2) object name of kings
(figuratively)</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> a
primitive root</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">congregation</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Old Testament (Hebrew) for</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"congregation"</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H482</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">'elem</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ā'·lem</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4150</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mow`ed</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mō·ād'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, feast, season, appointed, time, assembly, solemnity, solemn, days, sign,
synagogues</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4721</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">maqhel</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mak·hāl'</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H5712</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">`edah</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ā·dä'</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, company, assembly, multitude, people, swarm</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H6951</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">qahal</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kä·häl'</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, assembly, company, multitude</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H6952</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">qĕhillah</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">keh·hil·lä'</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, assembly</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">New Testament (Greek) for</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"congregation"</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4864</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synagōgē</span></i></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sün-ä-gō-gā'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synagogue,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">congregation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, assembly</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jam 2:2</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">For if there come unto your assembly </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">a man with a gold
ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 7.35pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; tab-stops: 103.8pt 272.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Rev 2:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>I know</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">are</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">the synagogue </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">of Satan.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 7.35pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; tab-stops: 103.8pt 272.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Rev 3:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Behold, I will make them of the synagogue </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">of Satan, which
say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come
and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -.15pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; tab-stops: 82.5pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 6:2</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Therefore when thou doest</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>thine</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">alms, do not sound
a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and in the
streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 6:5</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>are</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and in the corners
of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 9:35</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and preaching the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the
people.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 10:17</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they
will scourge you in their synagogues; </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 23:6</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"></span></sup></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 23:34</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>some</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">of them ye shall kill and crucify; and</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>some</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and persecute</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>them</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">from city to city:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mar 1:39</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he preached in their synagogues </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">throughout all
Galilee, and cast out devils.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mar 12:39</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the chief seats in the synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and the uppermost
rooms at feasts:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mar 13:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and
in the synagogues </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ye shall be
beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a
testimony against them.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Luk 4:28</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And all they in the synagogue, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">when they heard
these things, were filled with wrath,</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Luk 11:43</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the
synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and greetings in
the markets.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Luk 12:11</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And when they bring you unto the synagogues, </span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></a></span></sup></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> and <i>unto
</i>magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall
answer, or what ye shall say</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">:</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Luk 12:12</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">For the Holy Ghost
shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.</span> </b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&c=20&v=46&t=KJV#s=993046"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Luk 20:46</span></a></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings
in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and the chief rooms at feasts;</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Luk 21:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute</span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">you</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, delivering</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>you</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">up to the synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and into prisons,
being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jhn 6:59</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">These things said he in the synagogue, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">as he taught in
Capernaum.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jhn 18:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the
synagogue, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and in the temple,
whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 6:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Then there arose certain of the synagogue, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">which is called</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>the synagogue</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia
and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 9:2</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">that if he found
any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto
Jerusalem.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 9:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <u>that he
is the Son of God</u>.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 17:17</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Therefore disputed he in the synagogue </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">with the Jews, and
with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 18:4</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he reasoned in the synagogue </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">every sabbath, and
persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 18:7</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he departed thence, and entered into a certain</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>man's</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">house, named Justus,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>one</i> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">that worshipped
God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"></span></sup></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 18:19</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into
the synagogue, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and reasoned with
the Jews.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Act 18:26</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4864&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">G4864</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">whom when Aquila
and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>them</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 16:33</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(ABP+)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
these went down,<sup><span style="color: green;">G2597</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
all<sup><span style="color: green;">G3956</span></sup> as many as<sup><span style="color: green;">G3745</span></sup> is<sup><span style="color: green;">G1510.2.3</span></sup>
to them,<sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> alive<sup><span style="color: green;">G2198</span></sup> into<sup><span style="color: green;">G1519</span></sup>
Hades;<sup><span style="color: green;">G86</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> [<sup><span style="color: red;">3</span></sup>covered<sup><span style="color: green;">G2572</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">4</span></sup>them<sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>earth],<sup><span style="color: green;">G1093</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
they were destroyed<sup><span style="color: green;">G622</span></sup> from out of<sup><span style="color: green;">G1537</span></sup> <i><span style="color: grey;">the</span></i>
midst<sup><span style="color: green;">G3319</span></sup> of the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> congregation.<sup><span style="color: green;">G4864</span></sup> </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 16:33</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">into the:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_9:15</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_55:23</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_69:15</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_143:7</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_14:9</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Isa_14:15</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Eze_32:18</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Eze_32:30</span></u></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">they perished:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Jud_1:11</span></u></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">BI</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 16:1-35</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah . . . Dathan, and
Abiram . . . gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah, Dathan, and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The rebels.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Influential.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numerous,</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Deluded—</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">delude
- </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">deceive, take in, cheat, mislead, con, fool,
trick, dupe, hoodwink, pull the wool over somebody's eyes, swindle, con,</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(1)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Concerning Moses, who they
asserted, wrongly, was a self-elected leader and an arbitrary prince.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(2)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Concerning the people, who they assumed (<u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:14</span></u>)
would have willingly followed Moses to the promised land, had he tried to lead
them hither. Self-deceived, and deceiving others.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Their sin. Rebellion
against the authority of God which was invested in Moses.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Cause in Korah (see <u><span style="color: green;">Num_3:30</span></u>);</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> whence
it appears that for some unexplained cause a younger relative was appointed to
the headship of the Kohathites. Korah was descended from the second son of
Kohath (<u><span style="color: green;">Num_6:18</span></u>), whilst the present
head was descended from the fourth son.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Cause in Dathan and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">. The priesthood transferred from the first-born of
every family to one particular tribe, and that a branch of the house of Moses.
But this was done by command of God, not of Moses alone.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Cause in the two hundred and fifty.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Their own <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">assumed</b>
rights might be interfered with, so they thought.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">4. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Cause in their followers.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> General dissatisfaction. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They charged upon Moses the effects of their own selfishness. Pride in
all of them.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Their punishment.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Of Divine selection. Left on both sides to Divine arbitration. On the
part of the rebels, a defiance; on the side of Moses, humble agreement.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Manifest. All should see it, and know thereby the Divine will.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Of Divine infliction. God took the matter into His own hands. It was a
rebellion against Him, more than Moses.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">4. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Terrible.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">5. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Complete.</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">All pertaining to them
perished. God could do without men who had thought so much of themselves.
Learn:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Our God is a consuming fire.”</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> “A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God.”</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Beware of resisting Divine authority. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“How shall ye escape,” &c.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Have we not all rebelled?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">4. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">God was in Christ, making reconciliation, &c<i>. </i>(<i>J. C. Gray</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah, Dathan, and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The particular characters
of these three men, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, are not given in Scripture; but
they seem to represent generally all those who rise up against the powers
ordained of God: Korah the Levite against Aaron; Dathan and Abiram of the tribe
of Reuben against Moses; but both conspiracies being combined together,
indicates that it is the same temper of mind which rejects the ordinances of
God whether it be in Church or State. Their sin was like that of the fallen
angels who from envy, it is supposed, arose against the Son of God. But let us
consider how far the case is applicable to ourselves now; as it is in some
degree peculiar; for Moses and Aaron had their authority all along confirmed of
God by outward signs and miracles. Add to which that their characters were such
as less than any other to justify opposition or envy. For Moses was the meekest
of men; and Aaron was inoffensive in all his conduct toward them. Their
pre-eminence, too, was in hardship rather than in wealth or worldly power: in
journeyings in the wilderness, not in the riches of Canaan. But these
circumstances do not in fact prevent the application to ourselves; for the
Pharisees afterwards had no miracles to prove their authority from God; and
moreover they were great oppressors, covetous and cruel: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">yet our Lord says of them, “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’
seat:</b> all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do”;
and this He says at the very time when He is cautioning His disciples against
their wickedness. They had to obey the ordinance of God, though it had neither
outward sign nor holiness to support it. Nor indeed is the presence of God
denied by the company of Korah as being vouchsafed to them under the guidance
of Moses and Aaron; they say that “the Lord is among them,” as He was seen in
the pillar of fire and the cloud, in the holy tabernacle, in the manna from
heaven: but what they complained of was the want of visible fruits and
enjoyments, “Thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and
honey”; “Wilt thou put out the eyes of these men?” as men may say now, “We see
not our tokens”; where are our spiritual privileges? where is the fulfilment of
all the glorious things which the prophets have spoken of the Christian Church?
But if this case is of universal application and for general warning, then the
question will arise, are there no allowances, no limitations, to be made; and
is there no relief in the case of oppressive governors and bad pastors? must
all resistance be like that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, displeasing to God?
and is it never without sin? Let us consider this a little more particularly.
If such powers are of God, then He gives such as are suitable to the people
over whom they are placed; not necessarily such as they like, but such as are
good for them to have, and such as they deserve. For instance, the Roman
emperors during the early days of Christianity, were many of them monsters of
cruelty and wickedness; but when we come to inquire into the character of the
people over whom they were placed, we find the corruption of morals so deep and
extensive that they were as bad as the tyrants that governed them. And it was
to these Romans and living under some of the worst of these governors that St.
Paul says, “Let every one be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no
power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore
resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” And St. Peter unto
Christians under the same rule, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man
for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors,
as unto them that are sent by Him.” Moreover, in consequence of this, we find
in Scripture that kings and people are often together condemned and visited
alike. Pharaoh and Egypt both together oppressed Israel; both hardened their hearts;
both were cut off together. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The same
order of Divine providence applies also to spiritual governors; it is so with
the Church of God in all times and places; the angels of the Churches and the
Churches themselves are tended on, and in each case addressed together as one
by their Lord, who has the seven stars in His hand, while He walks in the midst
of the seven golden candlesticks. </b>We may therefore consider it as a general
law of God’s providence, that their rulers both spiritual and temporal will be
such as the people are worthy of; that if they need better rulers, the only way
in which this can be produced efficiently and effectively, is by becoming
better themselves. But a case of difficulty which may arise is this, if a
signal repentance should take place among the people, the spirit of grace and
supplication should be poured out upon them, and there should be a general
awakening; then the deficiency of their pastors and rulers will come before
them in a striking light; and then will be their great temptation to take the
amendment of such things into their own hands. But yet not well nor wisely.
Surely no reformation can be equal to that which took place suddenly and
simultaneously, when the disciples of Christ were yet under the Scribes and
Pharisees, yet He said, as they sat in Moses’ seat they must be obeyed. Or
again, when the apostles wrote to Christians, that they must submit themselves
to the powers that be, while those powers were the most corrupt of heathen
governments. It is true that the change had not then become extensive, or
leavened the general state of society, but the law of God’s providence was the
same, for it was the gradual progress of that change which would bring over
them in God’s own good time their own true governors, such as were meet for
them. And in the meanwhile those evil rulers formed a part of that discipline
of faith by which they were perfected and established, being purified thereby
as gold in the fire. Moreover, it is observed that the Church of God has
flourished more under heathen than under its own Christian rulers. This
consideration may allay our impatience; we are at best so weak and frail that
we need the iron rod more than the golden sceptre; in our present state the
Cross is more suited for us than the crown. In prosperity we lean on an arm of
flesh, and are weakened; in adversity we lean on God, and are strengthened. But
then it may be said that there is a case far more grievous than this, that of
evil ministers in the Church itself, whether it be of chief pastors, or of
those in their own nearer and subordinate sphere. These are trials peculiarly
heavy to a good man; and there are some cases which can only be considered as
severe visitations of God, and the scourge of sin. But if God does not afford
the power of remedying this great evil, then the same law of patience must be
applied. In one ruler or pastor you may read God’s wrath, in another His love.
You cannot reject either; take His wrath in meekness, and He may show you His
love. And in the meanwhile, with regard to any particular case of great trial,
we must practise forbearance, and God will remember us in His own good time.
This duty of meekness and patience applies to a case so far as it is one we
cannot remedy, like any evil or scourge that comes to us from God’s hand, we
must take it as our punishment from Him. But then it may be said, when the case
is one that implies grievous sin, an example which dishonours God, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">corrupts Christ’s little ones, and poisons
the fount of life</b>, are we to acquiesce in this? Does not the love of God
constrain us not to resign ourselves to such evil—to lift up our voice and
cry—to move heaven and earth? This is most true: for surely there is a remedy
with God. When He has forbidden one way of redress, He has pointed out another
and a better. Our Lord has pointed out the one and only way, and that is the
way of prayer. He did not even Himself send forth apostles without it. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Many are cast down because the Church is in bonds.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It can neither
appoint for itself suitable pastors, nor set aside evil ministers, nor manage
its own affairs, and the government of it is falling into the hands of its
enemies. </b>But these are not the great evils to be feared; the one great
cause for apprehension is this, whether in the body of the Church at large the
spirit of prayer is sufficiently strong to cast off all these impediments; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">for where prayer is, all such evils from without are thrown off</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">,</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> even as in the spring of
the year nature throws off all the chains of winter. The imprisoned eagle may
even yet soar aloft, and unfold her wing in the free expanse of heaven. (<i>Isaac
Williams, B. D</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah, Dathan, and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I<i>. </i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The sin.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A jealousy of the privileges and positions of God’s appointed
priesthood.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A lack of reverence for sacred things.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">An unauthorised and presumptuous intrusion into Divine mysteries.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The conviction.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Moses acted wisely.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Modestly.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Prudently.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The punishment.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It destroyed the guilty.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It involved the innocent.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It was deterrent in its tendency.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Lessons:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The fatal consequences of extreme irreverence.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Before we find fault with others we should take heed to ourselves.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">All who attempt to get to
heaven through their own efforts, instead of by the merits of the great High
Priest, Jesus Christ, shall share the fate of these wicked men.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (<i>Preacher’s Analyst</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah, Dathan, and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I<i>. </i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram was this: they
were discontented with the arrangement made for public worship by the choosing
out of Aaron and his family to be priests. The argument they used was a very
plausible one, because it depended upon the great truth of the Lord’s being
with all His people, consecrating and sanctifying them all, making them all in
a certain sense holy to the Lord, in a certain sense priests. It also flattered
the vanity of the people, and strengthened them in the notion that they were
oppressed by their rulers.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The answer to this argument was that Moses and Aaron
had not lifted themselves up at all; the Lord had lifted then up. This was the
answer which was ultimately given, with very terrible emphasis, by the
swallowing up of Korah and his company. Korah and his company had laid great
stress on the fact that all the congregation of the Lord were holy. Moses and
Aaron might very well have replied, that they for their part by no means
questioned the fact. Moses had never represented the choice of Aaron and his
family as a declaration that they only of the people were holy. Nothing could
be a greater mistake on the part of the people than to take this view of the
priestly consecration.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Between our own priesthood and that of the Israelites
there is still the great common ground of ministry before God in behalf of
others which must be at the basis of every religion. Hence both priest and people
may learn a lesson. The priest may learn that his office does not imply that he
is holier or better than his brethren, but that it does imply greater
responsibility, greater opportunities of good, greater sin if he does evil. And
the people may learn to be gentle and considerate to those who are over them in
the Lord, not to be ready to find fault and condemn, but rather to be
charitable, and forbearing, and gentle. (<i>Bp. Harvey Goodwin</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah, Dathan, and Abiram</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">God has brought the
Israelites out of Egypt. One of the first lessons which they have to learn is,
that freedom does mean license and discord—does not mean every one doing that
which is right in his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division,
quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole
people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and
lasting freedom; and therefore order must be kept at all risks, the law obeyed,
and rebellion punished. Now rebellion ought to be punished far more severely in
some cases than in others. If men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we
smile at them, and let them off with a slight imprisonment, because we are not
afraid of them. They can do no harm. Bat there are cases.in which rebellion
must be punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board a ship at sea, for
instance, where the safety of the whole ship, the lives of the whole crew,
depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot. And
so it was with the Israelites in the desert. All depended on their obedience.
The word must be, Obey or die. As for any cruelty in putting Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram to death, it was worth the death of a hundred such—or a thousand—to
preserve the great and glorious nation of the Jews to be the teachers of the
world. Moses was not their king. God brought them out of Egypt, God was their
king. That was the lesson which they had to learn, and to teach other nations
also. And so not Moses, but God must punish, and show that He is not a dead,
but a living God, who can defend Himself, and enforce His own laws, and execute
judgment, without needing any man to fight His battles for Him. And God does
so. The powers of nature—the earthquake and the nether fire—shall punish these
rebels; and so they do. Men have thought differently of the story; but I call
it a righteous story, and one which agrees with my conscience, and my reason,
and my experience also of the way in which God’s world is governed until this
day. What, then, are we to think of the earth opening and swallowing them up?
This first. That discipline and order are so absolutely necessary for the
well-being of a nation that they must be kept at all risks, and enforced by the
most terrible punishments. But how hard, some may think, that the wives and the
children should suffer for their parents’ sins. We do not know that a single
woman or child died then for whom it was not better that he or she should die.
And next—what is it, after all, but what we see going on round us all the day
long? God does visit the sins of the fathers on the children. But there was
another lesson, and a deep lesson, in the earthquake and in the fire. “Who
sends the earthquake and the fire? Do they come from the devil—the destroyer?
Do they come by chance, from some brute and blind powers of nature?” This
chapter answers, “No; they come from the Lord, from whom all good things do
come; from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt; who so loved the
world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us.”
Now I say that is a gospel which we want now as much as ever men did; which the
children of Israel wanted then, though not one whit more than we. You cannot
read your Bibles without seeing how that great lesson was stamped into the very
hearts of the Hebrew prophets; how they are continually speaking of the fire
and the earthquake, and yet continually declaring that they too obey God and do
God’s will, and that the man who fears God need not fear them—that God was
their hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore would they
not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea. And we, too, need the same lesson in these scientific
days. We too need to fix it in our hearts, that the powers of nature are the
powers of God; that He orders them by His providence to do what He will, and
when and where He will; that, as the Psalmist says, the winds are His
messengers and the flames of fire His ministers. And this we shall learn from
the Bible, and from no other book whatsoever. God taught the Jews this by a
strange and miraculous education, that they might teach it in their turn to all
mankind. (<i>C. Kingsley, M. A</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Korah</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">God was pleased under the
old, as He has done under the present dispensation, to constitute the
priesthood of His Church, in accordance with that principle of orderly
arrangement which runs through all His ways, in a threefold order, with a
regular distribution and gradation of powers from the lowest to the highest.
But the wisdom of men does not quietly acquiesce in God’s wisdom when it goes
counter to the interests, impulses, and aspirations of self-love. Men are
easily brought to doubt the divinity of a system that sets others over them,
and assigns them only an inferior station, even though that be honourable and
good. The spirit of discontent and rebellion broke out even in the life of
Aaron, and during the sojourn in the wilderness. Even thus early did the
presumption of man dare to criticise and amend the institutions of God, and
under the guise of a zeal for liberty and for right, the favourite pretext of
ambition and selfishness, to break the order which God had established, and
substitute devices of its own creation. Korah was a Levite, but he aspired also
to be a priest, and could not acquiesce in those limitations, which, what he
may have called the accident of birth and the arbitrary restraints of the Law,
imposed upon him. And he easily drew to him associates in his nefarious
enterprise. The sedition was wide-spread, and threatened the most fatal
consequences. Jealousy of power and place is contagious, and always finds an
answering sentiment in many hearts. Broach it once among any body of men, and
it will run “like sparks among the stubble.” Equality and the lowering of
eminence and distinction, and disregard of law, are popular doctrines, and
easily clothe themselves in specious forms. It is alleged that all society is
sacred; there is, there ought to be, no special sacredness in any in eminent
place, which inferiors in office or men in private condition are bound to
recognise and respect. Thus the bonds of social order in the Church, in the
State, are loosened and destroyed. We stand on the dignity of human nature, and
the spiritual equality of all Christians: we can have no rulers, we will brook
no superiors, we will obey no restrictions—the spurious pleas of presumptuous
self-will and ambition, in the State and in the Church, in all ages. God,
however, quickly interfered in this instance, to vindicate and protect His own
appointments, and keep that sacred polity which His wisdom had provided for His
Church from being trampled on and destroyed. What, then, is this “gainsaying of
Core” to us? and what may we learn from it that is profitable for admonition
and instruction in righteousness?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">We learn the sacredness of the ministry, and of its divinely appointed
order Every man was to know his place and to keep it, and to do the duty of his
place and none other, and not, on some specious plea of a higher fitness or a
larger usefulness, intrude on work which God had given to others. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Now, here are great principles, and these
are applicable to the Church in all her periods and in all her forms. There is
a ministry now in the Church, and it is there not because man made it, but God.
“Let a man,” says St. Paul, “so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ,
and stewards of the mysteries of God.”</b> They hold their place, if they are
really anything at all, by a <i>Divine </i>commission. Without a ministry
recognised as truly Divine, there will never be religious stability, nor long,
religious life and true Christian morals. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And when these are gone,
civil liberty and political order will not last long. And the first, the fatal
step towards these dreadful losses is taken when that constitution of the
ministry which Christ appointed is changed, and the sacred office begins to be
looked upon as a thing which men may mould and alter to their convenience and
their fancy</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">But we must spare a little space for the broader lesson which this “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">gainsaying of Core” teaches us, namely,
that in the social system, we all, ministers and laymen, especially ministers,
have our place, which is appointed us of God, and our true wisdom and happiness
lie in knowing what it is, and keeping in it.</b> Korah had a place, and a very
good place, but he did not like it. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He
sought a better by unlawful means, and he lost all, and “left his name for a
curse unto God’s chosen.”</b> He forgot that God had assigned him his place,
and that contentment in it was a part of his religious obedience, the service
that God required at his hands. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">How full this world is of restless and uncomfortable aspirings!</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Men see around
them higher places, happier ones as they think; places that are certainly
grander, that shine more, that seem to contain a greater plenitude of good, and
to open larger sources of pleasure and enjoyment. They are discontented. They
are envious. They get very little comfort from what they have by reason of
their uneasy hankerings after what they have not.</b> The true antidote of this
great evil is faith; faith in God and in His overruling Providence; faith in
the Divine order into which we find ourselves wrought, faith in the social
economy under which we live as a Divine structure and appointment; faith in our
own assignment to that place and those relations in it, which, whatever we may
think of them, are the mind of God concerning us, the work of that great
fashioning Hand which “ordereth all things in heaven and earth,” and which
appoints to all inferior agents their place and their work, not in caprice, not
in cruelty, not in partiality, not in a reckless disregard of their rights and
their welfare, but in wisdom, in equity, in benevolence, for His glory and the
greatest good of the greatest number of His creatures. (<i>R. A. Hallam, D. D</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Whatsoever evil men do, they are ready to justify it</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">When evil men have committed evil, they are
ready to justify their evils that they may seem good.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> We see this in Saul, <u><span style="color: green;">1Sa_13:11</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">1Sa_31:12</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">1Sa_15:15</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Joh_12:5-6</span></u>. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Judas pretended the poor and his great care of them; albeit he cared
not for them, but for himself.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">For men are affected to their actions as they are to themselves. Though
they be corrupt, yet they would not be thought to be so; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and therefore they seek excuses for themselves, as Adam did fig leaves
to cover his shame and his sin.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">If they should pretend
nothing, all would be ready to condemn them; therefore, to blind the eyes of
others, they cast a mist before them as jugglers used to do that they may not
be espied</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Uses:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This serveth to reprove
divers sorts that go about to varnish their actions with false colours, thereby
to blind the world and to put out their eyes. These show themselves to be rank
hypocrites.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">We are to judge no
otherwise of all such as transgress the law of God, whatsoever their
allegations be. How many men are there that think even palpable sins to be no
sins at all, because they can blanch and colour them over!</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (<i>W. Attersoll</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Elevated character
exposed to violence</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Some years ago I went to
see the lighthouse which, standing on Dunnet Head—the Cape Orcas of the
Romans—guards the mouth of the Pentland Firth. On ascending the tower, I
observed the thick plate-glass windows of the lanthorn cracked—starred in a
number of places. I turned to the keeper for an explanation. It appears that is
done by stones flung up by the sea. The wave, on being thrown forward against
the cliff, strikes it with such tremendous force as to hurl the loose stones at
its base right up to the height of 300 feet. So are the great light-bearers, by
the exposure of their position, and in spite of the elevation of their
character, liable to be cracked and starred by the violence of the world. (<i>T.
Guthrie</i>.)<br />
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<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Seek ye the priesthood also?<i>—</i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Wicked ambition faith fully rebuked</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The greatness of the privileges conferred upon the
Levites.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The unrighteousness of the ambition cherished by them.
Their ambition involved—</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The disparagement of their present privileges. Their privileges “seemed
but a small thing unto them.” Great as they were, they did not satisfy them.
“Ambition,” says Trapp, “is restless and unsatisfiable; for, like the
crocodile, it grows as long as it lives.”</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Interference in the
Divine arrangements. “Seek ye the priesthood also?”</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The heinousness of the rebellion in which they
engaged. Moses points out to them concerning their rebellion that—</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It was unreasonable. “What is Aaron that ye murmur against him?” The
high priest was merely an instrument in the hand of the Lord.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It was exceedingly
sinful. “Thou and all thy company are gathered together against the Lord.”
“Those resist the prince who resist those that are commissioned by him” (comp. <u><span style="color: green;">Mat_10:40</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Joh_13:20</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Act_9:4</span></u>).</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Conclusion:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Let us crush every rising of ambition which is not in harmony with wisdom
and righteousness.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Let us seek to give to our ambition a righteous and noble direction. (<i>W.
Jones</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The privileges of the
Levites</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1<i>. </i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They were separated from the congregation of Israel, distinguished from
them, dignified above them; instead of complaining that Aaron’s family was
advanced above theirs, they ought to be thankful that their tribe was advanced
above, the rest of the tribes, though they had been in all respects upon the
level with them. Note, it will help to keep us from envying those that are
above us, duly to consider how many there are above whom we are placed. Many
perhaps who deserve better are not preferred so well.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They were separated to very great and valuable honours.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(1)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> To draw near to God, nearer than common Israelites, though they also
were a people near unto Him : the nearer any are to God, the greater is their
honour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(2)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> To do the service of the tabernacle. It is honour enough to bear the
vessels of the sanctuary, and to be employed in any part of the service of the
tabernacle; God’s service is not only perfect freedom, but high preferment.
Note, those are truly great that serve the public, and it is the honour of
God’s ministers to be the Church’s ministers: nay (which adds to the dignity
put upon them),</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(3)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> It was the God of Israel Himself that separated them. It was His act
and deed to put them in their place, and therefore they ought not to be
discontented with that; and He it was likewise that put Aaron into his place,
and therefore they ought not to envy that.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">He convicts them of the sin of under valuing these privileges, “Seemeth
it a small thing unto you?” It ill becomes you, of all men, to grudge Aaron the
priesthood, when at the same time that he was advanced to that honour, you were
designed to another honour dependent upon it, and shine with rays borrowed from
him. Note:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(1)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> The privilege of drawing near to the God of Israel is not a small thing
in itself, and therefore must not seem small to us. To those who neglect
opportunities of drawing near to God, who are careless and formal in it, to
whom it is a task, and not a pleasure, we may properly put this question,
Seemeth it a small thing to you that God has made you a people near unto Him?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(2)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Those who aspire and usurp the honours forbidden them, put a great
contempt upon the honours allowed them. We have each of us as good a share of
reputation as God sees fit for us, and sees us fit for, and much better than we
deserve; and we ought to rest satisfied With it, and not as these here,
exercise ourselves in things too high for us: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Seek ye the priesthood also?”</b> They would not own that they sought
it, but Moses saw that in their eye: the law had provided very well for those
that served at the altar, and therefore they would put in for the office.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">4. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">He interprets their mutiny to be a rebellion
against God (<u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:1</span></u>).</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">While
they pretended to assert the holiness and liberty of the Israel of God, they
really took up arms against the God of Israel: “Ye are gathered together
against the Lord.” Note, those that strive against God’s ordinances and
providences, whatever they pretend, and whether they are aware of it or no, do
indeed strive with their Maker.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Those resist the prince who resist those that
are commissioned by him. For alas! saith Moses, “What is Aaron that ye murmur
against him?” If murmurers and complainers would consider that the instruments
they quarrel with are but instruments whom God employs, and that they are but
what He makes them, and neither more nor less, better nor worse, they would not
be so bold and free in their censures and reproaches as they are. They that
found the priesthood, as it was settled, a blessing, must give all the praise
to God; but if any thought it a burden, they must not therefore quarrel with
Aaron, who is but what he is made, and doth as he is bidden. Thus he interested
God in the cause, and so might be sure of speeding well in his appeal. (<i>Matthew
Henry, D. D</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Separation for nearness
to God</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I<i>. </i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">God’s separation of His servants.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The demand for this may come with the first Divine call of which the
soul is conscious. To one living a worldly life there comes a conviction of the
folly of this, which is really a Divine call to rise and pass from it, through
surrender to Christ, to the number of the redeemed. But that call is not easy
to obey at first. The influences under which we have grown hold us where we
are; aims to which we have been devoted, and in which we have much at stake,
refuse to be lightly abandoned; old associations and pleasures throw their arms
about us, like the family of Bunyan’s pilgrim, detaining us when we would flee;
the world’s beauty blinds us to the greater beauty of the spiritual, and we
fear to cast ourselves into the unknown.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This demand is repeated by God’s constant requirement of His people. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For it is the law of spiritual life to “die
daily,” to “crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts”; and what is that
but to sever ourselves for Christ’s sake from objects to which the natural man
would cleave!</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And this demand of God is supplemented by His frequent providence. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He calls us to voluntary separation, He
also separates us whether we will or no. Evidently spiritual life needs much
loneliness.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This separation is for nearness to Himself.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">For apprehending God, we need separation from what is wrong. Every
turning, however little, towards the world from the demand of conscience is a
turning a little more away from God, till He is behind us and we lose sight of
Him, and live as though He were not. Yea, sin not only turns the back on Him, it
dims the eye to the spiritual so that though He stand before us we are blind to
His presence.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Besides this, for communion with God we need separation from engrossing
scenes and tasks. “How rare it is,” said Fenelon, “to find a soul still enough
to hear God speak!”</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Moreover, for God’s tenderest ministry we need separation from other
joys.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This is the answer to the spirit of murmuring. Then is
the time to think how we are separated for nearness to God, and to hear the
question in the text, “Seemeth it but a small thing unto you?”</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Let it comfort us in enforced severance from what we love. When we
reflect on what we are severed from, let us reflect on the rare
compensation—what we are severed to. God is the sum of joy, it is heaven to
serve Him and to see His face, all else is nothing compared with conscious
nearness to Him, and that is our desire and prayer.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Let this impel us to seek Divine nearness in the time of our separation.
For nearness has not always followed separation in our experience: on the
contrary, the seasons of isolation we have referred to have sometimes left us
farther from God than we were. May not that be due to the fact that fellowship
with Him requires that we go to Him for reception?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And let this give us victory over the temptation to cleave to evil. For
when we first hear the call to relinquish sin the demand seems too great, as
though we were to leave all for nothing. And after our Christian course has
begun, it seems impossible to give up many an object we suddenly find
forbidden. From what, then, we are called to leave, let us turn to think of
what we are called to have. “Fear not, Abram,” God said to the patriarch, who
had refused the spoil at the slaughter of the kings, “Fear not, Abram, I am thy
exceeding great reward!” And so He says to us, adding, as we waver, Lovest thou
these more than Me; are they more to you than My favour, My fellowship, Myself?
(<i>C. New</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The greater our means are
to prevent sin, the more we offend if we reject those means</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">We learn hereby that the
more helps we have to prevent sin, the greater our sin is if we break these
bands and east these cords from us. The sins of the Israelites are often
aggravated, because the Lord had sent His prophets among them (<u><span style="color: green;">Jer_7:13-14</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Jer_11:7-8</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Jer_35:14</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_78:17</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_78:31</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_78:35</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_78:56</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Mat_11:21-24</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Dan_9:5-6</span></u>). The reasons:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">First, because those men sin against knowledge, having the Word to
inform them and their own consciences to convince them.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Secondly, it argueth obstinacy of heart; they have many strokes given
them, but they feel none of them. For such as transgress in the midst of those
helps that serve to restrain sin do not sin of infirmity, but of wilfulness. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Now, the more wilful a man is, the more
sinful he is.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Uses:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This convinceth our times of much sinfulness, and in these times some
places, and in those places sundry persons to be greater sinners than others.
And why greater? Because our times have had more means to keep from sin than
other times have had. What hath not God done for us and to us to reclaim us?
Thus do we turn our blessings to be our bane, and God’s mercies to be curses
upon us.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Secondly, it admonisheth all that enjoy the means of preventing sin as
benefits and blessings, the Scriptures and Word of God, His corrections, His
promises and threatenings, His patience and longsufferance, that they labour to
make profit by them and to fulfil all righteousness, lest God account their sin
greater than others.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">3. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Lastly, learn from hence that the Word is
never preached in vain, whether we be converted by it or not (see <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_55:10-11</span></u>).</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (<i>W. Attersoll</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Every man in his place</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">In all the departments of
life there are men who are as Moses and Aaron. Take any department of life that
may first occur to the imagination. Shall we say the department of commerce?
Even in the market-place we have Moses and Aaron, and they cannot be deposed.
Where is the man who thinks he could not conduct the largest business in the
city? Yet the poor cripple could not conduct it, and the greatest punishment
that could befall the creature would be to allow him to attempt to rule a large
and intricate commercial concern. But it seems to be hard for a man to see some
other man at the very head of commercial affairs whose word is law, whose
signature amounts to a species of sovereignty, and to know that all the while
he, the observer, is, in his own estimation, quite as good a man—a person of
remarkable capacity, and he is only waiting for an opportunity to wear a nimbus
of glory—a halo of radiance—that would astound the exchanges of the world. But
it cannot be done. There are great business men and small business men: there
are wholesale men and retail men, and neither the wholesale nor the retail
affects the quality of the man’s soul, or the destiny of the man’s spirit; but,
as a matter of fact, these distinctions are made, and they are not arbitrary:
in the spirit of them there is a Divine presence. If men could believe this,
they would be comforted accordingly. Every preacher knows in his inmost soul that
he is fit to be the Dean of St. Paul’s, or the Dean of Westminster—every
preacher knows that; but to be something less—something officially lower—and
yet to accept the inferior position with a contentment which is inspired by
faith in God, is the very conquest of the Spirit of heaven in the heart of man,
is a very miracle of grace. (<i>J. Parker, D. D</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Leaders of disaffection</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It is always a most
critical moment in the history of an assembly when a spirit of disaffection
displays itself; for, if it be not met in the right way, the most disastrous
consequences are sure to follow. There are materials in every assembly capable
of being acted upon, and it only needs some restless master spirit to arise, in
order to work on such materials, and fan into a devouring flame the fire that
has been smouldering in secret. There are hundreds and thousands ready to flock
around the standard of revolt, when once it has been raised, who have neither
the vigour nor the courage to raise it themselves. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is not every one that Satan will take up as an instrument in such
work. It needs a shrewd, clever, energetic man—a man of moral power—one
possessing influence over the minds of his fellows, and an iron will to carry
forward his schemes.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">No doubt Satan
infuses much of all these into the men whom he uses in his diabolical
undertakings.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">At all events, we
know, as a fact, that the great leaders in all rebellious movements are
generally men of master minds, capable of swaying, according to their own will,
the fickle multitude, which, like the ocean, is acted upon by every stormy wind
that blows. </b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Such men know how, in the first place, to stir the
passions of the people; and, in the second place, how to wield them when
stirred.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Their most potent
agency—the lever with which they can most effectually raise the masses—is some
question as to their liberty and their rights. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If they can only succeed in persuading people that their liberty is
curtailed, and their rights infringed, they are sure to gather a number of
restless spirits around them, and do a vast deal of serious mischief.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(<i>C. H. Mackintosh</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Discontent a rebellion
against God</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">God counts it rebellion (cf. <u><span style="color: green;">Num_17:10</span></u>).</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Murmuring is but as the smoke of a fire; there is first a smoke and a
smother before the flame breaks forth: and so before open rebellion in a
kingdom there is first a smoke of murmuring, and then it breaks forth into open
rebellion. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Because it has rebellion in
the seeds of it, it is counted before the Lord to be rebellion. </b>When thou
feelest thy heart discontented and murmuring against the dispensation of God
toward thee, thou shouldest check thy heart thus: “Oh! thou wretched heart!
What I wilt thou be a rebel against God?” (<i>J. Burroughs</i>.)<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Fatal discontent</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A fern told me that it
was too bad to be always shut up in a shady place, and float; it wanted to grow
beside the red rose in the garden. The fern said, “I have as much right to be
out in the sunshine as the rose has, and I will be out.” I transplanted the
little malcontent, and in one hot day the sun struck it dead with his dart of
fire. Now, if we be where Christ means us to be, in shade or in light, and will
grow according to His will, it shall be well with us, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but if we touch that which is forbidden, we shall be made to remember
that it is written, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die.”</b> (<i>J. Parker, D. D</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Every man should walk as
he is called of God</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">As in an orchard there is
variety of fruit, apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, &c., and every tree
endeavours to suck juice answerable to his kind, that it may bear such a fruit;
and an apple tree doth not turn a plum tree, nor a plum tree a cherry tree,
&c.; but every tree contents itself to be of its own kind: so in the Church
and commonwealth there are varieties of callings, pastors, people, magistrates,
subjects; some higher, some lower. And here now every man is to walk as he is
called of God, and learn what belongs thereunto, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not to encroach or intermeddle with that which belongs to others: for
the saying of that Roman general to the soldier that kept the tents, when he
should have been fighting in the field,</b> <i>“Non amo nimium diligentem,” </i>will
be one day used of God, if He calls us to one possession, and we busy ourselves
about another; if He set us on foot, and we will be on horseback; if He make us
subjects, and we must needs be superiors. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>God
will not be pleased with such busybodies.</u></b> (<i>J</i>. <i>Spencer</i>.)<br />
<br />
</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: #FFFBEC; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: #FFFBEC; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"prying, meddlesome"</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="background: #FFFBEC; color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> interfering, intrusive, meddling, nosy, officious, prying,
bossy, bureaucratic, self-important, overbearing, interfering, intrusive, fussy,
"adherent of a pragmatic philosophy"). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">hard-headed, hard-nosed, shrewd, stubborn, intolerant, cruel, brutal, pitiless,
merciless, callous, cold-blooded, unfeeling, hard-hearted, heartless,</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Respect not Thou their
offering.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The resentment of Moses
against sinners</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Moses, though the meekest
man, yet finding God reproached in him, was very wroth; he could not bear to
see a people ruining themselves for whose salvation he had done so much. In
this discomposure—</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">He appeals to God concerning his own integrity; whereas they basely
reflected upon him as ambitious, covetous, and oppressive in making himself a
prince over them. God was his witness—</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(1)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> That he never got anything by them: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I have not taken one ass from them,”</b> not only not by way of
bribery and extortion, but not by way of recompense and gratuity for all the
good offices he had done them; he never took the pay of a general, or salary of
a judge, much less the tribute of a prince. He got more in his estate when he
kept Jethro’s flock than since he came to be king in Jeshurun.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(2)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> That they never lost anything by him: “Neither have I hurt any one of
them,” no, not the least, no, not the worst, no, not those that had been most
peevish and provoking to him. He never abused his power to the support of
wrong. Note, those that have never blemished themselves need not fear being
blemished. When men condemn us we may be easy, if our hearts condemn us not.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">He begs of God to plead his cause and clear him by showing His
displeasure at the incense which Korah and his company were to offer, with whom
Dathan and Abiram were in confederacy. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Lord,”
said he, “respect not Thou their offering.”</b> Wherein he seems to refer to
the history of Cain, lately written by his own hand, of whom it is said that to
him and his offering God had not respect (<u><span style="color: green;">Gen_4:4</span></u>).
These that followed the gainsaying of Korah walked in the way of Cain (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">they are put together, Jude verse 11</b>),
and therefore he prays they might be frowned upon as Cain was, and put to the
same confusion. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(<i>Matthew Henry, D. D</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A fire from the Lord<i>.—</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Presumptuous service</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">No man is indispensable
to God. These men had no business to offer incense. God will not have the order
of the Church or the order of the universe disturbed without penalty. Things are
all fixed, whether you like it or not; the bounds of our habitation are fixed.
He who would upset any axiom of God always goes down into the pit, the earth
opens and swallows him up. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">That will be
so until the end of time.</b> It is so in literature, it is so in housekeeping,
it is so in statesmanship, it is so in preaching. The whole order of creation
is God’s; why can we not simply, lovingly accept it, and say, Good is the will
of the Lord? Why this chafing against the bars of the cage? Why this discontent
with the foundations of things? The Lord placed me here, it is the only place I
am fit for, or I have been qualified by Divine compassion and love for this
position: good is the will of the Lord! Better that incense be not offered than
that it be offered by unworthy hands. There is really nothing in the incense;
it is in the motive, in the purpose, it is in the honest handling of the
censer, that good is done by any service or by any ceremony. No bad man can
preach. He can talk, he can say beautiful words, but he does not preach so as
to get at the heart and at the conscience, and so as to bless all the deeper
and inner springs of human life and human hope. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Officialism is not piety</b>. A man may have a censer, and yet have no
right to it. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A man may be robed in the
clothes of the Church, but be naked before heaven, and be regarded by high
heaven as a violator and an intruder.</b> Whoever uses a censer gives himself
more or less of publicity: by so much does he become a leader; and by so much
as a man is a leader does God’s anger burn hotly against him <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">when he prostitutes his leadership.</b> How
many men were there? Two hundred and fifty. That was a great numerical loss.
Yes, it was: but numerical losses may be moral gains. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The congregation must be weighed as well as numbered. Some churches
would be fuller if they were emptier. The Church of Christ would be stronger
to-day if all nominal professors were shed off, if the earth would open and
swallow them up every one.</b> These were two hundred and fifty trespassers.
Whatever they were outside the Church, they had no right to be within it in the
sense which they now represent by this action. No true man was ever cut off,
let me say again and again. The whole emphasis is upon the word “true.” He may
not be a great man or a brilliant man, he may be nothing of a genius, but if he
be true, that is the only genius God desiderates as fundamental and permanent.
(<i>J. Parker, D. D</i>.)</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Num&c=16&v=34&t=KJV#s=133034"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Num 16:34</span></a></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And all Israel
that <i>were</i> round about them fled at the cry of them: for they
said, <u>Lest the earth swallow us up </u></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>also</i></span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 16:34</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">fled:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_33:3</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Zec_14:5</span></u>; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rev_6:15-17</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Lest:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Num_17:12-13</span></u></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rev 6:15</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief
captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hid themselves in <u>the dens</u> <u>and in
the rocks of the mountains</u>; </b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">see cavern</span></b></div>
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=character&allowed_in_frame=0"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">character (n.)</span></a></span></b></i><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></b></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">mid-14c., carecter,
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">symbol marked or branded on the
body</b>;" mid-15c., "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">symbol
or drawing used in sorcery,"</b> from Old French caratere "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">feature, character</b>" (13c., Modern
French caractère), from Latin character, from
Greek kharakter "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">engraved
mark," also "symbol or imprint on the soul," also
"instrument for marking,"</b> from kharassein "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to engrave</b>,"
from kharax "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pointed
stake,"</b> from PIE root *gher- "to scrape, scratch."
Meaning extended in ancient times by metaphor to "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a defining quality."</b></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You
remember Eponina, who kept her husband alive in an underground cavern so
devotedly and heroically? The force of character she showed in keeping up his
spirits would have been used to hide a lover from her husband if they had been
living quietly in Rome. Strong characters need strong nourishment.
[Stendhal "de l'Amour," 1822]</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Meaning
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">sum of qualities that define a
person</b>" is from 1640s. Sense of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">person in a play or novel"</b> is first attested 1660s, in
reference to the "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">defining
qualities" he or she is given by the author. </b>Meaning "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a person</b>" in the abstract is from
1749; especially "eccentric person" (1773). Colloquial sense of
"chap, fellow" is from 1931. The Latin ch- spelling was
restored from 1500s. Character actor attested from 1861; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">character</b> assassination from
1888; character-building (n.) from 1886.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">makeup, creature,
person, individual, charm, appeal, eccentric, oddball, personality,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hell&allowed_in_frame=0"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">hell (n.)</span></a></span></b></i><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Old
English hel, helle, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"nether
world, abode of the dead, infernal regions," </b>from
Proto-Germanic *haljo "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the
underworld</b>" (cf. Old Frisian helle, Dutch hel, Old
Norse hel, GermanHölle, Gothic halja "hell") "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the underworld," literally
"concealed place"</b> (cf. Old Norse hellir "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cave, cavern</b>"), from
PIE *kel- "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to cover,
conceal, save" (see </b></span></i><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cell&allowed_in_frame=0"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">cell</span></a></span></b></i><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">).<br />
</span></b></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
The English word may be in part from Old Norse Hel (from
Proto-Germanic *halija "one who covers up or hides
something"), in Norse mythology the name of Loki's daughter, who rules
over the evil dead in Niflheim, the lowest of all worlds (nifl "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">mist</b>"). </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Transfer of a pagan concept
and word to a Christian idiom. In Middle English, also of the Limbus
Patrum, place where the Patriarchs, Prophets, etc. awaited the Atonement. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Used in the KJV for Old Testament
Hebrew Sheol and New Testament Greek Hades, Gehenna.</b>
Used figuratively for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"state of
misery, any bad experience"</b> since at least late 14c. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">As an expression of disgust, etc.,</b>
first recorded 1670s.<br />
<br />
Expression Hell in a handbasket is attested by 1867, in a context
implying use from a few years before, and the notion of going to Heaven in a
handbasket is from 1853, with a sense of "easy passage" to the
destination. Hell or high water (1874) apparently is a variation
of between the devil and the deep blue sea. To wish someone would go
to hell is in Shakespeare ("Merchant of Venice"). Snowball's
chance in hell "no chance" is from 1931; till hell freezes
over "never" is from 1832. To ride hell for leather is
from 1889, originally with reference to riding on horseback. Hell on
wheels is said to be from 1843 in DAS; popularity dates from 1869 in
reference to the temporary workers' towns along the U.S. transcontinental
railroad and their vices.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>see den</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Old Testament (Hebrew) for</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"den"</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H695</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">'ereb</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">lie in wait,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1358</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">gob (Aramaic)</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H3975</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mĕuwrah</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4492</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">minharah</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4583</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ma`own</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">habitation, dwelling,</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, dwelling place, dwellingplace</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">see also</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Eph 2:22</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;">In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation <sup><span style="color: #9e0b0f; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">G2732</span></sup> of God
through the Spirit.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <span style="color: #39547f;">Rev 18:2</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, <u>Babylon the great is
fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation </u></span></b><b><u><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G2732</span></sup></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> of devils</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">see habitation</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ecumenical (adj.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">late 16c., "representing
the entire (Christian) world," formed in English as an ecclesiastical
word, from Late Latin <i>oecumenicus</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>general, universal</u></b>," from Greek <i>oikoumenikos</i>,
from <i>he oikoumene ge</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the inhabited world</b> (as known to the ancient Greeks); the Greeks
and their neighbors considered as developed human society," <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">from <i>oikoumenos</i>, present
passive participle of <i>oikein</i></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"inhabit," from <i>oikos</i> "house,
habitation"</b> (see </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=villa&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">villa</span></i></b></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></b></i><i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">"master
of the house"</span></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">catholic (adj.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mid-14c., "of the
doctrines of the ancient Church," literally "universally
accepted," from French <i>catholique</i>, from Church Latin <i>catholicus</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">universal, general,"</b> from Greek<i>katholikos</i>,
from phrase <i>kath' holou</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">on the whole, in general,</b>" from <i>kata</i> "about"
+ genitive of <i>holos</i> "whole" (see </span><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">safe</span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (adj.)). Applied to the
Church in Rome c.1554, after the Reformation began. General sense of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of interest to all, universal</b>" is
from 1550s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Universal </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">- common, for all, widespread,
broad, broad-spectrum, wide-ranging, all-purpose, all-encompassing, marked, mark,
blot spot blotch scratch smudge smear stain stain sign indication feature characteristic
symbol indicator indicate denote be a sign of celebrate commemorate collective,
total, entire, complete, unanimous, undisputed,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">common (adj.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">c.1300, "belonging to
all, general," from Old French <i>comun</i> "common,
general, free, open, public" (9c., Modern French <i>commun</i>), from
Latin <i>communis</i> "in common, public, shared by all or many;
general, not specific; familiar, not pretentious," from PIE <i>*ko-moin-i-</i> "held
in common," compound adjective formed from <i>*ko-</i> "together"
+ <i>*moi-n-</i>, suffixed form of root <i>*mei-</i> "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">change, exchange"</b> (see </span><b><i><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mutable</span></u></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">), hence literally
"shared by all." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #FFFBEC; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoQuote">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #800020; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jesuit</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoQuote">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: SV;">1540s, from Modern
Latin Jesuita, member of the Society of Jesus, founded 1533 by
Ignatius Loyola to combat Protestantism. Their enemies (in both Catholic and
Protestant lands) accused them of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">belief
that ends justify means, hence the sense "a dissembling person"</b>
(1630s), and jesuitical "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">deceitful</b>"
(1610s).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4585</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">m@`ownah</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, place, dwelling
place, refuge, habitation</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4631</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">m@`arah</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">cave,</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, holes</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H5520</span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">cok</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, pavilion, tabernacle, covert</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">New Testament (Greek) for</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"den"</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4693</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">spēlaion</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">den</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, cave</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Easton</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Den:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
<div style="background: #F9FAFB; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 9.0pt 13.0pt;">
<div class="eindenta" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 9.0pt 13.0pt; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<br /></div>
<div class="eindenta" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 9.0pt 13.0pt; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">a
lair of wild beasts (<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Psa 10:9</span>;<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">104:22</span>;<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Job 37:8</span>); the hole of a
venomous reptile (<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Isa 11:8</span>); a recess for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">secrecy</b> "in dens and caves of the earth" (<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Hbr
11:38</span>); <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a resort of thieves</b> (<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Mat
21:13</span>;<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Mar
11:17</span>). </span></div>
<div class="eindenta" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 9.0pt 13.0pt; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<br /></div>
<div class="eindenta" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 9.0pt 13.0pt; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Daniel
was cast into "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the den of lions</b>"
(<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">Dan 6:16</span>,<span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 0cm;">17</span>). Some recent discoveries among the
ruins of Babylon have brought to light the fact that the practice of punishing
offenders against the law by throwing them into a den of lions was common.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #6980A3; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid #526B95 .75pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid #355488 .75pt; mso-outline-level: 1; mso-padding-alt: 3.0pt 6.0pt 2.0pt 6.0pt; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words</span></b></div>
</div>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt; width: 22.5pt;" valign="top" width="30"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">1</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<td style="border-left: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Strong's
Number:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <span style="color: #39547f; font-variant: small-caps;">g3692</span></span></div>
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<td style="border-left: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;" valign="top"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Greek:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>ope</i></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Cave:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">perhaps from <i>ops</i>,
"sight," denotes "a hole, an opening," such as a fissure in
a rock, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Hbr&c=11&v=38#s=1144038"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Hbr 11:38</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">. In </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jam&c=3&v=11#s=1149011"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Jam 3:11</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, the RV has "opening," of the orifice of a fountain (AV,
"place"). </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><br />
See </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">PLACE</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">.</span></div>
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<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt; width: 22.5pt;" valign="top" width="30"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">2</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Strong's
Number:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <span style="color: #39547f; font-variant: small-caps;">g4693</span></span></div>
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<td style="border-left: none; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid black .25pt; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;" valign="top"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: right;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Greek:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>spelaion</i></span></div>
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</tbody></table>
<div style="background: #F9FAFB; border: solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Cave:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9FAFB; border: none; line-height: 12.85pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 0cm 0cm; padding: 0cm; vertical-align: top;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a grotto, cavern, den"</b>
(Lat., <i>spelunca</i>), "cave," </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jhn 11:38</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, is said of the grave of Lazarus; in the RV in </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Hbr 11:38</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">; </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Rev 6:15</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> (AV, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">dens</b>"); <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in the Lord's rebuke concerning the
defilement of the Temple, </b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mat 21:13</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">; </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Mar 11:17</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">; </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Luk 19:46</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, "den" is used. </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">see rocks</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4074</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">Petros</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Apparently
a primary word; a (piece of) <i>rock</i> (larger than <u><span style="color: green;">G3037</span></u>); as a name, <i>Petrus</i>, an apostle: -
Peter, rock. Compare <u><span style="color: green;">G2786</span></u>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G3037</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">lithos</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Apparently
a primary word; a <i>stone</i> (literally or figuratively): - <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(mill-, stumbling-) stone.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G3037</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">lithos</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) a stone</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) of small stones</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) of building stones</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) metaphorically of Christ</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> noun masculine</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">apparently a primary word</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing in TDNT:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 4:268, 534</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4074</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">Petros</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Peter = “a rock or a stone”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) one of the twelve disciples of Jesus </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> noun proper masculine</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">apparently a primary word</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing
in TDNT:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 6:100, 835</span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rom_9:32</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wherefore?
Because <i><span style="color: grey;">they sought it</span></i> not by faith, but
as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">stumblingstone</span>; </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rom_9:33</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it is
written, Behold, I lay in Sion a <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">stumblingstone</span> and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on
him shall not be ashamed. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">men who takes offend, <u>stumbled</u>
on, thus bring upon themselves ruin,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Cor 3:7 statues of idols</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">SB</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Revelation 6:1-17</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Contents:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> The opening of the
seals. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Characters:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Christ, John. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Conclusion:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Woe to those who dwell
upon the earth in the days of the great Tribulation, when the wrath of God is
poured forth for the final cleansing of the earth. “Except those days should be
shortened no flesh should endure.” There will be terrible wars, famines,
pestilence, earthquakes, disturbances in the heavens, and fear among men. (See <u><span style="color: green;">Mat_24:1-31</span></u>.) </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Key Word:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> Day of wrath, <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_6:17</span></u>. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Strong Verses:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_6:15-17</span></u>. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Striking Facts:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_6:16-17</span></u>. This will be the last great prayer
meeting of earth, when men that have rejected Christ shall discover that the
Lamb Whom they have slaughtered and insulted is the Judge of all. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rev 6:16</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on
us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the
wrath of the Lamb: </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Revelation 6:16</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Said (</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">λέγουσιν</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">)</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Lit., <i>say</i>. So Rev.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Fall
on us</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Compare </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Hos_10:8</span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">; <u><span style="color: green;">Luk_23:30</span></u>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Wrath
(</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ὀργῆς</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">)</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Denoting a <i>deep-seated</i>
wrath. See on <u><span style="color: green;">Joh_3:36</span></u>.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">fall upon us</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">fallen, 6</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Act_15:16</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_14:8</span></u>
(2), <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_17:10</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Rev_18:2</span></u> (2)</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4098</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">piptō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">petō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) to descend from a higher place to a lower</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) to fall (either from or upon)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a1) to be thrust down</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) metaphorically to fall under judgment, came under
condemnation</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2) to descend from an erect to a prostrate position</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a) to fall down</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a1) to be prostrated, fall prostrate</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a2) of those overcome by terror or astonishment or
grief or under the attack of an evil spirit or of falling dead suddenly</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a3) the dismemberment of a corpse by decay</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a4) to prostrate one’s self</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a5) used of suppliants and persons rendering homage
or worship to one</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a6) to fall out, fall from, i.e. shall perish or be
lost</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a7) to fall down, fall into ruin: of buildings, walls
etc.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b) to be cast down from a state of prosperity</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b1) to fall from a state of uprightness</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b2) to perish, i.e come to an end, disappear, cease</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b2a) of virtues</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b3) to lose authority, no longer have force</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b3a) of sayings, precepts, etc.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b4) to be removed from power by death</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b5) to fail of participating in, miss a share in</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">a reduplicated and
contracted form of peto, (which occurs only as an alternate in certain tenses),
probably akin to <u><span style="color: green;">G4072</span></u> through the idea
of alighting</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing in TDNT:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 6:161, 846</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rev 6:17</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the great day of his wrath
is come; and who shall be able to stand? </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G2476</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">histēmi</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) to cause or make to stand, to place, put, set</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) to bid to stand by, [set up]</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a1) in the presence of others, in the midst, before
judges, before members of the Sanhedrin</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a2) to place</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to make
firm, fix establish</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b1) to cause a person or
a thing to keep his or its place</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b2) to stand, be kept
intact (of family, a kingdom), to escape in safety</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b3) to establish a
thing, cause it to stand</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b3a) to uphold or
sustain the authority or force of anything</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) to set or place in a
balance</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c1) to weigh: money to
one (because in very early times before the introduction of coinage, the metals
used to be weighed)</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2) to stand</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a) to stand by or near</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a1) to stop, stand
still, to stand immovable, stand firm</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2a1a) of the foundation
of a building</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b) to stand</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b1) continue safe and
sound, stand unharmed, <u>to stand ready or prepared</u></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b2) to be of a steadfast
mind</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2b3) of quality, one who
does not hesitate, does not waiver</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">a prolonged form of a
primary stao (of the same meaning, and used for it in certain tenses)</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing
in TDNT:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 7:638, 1082</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Num 26:10</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the earth
opened her mouth, and swallowed them up </span></b><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> together with Korah, when that <u>company</u> died, what time the
fire devoured two hundred and fifty men: <u>and they became a sign</u>.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H5251</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">nês</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From <u><span style="color: green;">H5264</span></u>; a <i>flag</i>;
also a <i>sail</i>; by implication a <i>flagstaff</i>; generally a <i>signal</i>;
figuratively a <i>token: - </i>banner, pole, sail, (en-) sign, standard.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H5251</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">nês</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) something lifted up, standard,
signal, signal pole, ensign, banner, sign, sail</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) standard (as rallying point),
signal</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) standard (pole)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) ensign, signal</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
noun masculine</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
from <u><span style="color: green;">H5264</span></u></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1379a</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H5264</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">nâsas</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A primitive root; to <i>gleam</i> from afar, that is, to <i>be</i>
<i>conspicuous</i> as a signal; or rather perhaps a denominative from <u><span style="color: green;">H5251</span></u> (and identical with <u><span style="color: green;">H5263</span></u>, through the idea of a flag as <i>fluttering</i>
in the wind); to <i>raise</i> <i>a</i> <i>beacon: - </i>lift up as an ensign,
standard bearer.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 26:10</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(ABP+)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
[<sup><span style="color: red;">3</span></sup>opening<sup><span style="color: green;">G455</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>earth]<sup><span style="color: green;">G1093</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup>
its mouth<sup><span style="color: green;">G4750</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> swallowed<sup><span style="color: green;">G2666</span></sup>
them<sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> Korah<sup><span style="color: green;">G*</span></sup>
in<sup><span style="color: green;">G1722</span></sup> the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> death<sup><span style="color: green;">G2288</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> of his congregation,<sup><span style="color: green;">G4864</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup>
when<sup><span style="color: green;">G3753</span></sup> [<sup><span style="color: red;">3</span></sup>devoured<sup><span style="color: green;">G2719</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>fire]<sup><span style="color: green;">G4442</span></sup>
the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> fifty<sup><span style="color: green;">G4004</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
two hundred.<sup><span style="color: green;">G1250</span></sup> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> they were made<sup><span style="color: green;">G1096</span></sup> as<sup><span style="color: green;">G1722</span></sup>
a sign.<sup><span style="color: green;">G4592</span></sup></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4592</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sēmeion</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Neuter
of a presumed derivative of the base of <u><span style="color: green;">G4591</span></u>;
an <i>indication</i>, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: - miracle,
sign, token, wonder.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4592</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sēmeion</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) a sign, mark, token</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) that by which a person or a thing is distinguished
from others and is known</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) a sign, prodigy, portent, i.e. an unusual
occurrence, transcending the common course of nature</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b1) of signs portending remarkable events soon to
happen</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b2) of miracles and wonders by which God
authenticates the men sent by him, or by which men prove that the cause they
are pleading is God’s</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> noun neuter</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">from a presumed
derivative of the base of <u><span style="color: green;">G4591</span></u></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing
in TDNT:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 7:200, 1015</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">wonders, 1</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Rev_13:13</span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4591</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sēmainō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ση</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">͂</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">μα</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sēma</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> (a <i>mark</i>; of uncertain derivation); to <i>indicate:</i>
- signify.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G4591</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sēmainō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Thayer Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) to give a sign, to signify, indicate</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">2) to make known</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> verb</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">from sema (a mark, of
uncertain derivation)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Citing in TDNT:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> 7:262, 1015</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">BI</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 26:9-11</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The earth opened her
mouth, and swallowed them up.</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Solemn monitors against
sin</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Sin and infamy cling to
families long after the actors have passed away. Parents ought to strive above
all to leave to their children the heritage of a good name. Sin and infamy are
long lived; as in the verse of our text, many years after the descendants are
reminded of their ancestor’s crime. Their sin was to oppose Moses and God—using
their influence as men of note to create a rebellion. God visited them for
their sin—“And they became a sign” (see chap. 16.). They became “symbols,”
“beacons.” God made use of them to teach great lessons. Visitations like that
have tongues; they speak to us from God.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The insidious character of sin. Sin grows upon us;
never trifle with it; safety in the opposing it. As the moth, dazzled with the
light, &c., ends in being scorched or burnt, so it ever is with those who
trifle with sin and parley with temptation.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They warn us of the terrible evil and danger of sin.
Sin becomes our greatest curse; we have, indeed, nothing else to fear.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They show us what a curse bad men are to their
families and others. If there is any manhood left in one, this thought must
arrest his attention.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">IV. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">They show us God’s desire to benefit man. (<i>David
Lloyd</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The victims of sin a
warning to others</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">I<i>. </i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A warning against the commission of sin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A warning against association with sinners.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A warning against tempting others. (<i>Lay Preacher</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Notwithstanding the
children of Korah died not.<i>—</i></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Children that live</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Notwithstanding, the
children of Korah died not.” May we not read it—that though the sire dies the
progeny lives? There is a continuity of evil in the world. We only cut off the
tops of iniquities, their deep roots we do not get at; we pass the machine over
the sward, and cut off the green tops of things that are offensive to us; but
the juicy root is struck many inches down into the earth, and our backs will
hardly be turned, and the click of the iron have ceased, before those roots are
asserting themselves in new and obvious growths. Iniquity is not to be shaved
off the earth—ironed and mowed away like an obnoxious weed—it must be uprooted,
torn right up by every thinnest, frailest fibre of its bad self, and then,
having been torn out, left for the fire of the sun to deal with—the fire of
mid-day is against it and will consume it. And thus only can growths of evil be
eradicated and destroyed. It is an awful thing to live! You cannot tell where
influence begins, how it operates, or how it ends<b>. </b>The boy sitting next
you is partly yourself, and he cannot help it, You cannot turn round and say,
“You must look after yourself as I had to do.” That is a fool’s speech. You can
never shake off the responsibility of having helped in known and unknown ways
and degrees to make that boy what he is. Life is not a surface matter, a loose
pebble lying on the road that men can take up and lay down again without any
particular harm being done. When the boy drinks himself into madness, he may be
but expressing the influences wrought within him by three generations. When the
young man tells a lie, he may be surprised at his own audacity, and feel as if
he were rather a tool and a victim than a person and a responsible agent—as if
generations of liars were blackening his young lips with their falsehoods. When
this youth is restive and will not go to the usual church, do not blame the
modern spirit of scepticism and restlessness, but go sharply into the innermost
places of your own heart, and see how far you have bolted the church doors
against your son, or made a place which he would be ashamed to be seen in. Then
there is a bright side to all this view. I can, now that I have got my rough
reading done, turn this “notwithstanding “into a symbol of hope, a light of
history; I can make high and inspiring uses of it. I will blot out the word,
“Korah,” and fill in other names, and then the moral lesson of the text will
expand itself into gracious meanings, rise above us like a firmament crowded
with innumerable and brilliant lights. In days long ago they killed the
martyrs—notwithstanding, the children of the martyrs died not. There the light
begins to come; there I hear music lifting up sweetest voice of testimony and
hope. So, in all the ages, one generation passeth away and another generation
cometh, and still Christ’s following enlarges; on the whole, he sums up into
higher figures year by year. Not that I care for census-religion, not that I
would number people for the purpose of ascertaining Christ’s position in the
world. The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation; is not a matter of
census-reckoning or statistic-returns; it is a matter of spiritual quality,
inner manhood, meaning and attitude of the soul; and amid all sin, struggle,
doubt, difficulty, darkness, the kingdom moves. (<i>J. Parker, D. D</i>.)<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The children of Korah</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">These sons of Korah</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> were afterwards in their prosperity eminently serviceable to the
Church, being employed by David as singers in the house of the Lord; hence many
psalms are said to be for the sons of Korah; and perhaps they were made to bear
his name so long after, rather than the name of any other of their ancestors,
for warning to themselves, and as an instance of the power of God, which
brought those choice fruits even out of that bitter root. The children of
families that have been stigmatised, should endeavour by their eminent virtues
to bear away the reproach of their fathers. (<i>Matthew Henry, D. D</i>.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">sons</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
child, son, boy, offspring, youth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen79" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
child, son, boy</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen81" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
child, children</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen82" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">descendants</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen86" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-sizing: border-box;">
youth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen87" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">apostate Israelites (fig.)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to bear,
bring forth, beget, gender, travail</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen83" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
(Qal)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen85" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
to bear, bring
forth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen86" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
of child birth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen87" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
of distress
(simile)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen89" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of wicked (behaviour)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen91" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
to beget</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen93" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
(Niphal) to be
born</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen94" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
(Piel)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen96" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to cause or help to bring forth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen98" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to assist or tend as a midwife</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen99" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
midwife
(participle)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
(Pual) to be born</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
(Hiphil)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
to beget (a child)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen107" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; box-sizing: border-box;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to bear (fig. - of wicked bringing forth
iniquity)</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen106" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Hophal) day of birth, birthday
(infinitive)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" id="yui-gen104" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(Hithpael) to declare one's birth
(pedigree)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H1121</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">bên</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From <u><span style="color: green;">H1129</span></u>; a <i>son</i>
(as a <i>builder</i> of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and
figurative relationship, including <i>grandson</i>, <i>subject</i>, <i>nation</i>,
<i>quality</i> or <i>condition</i>, etc., (like <u><span style="color: green;">H1</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">H251</span></u>, etc.): -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">+
afflicted, age, [Ahoh-] [Ammon-] [Hachmon-] [Lev-]ite, [anoint-]ed one,
appointed to, (+) arrow, [Assyr-] [Babylon-] [Egypt-] [Grec-]ian,</b> one born,
bough, branch, breed, + (young) bullock, + (young) calf, X came up in, child,
colt, X <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">common</b>, X corn, daughter, X
of first, + firstborn, foal, + very fruitful, + postage, X in, + kid, + lamb,
(+) man, meet, + mighty, + nephew, old, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(+)
people, + rebel, + robber</b>, X servant born, X soldier, son, + spark, +
steward, + <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stranger</b>, X surely, them
of, + <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">tumultuous one, + valiant[-est],</b>
whelp, worthy, young (one), youth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">sons of men</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H120</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">'âdâm</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From <u><span style="color: green;">H119</span></u>; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">ruddy</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">,
that is, a <i>human</i> <i>being</i> (an individual or the species, <i>mankind</i>,
etc.): - X another, + hypocrite, + common sort, X low, man (mean, of low
degree), person.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1Jn_3:1</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called the <span style="background: yellow; mso-highlight: yellow;">sons</span>
of God: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">therefore the world knoweth us
not, because it knew him not. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">TSK</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Numbers 26:10</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">earth opened:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:2</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:31-35</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:38</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Num_27:3</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Exo_16:35</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_106:17-18</span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">together:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> The Samaritan text does not intimate that Korah was
swallowed up, but that he was burnt, as appears to have been the fact; and the
Psalmist also (<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_106:17</span></u>), only
mentions Dathan and Abiram as having been swallowed up. "And the earth
swallowed them up, what time that company died; and the fire devoured Korah
with the 250 men, who became a sign."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">they became a sign:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Num_16:38</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">1Sa_2:34</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Jer_29:22</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Eze_14:8</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">1Co_10:6-10</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">2Pe_2:6</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Jud_1:7</span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">that company</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H5712</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">‛êdâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Feminine of <u><span style="color: green;">H5707</span></u>
in the original sense of <i>fixture</i>; a stated <i>assemblage</i>
(specifically a <i>concourse</i>, or generally a <i>family</i> or <i>crowd</i>):
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">- assembly, company, congregation, multitude, people,
swarm. Compare <u><span style="color: green;">H5713</span></u>.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">H5712</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">‛êdâh</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) congregation, gathering</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
noun feminine</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
from <u><span style="color: green;">H5707</span></u> in the original sense of
fixture</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">878a</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Strongs # <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>Hb/Gk Word<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></i>Pronunciation<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>English Equivalent</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Old Testament (Hebrew) for </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"company"</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H736</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">'orĕchah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ō·rekh·ä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1323</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">bath<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">bath<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>daughter, town,
village, owl, first, apple, branches, children,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, daughter, eye, old</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1416</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">gĕduwd<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ghed·üd'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>band, troop, army,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, men</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1995</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">hamown<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">hä·mōn'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>multitude, noise,
tumult, abundance, many, store,</span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, multiplied, riches,
rumbling, sounding</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H2199</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">za`aq<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">zä·ak'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cry, cry out, assemble, called, gathered
together, gathered,</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, proclaimed</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H2256</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">chebel<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kheh'·vel<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>sorrows, cord,
line, coast, portion, region, lot, ropes,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, pangs, bands, country,
destruction, pain, snare, tacklings</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=H2267"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">H2267</span></a></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">cheber<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kheh'·ver<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">wide,
enchantment, </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, charmer, charming</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H2274</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">chebrah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">khev·rä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H3862</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">lahaqah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">lah·hak·ä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4246</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mĕchowlah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mek·ō·lä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>dance, dancing,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H4264</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">machaneh<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">makh·an·eh'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>camp, host,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, tents, armies, bands,
battle, drove</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H5712</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">`edah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ā·dä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">congregation,</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, assembly,
multitude, people, swarm</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H6635</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">tsaba'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">tsä·vä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>host, war, army,
battle, service, appointed time, warfare, soldiers,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, misc</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H6951</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">qahal<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kä·häl'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>congregation,
assembly,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, multitude</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H7218</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ro'sh<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">rōshe<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">head, chief, top, beginning,</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, captain, sum,
first, principal, chapiters, rulers, misc</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H7285</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">regesh<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">reh'·ghesh<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, insurrection</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H7462</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ra`ah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">rä·ä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">feed, shepherd,
pastor, herdmen, keep, companion, broken, </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, devour, eat, entreateth, misc</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H8229</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">shiph`ah<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">shif·ä'<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>abundance,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, multitude</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: -6.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #50555c; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">New Testament (Greek) for </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">"company"</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G2828</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">klisia<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">klē-sē'-ä<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G2853</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kollaō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">kol-lä'-ō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>join (one's)
self, cleave, be joined, keep </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, vr reach</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G3461</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">myrias<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">mü-rē-ä's<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ten thousand times
ten thousand, two hundred thousand thousand, innumerable multitude, ten
thousand, innumerable</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, fifty thousand, thousands</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G3658</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">homilos<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ho'-mē-los<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G3792</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ochlopoieō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">o-khlo-poi-e'-ō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>gather a</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G3793</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ochlos<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">o'-khlos<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>people,
multitude, press,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, number of
people, number</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4128</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">plēthos<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">plā'-thos<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>multitude,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, bundle</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4311</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">propempō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">pro-pe'm-pō<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>bring on (one's) way,
bring (forward) on (one's) journey, conduct forth, ac</span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">ion - </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4849</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">symposion</span></i></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">süm-po'-sē-on<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, not tr.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">see also</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">dryckeslag
dryckesfest, gästabud, symposium, symposion,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">1. meeting where
experts discuss particular subject. a meeting where experts discuss a
particular subject, conference, seminar, meeting, convention, league,
association, alliance, union, summit, hilltop, high point, top, peak, meeting, pinnacle,
apex, height, acme, zenith, </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">brow</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>forehead,
temple, church</u>, summit, top, crest, high-level meeting,</b> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">conference, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">federation</b>, consultation,
talks, discussion, meeting, seminar, forum, convention, congress,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4862</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">syn<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sü'n<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>with, beside,
ac</span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 65.3pt 134.5pt 209.85pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4874</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synanamignymi<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sün-ä-nä-mē'g-nü-mē<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>company with,
keep company, have</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">with</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4902</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synepomai<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sün-e'-po-mī<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ac</span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4905</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synerchomai<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sün-e'r-kho-mī<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>come together, go with, come with, resort,
come, come with, company with, ac</span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, assemble with</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">G4923</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">synodia<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">sün-o-dē'-ä<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">company</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Deu 11:6</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of
Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> and their households, and their tents, and all the substance
that <i>was</i> in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">2Sa 17:16</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, Lodge not this night in
the plains of the wilderness, but speedily pass over; lest the king be
swallowed up, </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> and all the people that <i>are</i> with him.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">2Sa 20:19</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">I <i>am one of them that are</i> peaceable <i>and</i> faithful
in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou
swallow up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">the inheritance of the LORD?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">2Sa 20:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should
swallow up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> or destroy.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 2:3</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job,
that <i>there is</i> none like him in the earth, a perfect and an
upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth
fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> him without
cause.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 7:19</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow
down </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> my spittle?</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 8:18</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">If he destroy </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> him from his place, then <i>it</i> shall deny him, <i>saying</i>,
I have not seen thee.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 10:8</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou
dost destroy </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> me.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 20:15</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">He hath swallowed down </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of
his belly.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 20:18</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow <i>it</i>down: </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> according to <i>his</i> substance <i>shall</i> the
restitution <i>be</i>, and he shall not rejoice <i>therein</i>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Job 37:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Shall it be told him that I speak? if a man speak, surely he shall be
swallowed up. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;">p</span></sup></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 21:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD
shall swallow them up </span><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 35:25</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not
say, We have swallowed him up. </span><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 55:9</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Destroy, </span><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> O Lord, <i>and</i> divide their tongues: for I have seen
violence and strife in the city.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 69:15</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me
up, </span><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 106:17</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">The earth opened and swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 107:27</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their
wits' end. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Psa 124:3</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Then they had swallowed us up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Pro 1:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Let us swallow
them up </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> alive as the
grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Pro 19:28</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">An ungodly witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked
devoureth </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> iniquity.'</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Pro 21:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">There is</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> treasure to be desired
and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H11<span style="border: none;">04</span></span></span></b></a></span></sup></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Ecc 10:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">The words of a wise man's mouth <i>are</i> gracious; but the lips
of a fool will swallow up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> himself.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 3:12</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">As for</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> my people,
children <i>are</i> their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my
people, they which lead thee cause <i>thee</i> to err, and
destroy </span></b><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> the way of
thy paths.</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 9:16</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">For the leaders of
this people cause <i>them</i> to err; and <i>they that are</i> led
of them <i>are</i> destroyed. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Isaiah 9:16</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(ABP+)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
[<sup><span style="color: red;">6</span></sup>shall be<sup><span style="color: green;">G1510.8.6</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>the
ones<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>declaring <sup><span style="color: red;">5</span></sup>blessed<sup><span style="color: green;">G3106</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: red;">4</span></sup>people<sup><span style="color: green;">G2992</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: red;">3</span></sup>this]<sup><span style="color: green;">G3778</span></sup>
misleading.<sup><span style="color: green;">G4105</span></sup> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
they misled<sup><span style="color: green;">G4105</span></sup> so that<sup><span style="color: green;">G3704</span></sup> they should swallow them down.<sup><span style="color: green;">G2666</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup>
</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(ASV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For they that lead this people cause them to
err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(BBE)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the guides of this people are the cause
of their wandering from the right way, and those who are guided by them come to
destruction. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Bibeln)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ty detta folks ledare föra det vilse, och de
som låta leda sig gå i fördärvet. </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Bishops)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: blue;">(9:15)</span> For
the guides of this people are deceauers, and those that be gouerned are vtterly
lost. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Brenton)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they that pronounce this people blessed
shall mislead them; and they mislead them that they may devour them. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Darby)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the guides of this people mislead <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> ; and they that are guided by them are
swallowed up. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(DRB)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they that call this people blessed, shall
cause them to err: and they that are called blessed, shall be thrown down,
headlong. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(KJV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the leaders of this people cause <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> to err; and <i><span style="color: grey;">they
that are</span></i> led of them <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i>
destroyed. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(KJV+)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the leaders<sup><span style="color: green;">H833</span></sup>
of this<sup><span style="color: green;">H2088</span></sup> people<sup><span style="color: green;">H5971</span></sup> cause <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i>
to err;<sup><span style="color: green;">H8582</span></sup> and <i><span style="color: grey;">they that are</span></i> led<sup><span style="color: green;">H833</span></sup>
of them <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> destroyed.<sup><span style="color: green;">H1104</span></sup> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(KJV-1611)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the leaders of this people cause them to
erre, and they that are ledde of them, are destroyed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(KJV-BRG)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the leaders of this people cause <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> to err; and <i><span style="color: grey;">they
that are</span></i> led of them <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i>
destroyed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">LITV)</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this people's leaders led <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> astray, and its guided ones are swallowed
up. </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Norsk)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Og dette folks førere er forførere, og de av
folket som lar sig føre, er fortapt. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(SFB)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ty detta folks ledare för det vilse, och de
som låter sig ledas går i fördärvet. </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Webster)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the leaders of this people cause <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> to err; and <i><span style="color: grey;">they
that are</span></i> led by them <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i>
destroyed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(YLT)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the eulogists of this people are causing
to err, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And its <u>eulogised</u> ones
are consumed. </b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">worship, deify, pray to, venerate,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">see extoled, exalted, wax lyric, glorified,
acclaimed, hailed, rave about, praise to the skies,, sing the praises of, laud,
praise, extol,</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Isa&c=19&v=3&t=KJV#s=698003"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Isa 19:3</span></a></span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the spirit of
Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy </span></b><b><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #9e0b0f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">H1104</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the
charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 25:7</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And he will destroy </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and
the vail that is spread over all nations.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 25:8</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">He will swallow up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all
faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth:
for the LORD hath spoken <i>it</i>.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 28:4</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">And the glorious beauty, which <i>is</i> on the head of the fat
valley, shall be a fading flower, <i>and</i> as the hasty fruit
before the summer; which <i>when</i> he that looketh upon it seeth,
while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 28:7</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of
the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are
swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> of wine, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">they are out of the
way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble <i>in</i> judgment.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Isa 49:19</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">For thy waste and
thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too
narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> shall be far
away.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jer 51:34</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he
hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">like a dragon, he
hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Lam 2:2</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">The Lord hath swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown
down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath
brought <i>them</i> down to the ground: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Lam 2:5</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> Israel, he hath swallowed up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath
increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 92.85pt 164.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Lam 2:8</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath
stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished
together.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 92.85pt 164.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Lam 2:16</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">All thine enemies
have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say,
We have swallowed <i>her</i> up: </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> certainly
this <i>is</i> the day that we looked for; we have found, we have
seen <i>it</i>.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Hsa 8:7</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no
stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall
swallow it up. </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 92.85pt 164.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Hsa 8:8</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Israel is swallowed up: </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein <i>is</i> no
pleasure.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 92.85pt 164.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Jon 1:17</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up </span><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></b></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; tab-stops: 92.85pt 164.95pt; vertical-align: top;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #39547f; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Hab 1:13</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Thou art</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:
wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, <i>and</i> holdest
thy tongue when the wicked devoureth </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="border: solid black 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid black .25pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV; padding: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1104&t=KJV"><span lang="EN-US" style="border: none; color: #9e0b0f; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="border: none;">H1104</span></span></a></span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> <i>the man
that is</i> more righteous than he?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H1584</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">gamar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">gä·mar'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cease, fail, come to an end, perfect,
perform</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H1700</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">dibrah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">div·rä'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cause,
order, estate, end, regard</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H2583</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">chanah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">khä·nä'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">pitch,
encamp, camp, pitch ... tent, abide, dwelt, lie, rested, grows to an end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H3615</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kalah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kä·lä'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">consume, end, finish, fail, accomplish, done,
spend,ended, determined, away, fulfil, fainteth, destroy, left, waste, misc</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H3617</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kalah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kä·lä'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">...end, altogether, consume, consumption,
consummation, determined, riddance</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H4100</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mä</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">what, how,
why, whereby, wherein, how long, how oft, to what end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H4217</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mizrach</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">miz·räkh'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">east,
eastward, sunrising, rising, east side, east end, sunrising</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H4616</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ma`an</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mah'·an</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">that, for, to, to the end, because of,
lest, to the intent</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5239</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">nalah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">nä·lä'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">make an end</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5331</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">netsach</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">neh'·tsakh</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ever,
never, perpetual, always, end, victory, strength, alway, constantly,
evermore, never</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5486</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cuwph</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">süf</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">consume, utterly, have an end, perish</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5490</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cowph</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">sōfe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, conclusion, hinder part</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5491</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cowph
(Aramaic)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">sōfe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H5703</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">`ad</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ad</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ever, everlasting, end,
eternity, ever, evermore, old, perpetually</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H6118</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">`eqeb</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ā'·kev</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">because,
reward, end, because, by, for, if</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H6285</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">pe'ah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">side, corner, quarter, end, part</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H6310</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">peh</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mouth,
commandment, edge, according, word, hole, end, appointment, portion, tenor,
sentence, misc</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7078</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qenets</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7093</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qets</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, after,
border, infinite, process</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7097</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qatseh</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, ...part, edge, border, outside, utmost,
uttermost, coast, quarter, misc</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7098</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qatsah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, lowest, uttermost part, edges, selvedge,
misc</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
H7099</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
qetsev</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">end, uttermost,
variant</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7117</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qĕtsath</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, part,
some</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7118</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">qĕtsath
(Aramaic)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, partly</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7999</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">shalam</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">pay, peace,
recompense, reward, render, restore, repay, perform, good, end, requite,
restitution, finished, again, amends, full, misc</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H8503</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">takliyth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end,
perfection, perfect</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H8552</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">tamam</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">consume, end, finished, clean, upright,
spent, perfect, done, failed, accomplish, misc</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H8622</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">tĕquwphah</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, circuit, come about</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">New
Testament (Greek) for "end"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G206</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">akron</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">uttermost part, one end, other, tip, top</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G1545</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ekbasis</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">way of escape, end</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2078</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">eschatos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">last, lowest, uttermost, last state, ends,
latter end</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3796</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">opse</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">in the end, even, at even</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G4009</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">peras</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, utmost part, uttermost part</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G4137</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">plēroō</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">fulfil,
fill, be full, complete, end, misc</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4930">G4930</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
synteleia</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G4931</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">synteleō</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end,
fulfil, finish, make</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G5049</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">teleiōs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">to
the end</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G5056</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">telos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">end, custom, uttermost, finally, ending,
by (one's) continual</span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Inlagt av Leif Berg </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<![endif]-->GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-16911353581058044092012-11-25T20:57:00.002-08:002014-02-28T06:05:23.762-08:00David Yonggi Cho till Europakonferensen 2013<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Den världskände pastorn David Yonggi Cho, som också har
grundat världens största församling, kommer till Europakonferensen på Livets
Ord i juli 2013.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://www.dagen.se/nyheter/david-yonggi-cho-till-europakonferensen-2013/</div>
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<br /></div>
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Pastor Yonggi Cho har i flera decennier varit en
förgrundsgestalt och förebild för församlingar och pastorer över hela världen.</div>
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Han är grundare för Yoido Full Gospel Church i Seoul i
Sydkorea, världens största församling med över 800 000 medlemmar.</div>
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Europakonferensen på Livets Ord i Uppsala samlar varje år
cirka 10 000-12 000 personer från mer än 60 länder. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Konferensen hålls den 21-28 juli</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2013.</b></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>see also:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/" style="color: black; display: block; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ECUMENICAL NEWS</a></span><br />
<h2 class="headlineTitle" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 43px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">World church body finalizing Korea assembly plans</span></h2>
<h2 class="headlineTitle" style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 43px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 25px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Leaders of one of the largest global church bodies – <b>bringing together Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Anglican churches - </b>have been in South Korea finalizing plans along with their local hosts for a major gathering set to take place in October and early November.</span></h2>
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http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/world-council-of-churches-finalizes-assembly-plans-in-korea-1733</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ecumenism:
The Gospel Betrayed !</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Livets ord välkomnar den</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> världskände pastorn David Yonggi Cho
som involverats i den<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> ekumeniska
världskyrkan.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hans mystikorienterade lära har
spridits över hela världen och influerar de flesta karismatiker, vilket lett
till ett annat slags evangelium.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">De karismatiska villolärarna vet inga
gränser, hur de skall kunna sprida sina falska och farliga läror, man tar till
vilka metoder som helst, oavsett om de står i sanningen eller ej. Man frågar
inte efter Sanningens Ord, man söker endast efterlikna den med förvrängda
metoder och muntrationer.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ulf Ekman inviterar Benny Hinn och nu
Yonggi Cho vilka båda sprider ett falskt evangelium. Dessa har alla det
gemensamt att de är gemensamt involverade i den Romerska katolska kyrkans
villfarelser, där Yonggi Cho står som medlem i kyrkornas världsråd.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">fler katoliker medverkar bl. annat</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Raniero Cantalamessa</span></b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">,
O.F.M. Cap. (born July 22, 1934) is an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_people" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Italian people"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Italian</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Catholic Church"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Catholic</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_(Catholic_Church)" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Priesthood (Catholic Church)"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">priest</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">in the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Friars_Minor_Capuchin" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Order of Friars Minor Capuchin"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Order of Friars Minor Capuchin</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">. He has served as the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_to_the_Papal_Household" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Preacher to the Papal Household"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Preacher to the Papal
Household</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">since 1980, under<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Pope John Paul II"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pope John Paul II</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Pope Benedict XVI"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pope Benedict XVI</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Pope Francis"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pope Francis</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">.</span></span></div>
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education</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Raniero_Cantalamessa&action=edit&section=2&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life and education"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Raniero Cantalamessa was born in</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colli_del_Tronto" title="Colli del Tronto"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Colli
del Tronto</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy" title="Italy"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Italy</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">on July 22, 1934.</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-cantalamessait-1"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[1]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">He was ordained as
a priest in the</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Friars_Minor_Capuchin" title="Order of Friars Minor Capuchin"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Franciscan Capuchin order</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">in 1958.</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-Pent._Dict.-2"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[2]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">He holds</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate" title="Doctorate"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">doctoral</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">degrees in</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology" title="Theology"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">theology</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics" title="Classics"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">classical literature</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">. He formerly served as a professor of ancient Christian history and the
director of the Department of Religious Sciences at the</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_Cattolica_del_Sacro_Cuore" title="Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">in</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan" title="Milan"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Milan</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">, resigning in 1979. Cantalamessa also served as a member of the</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Theological_Commission" title="International Theological Commission"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">International Theological Commission</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">from 1975 until
1981.</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-cantalamessa-3"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[3]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 3.6pt; mso-outline-level: 3;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Preacher to the
Papal Household</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Raniero_Cantalamessa&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Preacher to the Papal Household"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">In 1980, Cantalamessa was appointed the</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_to_the_Papal_Household" title="Preacher to the Papal Household"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Preacher to the Papal Household</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">by Pope John Paul
II. He has remained in this position under the pontificate of Pope Francis. In
this capacity, he provides</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_meditation" title="Christian meditation"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">meditations</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">to the</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope" title="Pope"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Pope</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and other
high-ranking officials each Friday during</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent" title="Lent"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Lent</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent" title="Advent"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Advent</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">,</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-cantalamessa-3"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[3]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">and is "the
only person allowed to preach to the Pope."</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-bbc121506-4"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[4]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">Cantalamessa, a frequent speaker, is a member of the Catholic Delegation
for the Dialogue with the Pentecostal Churches.</span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-cantalamessa-3"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[3]</span></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-bbc121506-4"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[4]</span></a></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">He currently hosts
a weekly program on</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"> </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAI" title="RAI"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b0080; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Radiotelevisione Italiana</span></a></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: SV;">.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In December 2006, Cantalamessa urged Pope Benedict in an Advent sermon
to declare a day of fasting and penitence in response to child sex crimes by
clergy in the Roman Catholic Church. </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
was no reported reaction from the Pope.</span><sup id="cite_ref-bbc121506_4-2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-bbc121506-4" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span style="color: #0b0080;">[4]</span></a></span></sup></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">--- According to media outlets, he implied that the sensational coverage
of alleged child abuse and cover-ups within the Roman Catholic Church was
evidence of anti-Catholicism, and bore similarities to the "more shameful
aspects of anti-Semitism".</span><sup id="cite_ref-bbc040210_5-0" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raniero_Cantalamessa#cite_note-bbc040210-5" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span style="color: #0b0080;">[5]</span></a> ---</span></sup></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Från<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jonathan Ekman blir "guidad".</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.jonathanekman.se/2008/11/04/forsta-heldagen-i-rom/">http://www.jonathanekman.se/2008/11/04/forsta-heldagen-i-rom/</a></div>
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<h1 style="margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Första heldagen i Rom</span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-top: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Dagen började med
ett intressant undervisningspass med bla Charles Whitehead. Charles berättade
om den karismatiska katolska rörelsen och deras arbete.</span></h1>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">På
eftermiddagen fick vi en trevlig guidad tur över bla Forum Romanum, Colosseum,
St Clemente basilikan och Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano. Vid Forum
Romanum ligger det fängelse där Petrus med största sannolikhet satt fängslad i
väntan på sin avrättning.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Imorgon
skall vi besöka Påvens ”allmänna audiens”. Det skall bli trevligt att höra vad
han har att säga…</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Under tiden debatteras det livligt om
Bibelsynen i de många leden <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>särskilt
bland dessa som involveras i de ekumeniska, karismatiska leden.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">De flesta kristna ignorerar,
negligerar, struntar i Bibelns varningar och låter sig bortföras av främmande
läror, därför lockas de till avfall från Tron och går därmed miste om den oförgängliga
kronan.</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:1</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Den äldste hälsar den utvalda frun och hennes
barn, vilka jag i sanning älskar, och icke jag allenast, utan ock alla andra
som hava lärt känna sanningen. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:2</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vi älska dem för sanningens skull, som
förbliver i oss, och som skall vara med oss till evig tid. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:3</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nåd, barmhärtighet och frid ifrån Gud,
Fadern, och ifrån Jesus Kristus, Faderns Son, skall vara med oss i sanning och
i kärlek. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:4</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Det har gjort mig stor glädje att jag har
funnit flera av dina barn vandra i sanningen, efter det bud som vi hava fått
ifrån Fadern. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:5</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Och nu har jag en bön till dig, kära fru.
Icke som om jag skreve för att giva dig ett nytt bud; det gäller allenast det
bud som vi hava haft från begynnelsen: att vi skola älska varandra. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:6</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Och däri består kärleken, att vi vandra efter
de bud han har givit. Ja, detta är budet, att I skolen vandra i kärleken,
enligt vad I haven hört från begynnelsen. </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:7</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ty många
villolärare hava gått ut i världen, vilka icke bekänna att Jesus är Kristus,
som skulle komma i köttet; en sådan är Villoläraren och Antikrist. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:8</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tagen eder till vara, så att I icke förloren
det som vi med vårt arbete hava kommit åstad, utan fån full lön. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:9</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Var och en som så går framåt, att han icke
förbliver i Kristi lära, han har icke Gud; den som förbliver i den läran, han
har både Fadern och Sonen. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:10</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Om någon kommer till eder och icke har den
läran med sig, så tagen icke emot honom i edra hus, och hälsen honom icke. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:11</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ty den som hälsar honom, han gör sig delaktig
i hans onda gärningar. </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:12</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jag hade väl mycket annat att skriva till
eder, men jag vill icke göra det med papper och bläck. Jag hoppas att i stället
få komma till eder och muntligen tala med eder, för att vår glädje skall bliva
fullkomlig. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Jn 1:13</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Din utvalda systers barn hälsa dig. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:1</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come. </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Gill</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2 Timothy
3:1</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This know also</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">,.... That not only men of
bad principles and practices are in the churches now, as before described in
the preceding chapter, but that in succeeding ages there would be worse men, if
possible, and the times would be still worse; this the apostle had, and
delivered by a spirit of prophecy, and informed Timothy, and others of it, that
he and they might be prepared for such events, and fortified against them: </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">that in the last days perilous times shall come</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">; "or hard" and difficult times to live in;
not by reason of the outward calamities, as badness of trade, scarcity of
provisions, the ravages of the sword, &c. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but by reason of the wickedness of men, and that not of the profane
world, but of professors of religion; for they are the persons afterwards
described, who will make the times they live in difficult to others, to live
soberly, righteously, and godly; the days will be evil, because of these evil
men: or they will be "troublesome" times, very afflicting and
distressing to pious minds; as the places and times, and men and customs of
them were to Lot, David, Isaiah, and others: and also "dangerous"
ones to the souls of men; who will be beguiled by their fair speeches, and
specious pretences, to follow their pernicious ways, which will bring
destruction upon them; their doctrines will eat as a gangrene, and their evil
communications will corrupt good manners, before observed.</b> And these times
will be "in the last days" of the apostolic age, and onward to the
end of the world: the Jews generally understand by this phrase, when used in
the Old Testament, the days of the Messiah; and which are the last days of the
world, in comparison of the times before the law, from Adam to Moses, and under
the law, from thence to Christ; and even in the times of the apostles, at least
towards the close of them, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">great numbers
of men rose up under the Christian name, to whom the following characters well
agree, as the Gnostics, and others; and who paved the way for the man of sin,
the Romish antichrist, whose priests and votaries are here likewise described
to the life: so that these last days may take in the general defection and
apostasy of the church of Rome, as well as those times, which followed the
apostles, and those which will usher in the second coming of Christ. </b>The
Ethiopic version renders it, "in the latter days will come an evil, or bad
year".</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Barnes</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2 Timothy 3:1</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">This know also - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The “object” of this
reference to the perilous times which were to occur, was evidently to show the
necessity of using every precaution to preserve the purity of the church, from
the fact that such sad scenes were to open upon it. The apostle had dwelt upon
this subject in his First Epistle to Timothy 2 Tim. 4, but its importance leads
him to advert to it again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 10.8pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">In the last days - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Under the gospel
dispensation; some time in that period during which the affairs of the world
will be closed up; see the <u><span style="color: green;">1Ti_4:1</span></u>
note, and <u><span style="color: green;">Heb_1:2</span></u> note.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 10.8pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Perilous times shall come - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Times of danger, of persecution, and of trial. On the general meaning of
this passage, and the general characteristics of those times, the reader may
consult the <u><span style="color: green;">2Th_2:1-12</span></u> notes, and <u><span style="color: green;">1Ti_4:1-3</span></u> notes. There can be no doubt that in
all these passages the apostle refers to the same events.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, </span></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:3</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without natural affection, trucebreakers,
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">despisers
of those that are good, </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:4</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God; </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:5</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof: from such turn away. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:6</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For of this sort are they which creep into
houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers
lusts, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:7</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so
do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the
faith. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:9</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they shall proceed no further: for their
folly shall be manifest unto all <i><span style="color: grey;">men,</span></i> as
theirs also was. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:10</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner
of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:11</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me
at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> all the Lord delivered me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ
Jesus shall suffer persecution. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:13</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse, deceiving, and being deceived. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:14</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But continue thou in the things which thou
hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned <i><span style="color: grey;">them;</span></i> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:15</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that from a child thou hast known the
holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith
which is in Christ Jesus. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:16</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All scripture <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
given by inspiration of God, and <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Ti 3:17</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the man of God may be perfect, throughly
furnished unto all good works. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ecumenism:
The Gospel Betrayed </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Condensed
from "The Berean Call", Dave Hunt, May, 1994</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">http://www.cephasministry.com/davehunt.html</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
document, "Catholics and Evangelicals Together: The Christian Mission in
the 3rd. Millennium" claims that all Catholics are Christian, hold the
same faith as evangelicals, and are our "brothers and sisters in
Christ". If so, then the Reformation was a tragic mistake which we all
must denounce.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For 1000
years before the Reformation there were always groups of evangelical Christians
outside the Catholic Church, millions of whom were slaughtered for obeying
Scripture instead of Rome. Through the example of these Vaudois, Albigenses,
Waldenses and other early evangelicals, and from the Bibles they preserved, a
few Roman Catholic priests and monks realized that their Church didn't preach
the truth and that they and their fellow Catholics were not saved, but lost.
They began preaching salvation by grace through faith instead of Catholicism's
false gospel of sacramental rituals and works. For this they were
excommunicated and untold thousands more were martyred.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Such is the
heritage of today's evangelicals, which this document now rejects. We are asked
to believe that the Reformers were deluded, that like all active Catholics
today they were saved and didn't know it. Already the declaration is being
translated into Spanish, Polish. Portuguese and Russian for circulation
throughout Latin America and Eastern Europe. Soon it will have a revolutionary
impact worldwide.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In a survey
of thousands of Catholics who were saved and left that Church, "not
one" ever heard the true gospel. "Nor one" was saved by being a
Catholic, but by believing a gospel that was anathema to Catholics. Knowing
that these millions of Catholics are lost, causes evangelicals to work day and
night to bring them the gospel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And now we
are asked to refrain from sharing the gospel with those who desperately need it
and to assume them already saved, when their own doctrines forbid this assurance.
It is outrageous that leading evangelicals have placed nearly 25% of the
world's population off limits to evangelization. Missionaries must now leave
Catholic countries such as Spain, Italy and those in Latin America. Such is the
tragic implication of this document. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> urches</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Berean call </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>PO Box 7019 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bend, Oregon 97708</span></div>
<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Yonggi Cho member of World Council of Churches</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/regions/asia/south-korea.html?print=1_%22%20onfocus%3D%22blurLink%28thi</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Paul (David) Yonggi Cho </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">General Teachings/Activities </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Read more at:<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/cho/general.htm</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">" -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul Yonggi Cho is the "pastor" of
the world's largest Protestant church (Assemblies of God), the 850,000-member
Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea. (The 11/92 Charisma reports
that, after a family spat, Paul Yonggi Cho changed his name to
"David.") </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cho's
teachings are an idolatrous mix of a little Biblical teaching with a lot of
occult healing, prophesying, visualization, sorcery, and pagan mind techniques.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cho teaches that Christians can get
anything they want by calling upon the spirit world in the "fourth
dimension" and envisioning (visualizing) their felt needs, no matter how
crass and gross. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cho
teaches that positive thinking, positive speaking, and positive visualization
are the keys to success, and that anyone can literally "incubate" and
give birth to physical reality by creating a vivid image in his or her mind and
focusing upon it.</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">David Cloud visited the Yoido Full Gospel
Church in November of 2003, and filed this report: </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">"They claim that they have 850,000 members,
but I believe that is a vast exaggeration. They have seven services on Sunday,
and the auditorium seats about 14,000. It was full the two services I attended,
but even so, that is not anything like 850,000 -- even adding the other places
where they have services. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It is a charismatic church and they have a lot
of false doctrine, which is very sad, considering the vast number of people
that they are leading astray. "</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>---more reading</b></span><br />
<br />
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<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">http://www.apologeticsindex.org/r01.html</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">" In
the February 1995 edition of Alpha, in an article entitled, <b>"God as
servant, Man as God",</b> Charles Strohmer criticised David Yonggi Cho's
"faith incubation" process, along with similar techniques of other
"Faith Movement" proponents such as Kenneth Hagin, Agnes Sanford,
Kenneth Copeland and Maurice Cerullo, as a clear departure from the true
gospel.></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Michael
Horton, writing in Power Religion, castigates Robert Schuller's forward to
Yonggi Cho's Fourth Dimension arguing that it is a blend of "psychology,
magic and religion" (p.327). John MacArthur, is equally forthright. In
Charismatic Chaos, he asserts that Cho's ideas are "rooted in Buddhist and
occult teachings" (p.149). These are all well-informed criticisms of David
Yonggi Cho's teaching, that cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet. "</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">http://falseteachersexposed.blogspot.se/2007/01/paul-david-yonggi-cho.html</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By Peter
Masters</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">" He
frankly admits that it is a "Christianized" version of precisely the
same methods practiced by Buddhists, exponents of yoga, and the followers of
other pagan, mystical and occult systems. The only difference is that their
fourth-dimensional power receives co-operation from the devil, while that of
Christians supposedly receives help from the Holy Spirit. He says that so long
as we keep our minds from foolish and wrong ideas, we shall keep the canvas of
our imagination clean for the Holy Spirit to paint on it the things we are to
have. In other words, direct guidance from God will come right into our minds.
"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">" Paul
Yonggi Cho teaches that all Christians should aim to prosper in body, soul and
spirit, and their success and failure in this is due entirely to their success
or failure in visualizing. He writes that his church members have so proved
these principles of success that there have been no bankruptcies in his church,
and the membership has undertaken the largest and most expensive
church-building program in all history. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However,
one cannot always take Pastor Cho's claims very seriously, for elsewhere he
writes of how his own bankruptcy was all but inevitable, and how he stood on
the very verge of suicide through the near failure of his church-building
project. In the end he was only saved by church members taking such sympathetic
action that many sold their homes and most precious possessions to bail him
out.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Needless to
say, when we come to the Bible we cannot find any of these instructions or
ideas. We look in vain for any advice about visualizing, incubating, imagining,
or any other technique of sorcery or will-power designed to dominate God and to
take away His sovereignty over the lives of His people. In the Bible we find
that even an apostle like Paul is obliged to ask God in a humble, dependent way
if he might be enabled to visit the people of a certain church--<b>subject to the
will of God.</b> "</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">" Korea
has also for centuries been heavily influenced by Buddhism, particularly the
form already mentioned which places great stress on healing and divining. It is
taught that people do not need to be in bondage to their circumstances; they
can, by right attitudes, by concentration, and by uniting with the eternal
realm, get above suffering and sickness. The religious disposition of the
Koreans is both harnessed and exploited by the "Christianity" of Paul
Yonggi Cho in his blatant mix of sorcery, mind-over-matter, self-interest,
Sinkyo, Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. But to mix pagan ideas and
practices with the pure religion of Christ is condemned in Scripture as the
heinous sin of idolatry. It is a marriage of Christianity and the occult, and
is forbidden by God -- "What communion hath light with darkness? And--What
agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" "</span></div>
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<br />
Läs även:<br />
<a href="http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.se/2013/05/king-iguru-dedicates-bunyoro-to-god.html">http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.se/2013/05/king-iguru-dedicates-bunyoro-to-god.html</a><br />
<br />
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #eeeecc; background-image: url(http://www2.blogblog.com/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif); background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;">
King Iguru dedicates Bunyoro to God: Pentecostals Pastors led by Pastor Joshau Lwere join catholic and Anglican clergy to covenant Bunyoro Kingdom to God. Bunyoro Kingdom is deeply engrossed in ancestral worship and as well as the worship of small gods.</h3>
<br />
<h3 style="background-image: url(http://www2.blogblog.com/rounders3/icon_arrow.gif); background-position: 10px 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 14px 2px 29px;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: 12pt;">Pastor Joshua Lwere, the newly elected Head of National fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches in Uganda joins ecumenists in Bunyoro convention 2013</span></h3>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Pingst ffs i upplösning</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="Seminarium med anledning av 10 år av dialog mellan Pingst och Katolska kyrkan i Sverige">Seminarium med anledning av 10 år av dialog mellan Pingst och Katolska kyrkan i Sverige
</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Job 30:14</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They
came <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i> as a wide breaking in <i><span style="color: grey;">of waters:</span></i> in the desolation they rolled
themselves <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me.</span></i></b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">roll</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> - revolve, turn over, turn
round, turn, spin, rotate, sway, manipulate, maneuver, direct, control, stage-manage,
influence, control, operate, work, use, employ, convince, persuade, control, affect,
influence, win over, power, influence, control, authority, command, bend, lean,
swing, rock, wave, move, reel, lurch, stagger, totter, stumble, wobble, swim, whirl,
spin, go round and round, cylinder, spool, tube,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">BI</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Job 30:1-15</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">But now they that are
younger than I have me in derision.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Job’s social disabilities</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Man’s happiness as a
social being is greatly dependent upon the kind feeling and respect which is
shown to him by his contemporaries and neighbours. The social insolence from
which he suffers, and of which he complains, was marked by the following
circumstances:—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">I. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">It came from the most contemptible characters. He
regarded them as despicable in their ancestry. <b>“Whose fathers I would have
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.” </b>“They were driven from among
men, and people cried after them as after a thief.” <b>“Among the bushes they
brayed.”</b> These were the creatures amongst whom the patriarch now lived, and
whose insolence he had to endure. They had no faculty to discern or appreciate
his moral worth, and so utterly destitute of any power to compassionate
distress that they treated him with a heartless cruelty and revolting
insolence. Men may say that a man of his high character ought not to have
allowed himself to have been pained with the conduct of such wretches. But who
has ever done so? Even Christ Himself felt the reproaches of sinners, and was
not indifferent to their revilings and their sneers. “He endured their
contradictions.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">II. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">It was manifested in personal annoyances. “Now I am
their song,” he says, “I am their byword.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">III. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">It was shown to him on account of his providential
reverses. Not because he had become contemptible in character, or morally base
and degraded. Only because his circumstances were changed, great prosperity had
given way to overwhelming adversity. Learn—</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">1. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The worthlessness of mere social fame. What is it worth? Nothing. Its
breath of favour is more fickle than the wind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">2. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The moral heroism of the world’s Redeemer. Christ came into a social
position far more heartless and insolent than that which the patriarch here
describes. “Of the people there was none with Him, He was despised and rejected
of men.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">3. </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">The importance of habitual reliance on the absolute. Do not trust in
man. (<i>Homilist.</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Job 30:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>on<sup><span style="color: green;">G1909</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">3</span></sup>
<i><span style="color: grey;">the</span></i> right <i><span style="color: grey;">hand</span></i>
<sup><span style="color: green;">G1188</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">4</span></sup>of
<i><span style="color: grey;">their</span></i> offspring<sup><span style="color: green;">G986</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>They
rose up against <i><span style="color: grey;">me</span></i>].<sup><span style="color: green;">G1881</span></sup> [<sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup>his
feet<sup><span style="color: green;">G4228</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>He stretched out]<sup><span style="color: green;">G1614</span></sup>
and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> opened<sup><span style="color: green;">G3597.2</span></sup> against<sup><span style="color: green;">G1909</span></sup>
me;<sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> <i><span style="color: grey;">with</span></i> paths<sup><span style="color: green;">G5147</span></sup> of
their destruction<sup><span style="color: green;">G684</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> </b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Job 30:14</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(ASV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As through a wide breach they come: <b>In the
midst of the ruin they roll themselves <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>.
</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(BBE)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As through a wide broken place in the wall
they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Bibeln)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Såsom genom en bred rämna bryta de in; de
vältra sig fram under murarnas brak. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Bishops)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fell vpon me, as it had ben the breaking
in of waters, <b>and came in by heapes to destroy me. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Brenton)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he has pleaded against me as he will: I
am overwhelmed with pains. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Darby)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They come in as through a wide breach: <b>amid
the confusion they roll themselves onward.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(DRB)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have rushed in upon me, as when a wall
is broken, and a gate opened, and have rolled themselves down to my miseries. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(KJV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>
as a wide breaking in <i><span style="color: grey;">of waters:</span></i> in the
desolation they rolled themselves <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me.</span></i>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><i><span style="color: grey;"><br /></span></i>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(KJV-1611)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came vpon me as a wide breaking in of
waters: in the desolation they rolled themselues vpon me. </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(KJV-BRG)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>
as a wide breaking in <i><span style="color: grey;">of waters</span></i>: in the
desolation they rolled themselves <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(LITV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They come on, as <i><span style="color: grey;">through</span></i>
a break; <b>they roll on under ruin. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Norsk)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Som gjennem en vid revne kommer de; <b>gjennem
nedstyrtende murer velter de sig frem. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(SFB)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>De bryter fram som genom en bred rämna, <b>de
vältrar sig fram mellan ruinerna. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(Webster)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They came <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>
as a wide breaking in <i><span style="color: grey;">of waters</span></i>: <b>in the
desolation they rolled themselves <i><span style="color: grey;">upon me</span></i>.
</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">(YLT)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a wide breach they come, <b>Under the
desolation have rolled themselves.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=roll&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">roll (n.)</span></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">early 13c., <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"rolled-up
piece of parchment or paper"</b> <b>(especially one inscribed with an
official record)</b>, from Old French<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rolle</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">document, parchment scroll, decree"</b>
(12c.), from Medieval Latin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rotulus</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"a roll of paper"</b> (source
also of Spanish<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rollo</i></span>, Italian<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>ruollo</i></span>), from Latin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rotula</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"small
wheel,"</b> diminutive of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rota</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"wheel"</b> (see<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=rotary&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">rotary</span></i></b></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
Meaning "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a register, list,
catalogue"</b> is from late 14c., common from c.1800. Meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"dough which is rolled before
baking" </b>is first recorded mid-15c. Sense of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"act of rolling</b>" is from 1743. Meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"quantity of material rolled up</b>"
is from late 14c.; meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"quantity
of paper money"</b> is from 1846; sense of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"quantity of (rolled) film"</b> is from 1890. Meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"act of sexual intercourse</b>"
is attested from 1942 (<span class="foreign"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>roll
in the hay</i></b></span>), from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=roll&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">roll</span></i></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(v.). Dutch<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rol</i></span>, German<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>Rolle</i></span>, Danish<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>rulle</i></span>, etc. are from French.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Hay</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Cathay&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Cathay (n.)</span></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1560s, poetic name
for "China," from Medieval Latin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>Cataya</i></span>, from Turkish<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>Khitai</i></span>,
from Uighur<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign"><i>Khitai</i></span>,
name of a Tatar dynasty that ruled Beijing 936-1122.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Mahayana&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Mahayana</span></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">type of Buddhism practiced in northern
Asia, 1868, from Sanskrit, from</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">maha</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">great,"</b> from
PIE root</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">*meg-</span></i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">"great" (see</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></b></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=magnate&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">magnate</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">) +</b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></b></span><span class="foreign"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">yana</span></i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">"vehicle,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> from PIE root</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">*ei-</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">"to go" (see</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></b></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ion&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">ion</span></i></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">).</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=magnate&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">magnate (n.)</span></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">mid-15c., </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">"great man, noble, man
of wealth,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> from Late Latin</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">magnates</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">, plural of</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">magnas</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">"great
person, nobleman,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> from Latin</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">magnus</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">"</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">great,
large, big" (of size), "abundant" (of quantity), "great,
considerable" (of value), "strong, powerful" (of force); of
persons, "elder, aged," also, figuratively, "great, mighty,
grand, important,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> from PIE</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">*mag-no-</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">, from root</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">*meg-</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">"great"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> (cf. Sanskrit</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">maha-</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">mahat-</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">"</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">great;"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Greek</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">megas</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">, fem.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">megale</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">"</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">great,
large</span></b><span lang="EN-US">;" Gothic</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">mikils</span></i></span><span lang="EN-US">, Old English</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span class="foreign"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">micel</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">"</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">great, big, many;"</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> see</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mickle&allowed_in_frame=0"><b><i><span style="color: #800020; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">mickle</span></i></b></a>).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=master&allowed_in_frame=0" style="color: #800020; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">master (n.)</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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late Old English<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">mægester</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>"one having control or authority,"</b> from Latin<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">magister</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(n.) <b>"chief, head, director, teacher"</b> (source of Old French<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">maistre</span>, French<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">maître</span>, Spanish and Italian<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">maestro</span>, Portuguese<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">mestre</span>, Dutch<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">meester</span>, German<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">Meister</span>), contrastive adjective (<b>"he who is greater"</b>) from<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">magis</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(adv.) <b>"more,"</b> from PIE<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">*mag-yos-</span>, comparative of root<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">*meg-</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"great"</b> (see<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a class="crossreference" href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mickle&allowed_in_frame=0" style="color: #800020; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">mickle</a>). Form influenced in Middle English by Old French cognate<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">maistre</span>. Meaning <b>"original of a recording"</b> is from 1904. In academic senses (from Medieval Latin<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="foreign" style="font-style: italic;">magister</span>) it is attested from late 14c., originally a degree conveying authority to teach in the universities. As an adjective from late 12c.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2Pe 2:2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2Pe 2:2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. </b></span><br />
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2 Peter 2:2<br />
<br />
(ABP+) AndG2532 manyG4183 shall follow afterG1811 themG1473 <b>in theG3588 destruction,G684 </b>throughG1223 whomG3739 theG3588 wayG3598 of theG3588 truthG225 shall be blasphemed.G987 <br />
<br />
(ASV) <b>And many shall follow their lascivious doings</b>; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
(BBE) <b>And a great number will go with them in their evil ways</b>, through whom the true way will have a bad name. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Bibeln) De skola få många efterföljare i sin lösaktighet, och för deras skull skall sanningens väg bliva smädad. </b></span><br />
<br />
(Bishops) <b>And many shall folowe their damnable wayes</b>, by whom the way of trueth shalbe euyll spoken of: <br />
<br />
(Darby) <b>and many shall follow their dissolute ways,</b> through whom the way of the truth shall be blasphemed.<br />
<br />
<br />
(DRB) <b>And many shall follow their riotousness</b>, through whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
(KJV) And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
(KJV-BRG) And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
(LEB) <b>And many will follow their licentious ways</b>, because of whom the way of truth will be reviled. <br />
<br />
(LITV) <b>And many will follow their destructive ways</b>, by whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
(Murdock) <b>And many will go after their profaneness</b>; on account of whom, the way of truth will be reproached. <br />
<br />
(Norsk) <b></b>t<b>Og mange skal følge dem efter i deres skamløshet</b>, og for deres skyld skal sannhetens vei bli spottet, <br />
<br />
(SFB) <b>Många skall följa dem i deras utsvävningar</b>, och för deras skull kommer sanningens väg att smädas. <br />
<br />
(Webster) <b>And many will follow their pernicious ways</b>; by reason of whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of. <br />
<br />
<b>(WNT) And in their immoral ways they will have many eager disciples, through whom religion will be brought into disrepute. </b><br />
<br />
<b>(YLT) and many shall follow out their destructive ways, because of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of,</b></div>
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<b>KJC</b></div>
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G684<br />
<br />
apōleia</div>
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<br />
Total KJV Occurrences: 21</div>
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<br />
<b>perdition, 8</b><br />
Joh_17:12, Phi_1:28, 2Th_2:3, 1Ti_6:9, Heb_10:39, 2Pe_3:7, Rev_17:8, Rev_17:11</div>
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<br />
<b>destruction, 5</b><br />
Mat_7:13, Rom_9:22, Phi_3:19, 2Pe_2:1, 2Pe_3:16</div>
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<br />
<b>waste, 2</b><br />
Mat_26:8, Mar_14:4</div>
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<br />
<b>damnable, 1</b><br />
2Pe_2:1</div>
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<br />
<b>damnation, 1</b><br />
2Pe_2:3</div>
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<br />
<b>die, 1</b><br />
Act_25:16</div>
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<br />
<b>perish, 1</b><br />
Act_8:20</div>
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<br />
<b>pernicious, 1</b><br />
2Pe_2:2</div>
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<br />
<b>ways, 1</b><br />
2Pe_2:2<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 30:1</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But now <i><span style="color: grey;">they that
are</span></i> younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. </span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Job
30:1</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">dogs</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">H3611</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">keleb</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">From
an unused root meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to <i>yelp</i>,
or else to <i>attack</i>; a <i>dog</i>; hence (by euphemism) a male <i>prostitute</i></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Prostitute see: harlot, whore, </i></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">BDB</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">H3611</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">keleb</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">BDB Definition:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1) dog</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1a) dog (literal)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1b) contempt or abasement (figuratively)</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1c) of pagan sacrifice</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">1d) of male cult prostitute
(figuratively)</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Part
of Speech:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> noun masculine</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
Related Word by BDB/Strong’s Number:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> from an unused root means.
<b>to yelp, or else to attack</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Same
Word by TWOT Number: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">981a</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> <span style="font-size: small;"><b>1Co 6:15
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then
take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God
forbid. </b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;"><b><br />1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Lev
19:29 Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest
the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Rev
17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials,
and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee
the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><br />Rev
17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the
whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US"><br />Rev
17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall
hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her
flesh, and burn her with fire. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: small;"><b><br />Rev
19:2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the
great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath
avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Php 3:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Beware of <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dogs</span>, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision. </span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>
</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>
</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 22:15</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For without <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dogs</span>, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. </span></b></span></div>
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Audience, gathering,
assembly, crowd, throng, host, mass, audience, flock, worshipers, churchgoers, congregants,
a member of a religious congregation, gathering, crowd, swarm, horde, mob, troop,
circle, group, cluster, throng, flock, herd, assemble, gather, mass, congregate,
swarm, especially in a Jewish synagogue, communicants, parishioners, people
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">centrist (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up centrist at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1872, from French centriste, from centre
(see center (n.)). Originally in English with reference to French politics;
general application to other political situations is from 1890.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where M. St. Hilaire is seen to most
advantage, however, is when quietly nursing one of that weak-kneed congregation
who sit in the middle of the House, and call themselves "Centrists."
A <b>French Centrist is--exceptis eoccipiendis--a man who has never been able to
make up his mind, nor is likely to. </b>["Men of the Third Republic,"
London, 1873] </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">propaganda (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up propaganda at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1718, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"committee
of cardinals in charge of Catholic missionary work,"</b> short for
Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">congregation
for propagating the faith</b>," a committee of cardinals established 1622
by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is properly the ablative
fem. gerundive of Latin propagare (see propagation). Hence, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">any movement to propagate some practice or
ideology</b>" (1790). Modern political sense dates from World War I, not
originally pejorative. Meaning "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">material
or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." </b>is from 1929.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">propagation (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up propagation at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mid-15c., from Old French propagacion
"offshoot, offspring" (13c.) and directly from Latin propagationem
(nominative propagatio) "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a
propagation, extension, enlargement</b>," noun of action from past
participle stem of propagare "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">set
forward, extend, spread, increase; multiply plants by layers, breed,</b>"
from propago (genitive propaginis) "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that
which propagates, offspring</b>," from pro- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"forth" (see pro-) + *pag-, root of pangere "to
fasten" (see pact).</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">pro-</span></b> Look up pro- at Dictionary.com</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>word-forming element meaning "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">forward, forth, toward the front"
(e.g. proclaim, proceed); "beforehand, in advance" (prohibit,
provide); "taking care of" (procure); "in place of, on behalf
of" (proconsul, pronoun); from Latin pro "on behalf of, in place of,
before, for, in exchange for, just as,"</b> which also was used as a
prefix.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also in some cases from cognate Greek pro
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">before, in front of, sooner</b>,"
which also was used in Greek as a prefix (e.g. problem). Both the Latin and
Greek words are from PIE *pro- (cf. Sanskrit pra- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"before, forward, forth;</b>" Gothic faura "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">before</b>," Old English fore "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">before, for, on account of</b>," fram <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"forward, from;"</b> Old Irish
roar "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">enough</b>"), extended
form of root *per- (1) "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">forward,
through</b>" (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">see per).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The common modern sense "in favor of,
favoring" (e.g. pro-independence, pro-fluoridation, pro-Soviet) was not in
classical Latin and is attested in English from early 19c.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">pact (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up pact at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>early 15c., from Old French pacte "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">agreement, treaty, compact</b>"
(14c.), from Latin pactum <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"agreement,
contract, covenant</b>," noun use of neuter past participle of pacisci
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to covenant, to agree, make a
treaty," </b>from PIE root *pag- "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fix, join together, unite, make firm"</b> (cf. Sanskrit pasa-
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cord, rope</b>," Avestan pas-
"to fetter," Greek pegnynai "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to fix, make firm, fast or solid</b>," Latin pangere <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to fix, to fasten</b>," Slavonic
paž "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">wooden partition</b>,"
Old English fegan "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to join,"</b>
fon "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to catch seize</b>").</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">See also <u>the betrayer
of the gospel</u></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Charta Oecumenica</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.skr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/charta_oecumenica.pdf"><span lang="SV" style="mso-ansi-language: SV;">http://www.skr.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/charta_oecumenica.pdf</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.skr.org/shop/charta-oecumenica-1/">http://www.skr.org/shop/charta-oecumenica-1/</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.skr.org/medlemskyrkor/alla-medlemskyrkor/">http://www.skr.org/medlemskyrkor/alla-medlemskyrkor/</a></div>
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><b>And they
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">centrist (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up centrist at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1872, from French centriste, from centre
(see center (n.)). Originally in English with reference to French politics;
general application to other political situations is from 1890.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b> </b></span><b>Where M. St. Hilaire is seen to most
advantage, however, is when quietly nursing one of that weak-kneed congregation
who sit in the middle of the House, and call themselves "Centrists."
</b>A French Centrist is--exceptis eoccipiendis--a man who has never been able to
make up his mind, nor is likely to. ["Men of the Third Republic,"
London, 1873] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">propaganda (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up propaganda at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1718, <b>"committee of cardinals in
charge of Catholic missionary work,</b>" short for Congregatio de Propaganda
Fide "<b>congregation for propagating the faith</b>," a committee of cardinals
established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is
properly the ablative fem. gerundive of Latin propagare (<b>see propagation</b>).
Hence, "<b>any movement to propagate some practice or ideology"</b> (1790).
Modern political sense dates from World War I, not originally pejorative.
Meaning <b>"material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc."</b>
is from 1929.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Asperges (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up Asperges at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b> </b></span><b>sprinkling ritual of the Catholic church,</b>
1550s, from Late Latin asperges, noun use of 2nd person singular future
indicative of Latin aspergere "t<b>o scatter, strew upon, sprinkle,"
from ad "to" (see ad-) + spargere "to sprinkle" (see
sparse). </b>The word is taken from the phrase Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et
mundabor, f<b>rom Psalm 51 (Vulgate), sung during the rite of sprinkling a
congregation with holy water.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">trollop
Look up trollop at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1610s, "slovenly woman," probably
from troll (v.) in sense of "<span style="font-size: large;"><b>roll about, wallow."</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[A] certain Anne Hayward, wife of
Gregory Hayward of Beighton, did in the parishe church of Beighton aforesaid in
the time of Divine Service or Sermon there, and when the Minister was reading
& praying, violently & boisterously presse & enter into the seat or
place where one Elizabeth, wife of Robert Spurlinir, was quietly at her
Devotion & Duty to Almighty God and then and there did quarrel chide &
braule & being evilly & inalitiously bent did use then and there many
rayleing opprobrious Speeches & Invectives against the said Elizabeth
calling her Tripe & Trallop, to the great disturbance both of the Minister
and Congregation. [Archdeaconry of Sudbury, Suffolk, Court Proceedings, 1682]</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mammoth (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up mammoth at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1706, from Russian mammot', probably from
Ostyak, a Finno-Ugric language of northern Russia (cf. Finnish maa
"earth"). Because the remains were dug from the earth, the animal was
believed to root like a mole. As an adjective, "gigantic," from 1802;
in this sense "the word appears to be originally American" [Thornton,
"American Glossary"], and its first uses are in derogatory accounts
to the cheese wheel, more than 4 feet in diameter, sent to President Jefferson
by the ladies of the Baptist congregation in Cheshire, Mass., as a present,
engraved with the motto "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Federalist editors mocked the affair, and called up the word mammoth (known
from Peale's exhibition) to characterize it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">inquisition (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up inquisition at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>late 14c., "judicial investigation,
act or process of inquiring," from Old French inquisicion "inquiry,
investigation" (12c.), from Latin inquisitionem (nominative inquisitio)
"a searching into, legal examination," noun of action from past
participle stem of inquirere (<b>see inquire)</b>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Church history, inquisitors were
appointed from 382 C.E. to root out heretics, and the Inquisition refers to the
ecclesiastical court (Congregation of the Holy Office) appointed 13c. by
Innocent III to suppress heresy. It never operated in Britain. The capital letter
form appeared in English only after c.1500, and usually refers to the office's
reorganization 1478-1483 in Spain as what is commonly called the Spanish
Inquisition.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some more
reading of the Inquisition</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.reformation.org/spanish-inquisition.html">http://www.reformation.org/spanish-inquisition.html</a></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">synagogue (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look up synagogue at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>late 12c., from Old French sinagoge (11c.),
from Late Latin synagoga "<b>congregation of Jews</b>," from Greek synagoge
"<b>place of assembly, synagogue," literally "meeting,
assembly," from synagein "to gather, assemble," from syn-
"together" (see syn-) + agein "bring, lead" (see act). </b>Used
by Greek translators of the Old Testament as a loan-translation of late Hebrew
keneseth "<b>assembly</b>" (cf. beth keneseth "<b>synagogue,</b>"
literally<b> "house of assembly."</b>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">of the dead</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Strong</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7496</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">râphâ'</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From H7495 in
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">BDB</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7496</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">râphâ'</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Same Word by
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Strong</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">H7503</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">râphâh</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A primitive
root; to slacken (in many applications, literally or figuratively): - abate,
cease, consume, draw [toward evening], fail, (be) faint, be (wax) feeble,
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Dead</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">gehenna (n.)
Look up gehenna at Dictionary.com</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"hell," </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1620s, from Church Latin, from Greek geenna, from post-biblical Hebrew
gehinnom, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"Hell, place of fiery
torment for the dead," </b>figurative use of the place name Ge Hinnom
"the Valley of Hinnom," southwest of Jerusalem, where, </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">according to Jer. xix.5, children
were sacrificed to Moloch.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">spiritualist</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> (n.) Look up spiritualist at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1852, <b>"one who believes in the ability
of the living to communicate with the dead via a medium," from spiritual +
-ist (also see spirit).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every two or three years the Americans
have a paroxysm of humbug -- ... at the present time it is Spiritual-ism.
[J.Dix, "Transatlantic Tracings," 1853] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earlier (1640s) "<b>one with regard for
spiritual things."</b> Related <b>Spiritualistic.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Manes </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(pl.) Look up Manes at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Gods of the Lower World," </b></span>in
Roman religion, from Latin manes <b>"departed spirit, ghost, shade of the
dead, deified spirits of the underworld," </b>usually said to be from Latin
manus "good," thus properly "the good gods," a euphemistic
word, but Tucker suggests a possible connection instead to macer, thus
<b>"the thin or unsubstantial ones."</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">necropolis </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look up necropolis at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <b> </b></span><b>"large cemetery" </b>of an ancient or
modern city, 1803, from Late Latin, literally "<b>city of the dead,"
</b>from Greek Nekropolis, a burial place near Alexandria, from nekros (see necro-)
+ polis "city" (see polis).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>hell </b></span>(n.)
Look up hell at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old English hel, helle, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nether world, abode of the dead, infernal
regions,"</b> from Proto-Germanic *haljo "the underworld" (cf.
Old Frisian helle, Dutch hel, Old Norse hel, German Hölle, Gothic halja
"hell") "the underworld," literally "concealed
place" (cf. Old Norse hellir "cave, cavern"), from PIE *kel-
"to cover, conceal, save" (see cell).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The English word may be in part from Old
Norse Hel (from Proto-Germanic *halija <b>"one who covers up or hides
something"</b>), in Norse mythology the name of Loki's daughter, who rules
over the evil dead in Niflheim, the lowest of all worlds (nifl
"mist"). Transfer of a pagan concept and word to a Christian idiom.
In Middle English, also of the Limbus Patrum, place where the Patriarchs,
Prophets, etc. awaited the Atonement. Used in the KJV for Old Testament Hebrew
<b>Sheol</b> and New Testament Greek <b>Hades, Gehenna.</b> Used figuratively for "state
of misery, any bad experience" since at least late 14c. <b>As an expression
of disgust, etc., </b>first recorded 1670s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expression Hell in a handbasket is attested
by 1867, in a context implying use from a few years before, and the notion of
going to Heaven in a handbasket is from 1853, with a sense of "easy
passage" to the destination. Hell or high water (1874) apparently is a
variation of between the devil and the deep blue sea. To wish someone would go
to hell is in Shakespeare ("Merchant of Venice"). Snowball's chance
in hell "no chance" is from 1931; till hell freezes over
"never" is from 1832. To ride hell for leather is from 1889,
originally with reference to riding on horseback. Hell on wheels is said to be
from 1843 in DAS; popularity dates from 1869 in reference to the temporary
workers' towns along the U.S. transcontinental railroad and their vices.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">corporeal</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> (adj.) Look up corporeal at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>early 15c., with adjectival suffix -al (1)
+ Latin corporeus "<b>of the nature of a body,"</b> from corpus
"body" (living or dead), from PIE *kwrpes, from root *kwrep-
<b>"body, form, appearance,"</b> probably from a verbal root meaning
<b>"to appear"</b> (cf. Sanskrit krp- "form, body," Avestan
kerefsh <b>"form, body,"</b> Old English hrif <b>"belly,"</b> Old High
German href <b>"womb, belly, abdomen"</b>).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">demon</span> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look up demon at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>c.1200, from <b>Latin daemon
"spirit," from Greek daimon "deity, divine power; lesser god;
guiding spirit, tutelary deity" (sometimes including souls of the dead);
"one's genius, lot, or fortune;" from PIE *dai-mon- "divider,
provider" (of fortunes or destinies), </b>from root *da- <b>"to divide"
(see tide).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek
translations and Vulgate for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"god
of the heathen" and "unclean spirit."</b> Jewish authors earlier
had employed the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"lords, idols"</b> in the
Septuagint, and Matt. viii:31 has daimones, translated as deofol in Old
English, feend or deuil in Middle English. Another Old English word for this
was hellcniht, literally "hell-knight."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The original mythological sense is
sometimes written daemon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates was
a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and
later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. The Demon Star
(1895) is Algol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ghost </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look up ghost at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old English gast <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"soul, spirit, life, breath; good or bad spirit, angel,
demon,"</b> from Proto-Germanic *ghoizdoz (cf. Old Saxon gest, Old Frisian
jest, Middle Dutch gheest, Dutch geest, German Geist <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"spirit, ghost"</b>), from PIE root *gheis- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to be excited, amazed,
frightened"</b> (cf. Sanskrit hedah <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"wrath;"</b>
Avestan zaesha- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"horrible,
frightful;"</b> Gothic usgaisjan, Old English gæstan "to
frighten"). This was the usual West Germanic word for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"supernatural being,"</b> and the primary sense seems to have
been connected to the idea of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to
wound, tear, pull to pieces." </b>The surviving Old English senses,
however, are in Christian writing, where it is used to render Latin spiritus
(see spirit (n.), a sense preserved in Holy Ghost. Modern sense of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"disembodied spirit of a dead
person"</b> is attested from late 14c. and returns the word toward its
ancient sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">witch </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look up witch at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old
English wicce "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">female magician,
sorceress," in later use especially "a woman supposed to have
dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to
perform supernatural acts,"</b> fem. of Old English wicca <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"sorcerer, wizard, man who practices
witchcraft or magic,"</b> from verb wiccian <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to practice witchcraft"</b> (cf. Low German wikken, wicken <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to use witchcraft,"</b> wikker,
wicker <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"soothsayer"</b>).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>OED says of uncertain origin; Liberman says
"None of the proposed etymologies of witch is free from phonetic or
semantic difficulties." Klein suggests connection with Old English wigle <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"divination,"</b> and wig, wih
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">idol."</b> Watkins says the
nouns represent a Proto-Germanic *wikkjaz "necromancer" (one who
wakes the dead), from PIE *weg-yo-, from *weg- "to be strong, be
lively."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That wicce once had a more specific sense
than the later general one of <b>"female magician, sorceress"</b> perhaps is
suggested by the presence of other words in Old English <b>describing more
specific kinds of magical craft.</b> In the Laws of Ælfred (c.890), witchcraft was
specifically singled out as a woman's craft, whose practitioners were not to be
suffered to live among the W. Saxons:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan &
wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other two words combined with it here
are gealdricge, <b>a woman who practices "incantations," </b>and scinlæce
<b>"female wizard, woman magician,"</b> from a root meaning <u><b>"phantom,
evil spirit." </b></u>Another word that appears in the Anglo-Saxon laws is lyblæca
<b>"wizard, sorcerer,"</b> but with suggestions of skill in the use of
drugs, because the root of the word is lybb "<u><b>drug, poison, charm."</b></u> Lybbestre
was a fem. word meaning <b>"sorceress,"</b> and lybcorn was the name of a
certain medicinal seed (perhaps wild saffron). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Weekley notes possible
connection to Gothic weihs "holy" and German weihan
"consecrate," and writes, <b>"the priests of a suppressed religion
naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents." </b>In Anglo-Saxon
glossaries, wicca renders Latin augur (c.1100), and wicce stands for
<b>"pythoness, divinatricem." </b>In the "Three Kings of Cologne"
(c.1400) <b>wicca translates Magi:</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Þe paynyms ... cleped þe iij kyngis Magos,
þat is to seye wicchis. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The glossary translates <b>Latin necromantia
("demonum invocatio") with galdre, wiccecræft.</b> The Anglo-Saxon poem
called <b>"Men's Crafts" has wiccræft, which appears to be the same
word, and by its context means "skill with horses."</b> In a c.1250
translation of "Exodus," witches is used of the Egyptian midwives who
save the newborn sons of the Hebrews: "Ðe wicches hidden hem for-ðan,
Biforen pharaun nolden he ben." Witch in reference to a man survived in
dialect into 20c., but the fem. form was so dominant by 1601 that men-witches
or he-witch began to be used. Extended sense of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners"</b> is first
recorded 1740. Witch doctor is from 1718; applied to African magicians from
1836.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this day it is indifferent to say in
the English tongue, <b>'she is a witch,' or 'she is a wise woman.</b>' [Reginald Scot,
<i>"The Discoverie of Witchcraft,"</i> 1584] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Indo-European words for <u><b>"soul,
spirit" also double with reference to supernatural spirits. </b></u>Many have a
base sense of <b>"appearance" </b>(e.g. Greek phantasma; French spectre;
Polish widmo, from Old Church Slavonic videti "to see;" Old English
scin, Old High German giskin, originally <b>"appearance, apparition,"</b>
related to Old English scinan, Old High German skinan <b>"to shine"</b>).
Other concepts are in French revenant, literally <b>"returning" </b>(from
the other world), Old Norse aptr-ganga, literally <b>"back-comer."</b>
Breton bugelnoz is literally <b>"night-child."</b> Latin manes probably is a
euphemism.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gh- spelling appeared early 15c. in
Caxton, influenced by Flemish and Middle Dutch gheest, but was rare in English
before mid-16c. Sense of <b>"slight suggestion" (in ghost image, ghost
of a chance, etc.) </b>is first recorded 1610s; that in ghost writing is from 1884,
but that term is not found until 1919. Ghost town is from 1908. To give up the
ghost "die" was in Old English. Ghost in the machine was Gilbert
Ryle's term (1949) for "the mind viewed as separate from the body."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">saint </span></b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look up saint at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>early 12c., from Old French saint, seinte
<b>"a saint; a holy <span style="font-size: large;">relic</span>,"</b> displacing or altering Old English sanct,
both from Latin sanctus <b>"holy, consecrated"</b> (used as a noun in Late
Latin; also source of Spanish santo, santa, Italian san, etc.), properly past
participle of sancire <b>"consecrate" (see sacred). </b>Adopted into most
Germanic languages (cf. Old Frisian sankt, Dutch sint, German Sanct).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally an adjective prefixed to the
name of a canonized person; by c.1300 it came to be regarded as a noun. Meaning
<b>"person of extraordinary holiness" </b>is recorded from 1560s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and
edited. The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator,
Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St. Francis de Sales, said, on
hearing him called saint: <b>'I am delighted to hear that Monsieur de Sales is a
saint. He was fond of saying indelicate things, and used to cheat at cards. In
other respects he was a perfect gentleman, though a fool.' </b>[Ambrose Bierce,
"Devil's Dictionary," 1911]</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps you have imagined that this
humility in the saints is a pious illusion at which God smiles. That is a most
dangerous error. It is theoretically dangerous, because it makes you identify a
virtue (i.e., a perfection) with an illusion (i.e., an imperfection), which
must be nonsense. It is practically dangerous because it encourages a man to
mistake his first insights into his own corruption for the first beginnings of
a halo round his own silly head. No, depend upon it; when the saints say that
they--even they--are vile, they are recording truth with scientific accuracy.
[C.S. Lewis, "The Problem of Pain," 1940] </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>Applied widely to living things, diseases,
objects and phenomena,</b> e.g. Saint Bernard, the breed of mastiff dogs (1839), so
called because they were used by the monks of the hospice of the pass of St.
Bernard (between Italy and Switzerland) to rescue snowbound travelers; St.
Elmo's Fire "corposant" (1560s) is from Italian fuoco di Sant'Elmo,
named for the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors, a corruption of the name
of St. Erasmus, an Italian bishop martyred in 303.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">zeitgeist </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.)
Look up zeitgeist at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1848, from
German Zeitgeist, literally <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"spirit
of the age,"</b> from Zeit <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"time</b>"
(see tide) + Geist <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"spirit" (see
ghost).</b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">demotic</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">
(adj.) Look up demotic at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1822, from
Greek demotikos "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of or for the
common people, in common use," from demos "common people,"
originally "district,"</b> from PIE *da-mo- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"division,"</b> from root *da- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to divide" (see tide).</b> In contrast to hieratic.
Originally of the simpler of two forms of ancient Egyptian writing; broader
sense is from 1831; used of Greek since 1927.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">hieratic </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(adj.)
Look up hieratic at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"pertaining to sacred things,"</b>
1650s (implied in hieratical), from Latin hieraticus, from Greek hieratikos
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">pertaining to a priest or his
office, priestly,"</b> from hierateia <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>priesthood</u>,"</b>
from hiereus "priest," from hieros <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>sacred, holy, hallowed; superhuman, mighty; divine" (see
ire).</u></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>ire</b> (n.) Look up ire at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>c.1300, from
Old French ire "anger, wrath, violence" (11c.), from Latin ira
"anger, wrath, rage, passion," from PIE root *eis-, forming various
words denoting <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"passion"</b>
cf. Greek hieros <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"filled with the
divine, holy,"</b> oistros <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>gadfly,"
originally "thing causing madness;</u>"</b> Sanskrit esati "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">drives on</b>," yasati <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>boils;</u>"</b> Avestan aesma
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>anger</u>"</b>).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old English
irre in a similar sense is from an adjective irre "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>wandering, straying, angry,</u>"</b> cognate with Old Saxon
irri "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">angry,</b>" Old High
German irri "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>wandering, deranged,"
also "angry</u>;"</b> Gothic airzeis <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"astray,"</b>
and Latin errare <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"<u>wander, go
astray, angry" (see err</u> (v.)).</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">err </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(v.)
Look up err at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>c.1300, from
Old French errer "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>go astray,
lose one's way; make a mistake; transgress,"</u></b> from Latin errare
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>wander, go astray, be in error</u></b>,"
from PIE root *ers- "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">be in motion,
wander around</b>" (cf. Sanskrit arsati "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">flows;</b>" Old English ierre "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>angry, straying</u>;"</b> Old Frisian ire "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">angry</b>;" Old High German irri "angry," irron "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">astray</b>;" Gothic airziþa "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>error, deception</u></b>;" the
Germanic words reflecting the notion of anger as a "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">straying" from normal composure).</b> Related: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Erred; erring.</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rev 12:12<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></b></div>
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is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but
a short time.</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Heavens</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3772</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ouranos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Perhaps
from the same as G3735 (through the idea of elevation); the sky; by extension
heaven (as the abode of God); by implication happiness, power, eternity;
<b>specifically the Gospel (Christianity)</b>: - air, heaven ([-ly]), sky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3772</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">οὐρανός</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ouranos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thayer
Definition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1) the
vaulted expanse of the sky with all things visible in it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1a) the
universe, the world</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1b) the
aerial heavens or sky, the region where the clouds and the tempests gather, and
where thunder and lightning are produced</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c) the
sidereal or starry heavens</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2) <u>the
region above the sidereal heavens, the seat of order of things eternal and
consummately perfect where God dwells and other heavenly beings</u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Part of
Speech: noun masculine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Related
Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: perhaps from the same as G3735 (through the
idea of elevation); the sky</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Citing in
TDNT: 5:497, 736</span><br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Inhabitants</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">seat</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> (n.2) Look up seat at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>"residence, abode, established place,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> late 13c., extended use of seat
(n.1), influenced by Old French siege "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">seat, established place</b>," and Latin sedes "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">seat</b>." Meaning "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">city in which a government sits"</b>
is attested from c.1400. Sense of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">right
of taking a place in a parliament or other legislative body"</b> is
attested from 1774. Old English had sæt "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">place where one sits in ambush</b>," which also meant "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">residents, inhabitants</b>," and is
the source of the -set in Dorset and Somerset.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">puke (</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">n.) Look up puke at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1737, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a medicine which excites vomiting</b>;" 1966 as "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">material thrown up in vomiting</b>,"
from puke (v.). U.S. colloquial meaning "native of Missouri" (1835)
might be a different word, of unknown origin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is well known, that the inhabitants
of the several western States are called by certain nicknames. Those of
Michigan are called wolverines; of Indiana, hooshers; of Illinois, suckers; of
Ohio, buckeyes; of Kentucky, corn-crackers; of Missouri pukes, &c. To call
a person by his right nickname, is always taken in good part, and gives no
offence; but nothing is more offensive than to mis-nickname--that is, were you
to call a hoosher a wolverine, his blood would be up in a moment, and he would
immediately show fight. [A.A. Parker, "Trip to the West and Texas,"
Concord, N.H., 1835] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bartlett (1859) has "A nickname for a
native of Missouri" as the second sense of puke (n.), the first being
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A mean, contemptible fellow</b>."
The association of the state nickname with the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"vomit"</b> word is at least from 1858, and folk etymology
talks of the old state literally vomiting forth immigrants to California.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">fetish</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(n.) Look
up fetish at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1610s, fatisso, from Portuguese feitiço
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">charm, sorcery</b>," from
Latin facticius "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">made by art</b>,"
from facere "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to make" (see
factitious).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Latin facticius in Spanish has become
hechizo "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">magic, witchcraft, sorcery</b>."
Probably introduced by Portuguese sailors and traders as a name for charms and
talismans worshipped by the inhabitants of the Guinea coast of Africa.
Popularized in anthropology by C. de Brosses' "Le Culte des Dieux
Fétiches" (1760), which influenced the word's spelling in English (French
fétiche, also from the Portuguese word). Figurative sense of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">something irrationally revered"</b> is
American English, 1837.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any material image of a religious idea
is an idol; a material object in which force is supposed to be concentrated is
a Fetish; a material object, or a class of material objects, plants, or
animals, which is regarded by man with superstitious respect, and between whom
and man there is supposed to exist an invisible but effective force, is a
Totem. [J. Fitzgerald Lee, "The Greater Exodus," London, 1903] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For sexual sense, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">see fetishism.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>city</b> (n.)
Look up city at Dictionary.com</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>early 13c., in medieval usage a cathedral
town, but originally "<b>any settlement</b>," regardless of size
(distinction from town is 14c., though in English it always seems to have
ranked above borough), from Old French cite "<b>town, city"</b> (10c.,
Modern French cité), from earlier citet, from Latin civitatem (nominative
civitas; in Late Latin sometimes citatem) originally "citizenship,
condition or rights of a citizen, membership in the community," later
"<b>community of citizens, state, commonwealth</b>" (used, for instance of
the Gaulish tribes), from civis "<b>townsman</b>," from PIE root *kei-
"<span style="font-size: large;"><b>to lie; bed, couch; homestead; beloved, dear" (see <u>cemetery</u>).</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sense has been transferred from the
inhabitants to the place. The Latin word for "city" was urbs, but a
resident was civis. Civitas seems to have replaced urbs as Rome (the ultimate
urbs) lost its prestige. Loss of Latin -v- is regular in French in some
situations (cf. alleger from alleviare; neige from nivea; jeune from juvenis. A
different sound evolution from the Latin word yielded Italian citta, Catalan ciutat,
Spanish ciudad, Portuguese cidade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Replaced Old English burh (see borough).
London is the city from 1550s. As an adjective from c.1300. City hall first
recorded 1670s to fight city hall is 1913, American English; city slicker first
recorded 1916 (see slick); both American English. City limits is from 1825. The
newspaper city desk attested from 1878. Inner city first attested 1968. City
state (also city-state) is attested from 1877.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<dl>
<dt class="highlight"><b>cemetery</b></dt>
<dt class="highlight"> </dt>
<dt class="highlight"><a class="dictionary" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cemetery" title="Look up cemetery at Dictionary.com"></a></dt>
<dd class="highlight">late 14c., from Old French <span class="foreign">cimetiere</span> <b>"graveyard" </b>(12c.), from Late Latin <span class="foreign">coemeterium</span>, <b>from Greek <span class="foreign">koimeterion</span> "sleeping place, dormitory," from <span class="foreign">koiman</span> "to put to sleep," <span class="foreign">keimai</span> "I lie down," </b>from PIE root <span class="foreign">*kei-</span> "<b>to lie, rest," also "bed, couch,</b>" hence secondary sense of <b>"beloved, dear" </b>(cf. Greek <span class="foreign">keisthai</span> "<b>to lie, lie asleep</b>," Old Church Slavonic <span class="foreign">semija</span> "<b>family, domestic servants," </b>Lithuanian <span class="foreign">šeima</span> "<b>domestic servants,</b>" Lettish <span class="foreign">sieva</span> "<b>wife,</b>" Old English <span class="foreign">hiwan</span> "<b>members of a household," <span class="foreign">higid</span> "measure of land," Latin <span class="foreign">cunae</span> "a cradle,"</b> Sanskrit <span class="foreign">Sivah</span>
"<b>propitious, gracious</b>"). Early Christian writers were the first to use
it for <b>"burial ground,</b>" though the Greek word also had been anciently
used i<b>n reference to the sleep of death. </b>An Old English word for
"cemetery" was <span class="foreign">licburg</span>.</dd></dl>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">borough</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> (n.) Look up borough at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old English burg, burh "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a dwelling or dwellings within a fortified
enclosure</b>," from Proto-Germanic *burgs "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hill fort, fortress</b>" (cf. Old Frisian burg "castle,"
Old Norse borg "wall, castle," Old High German burg, buruc
"fortified place, citadel," German Burg "castle," Gothic
baurgs "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">city"</b>), from PIE
*bhrgh "high," with derivatives referring to hills, hill forts,
fortified elevations (cf. Old English beorg "hill," Welsh bera "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">stack, pyramid</b>," Sanskrit bhrant-,
Avestan brzant- "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">high,</b>"
Greek Pergamos, name of the citadel of Troy).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In German and Old Norse, chiefly as "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fortress, castle</b>;" in Gothic,
"<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">town, civic community</b>."
Meaning shifted in Middle English from "fortress," to "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fortified town," to simply "town</b>"
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(especially one possessing municipal
organization or sending representatives to Parliament</b>). In U.S. (originally
Pennsylvania, 1718) often an incorporated town; in Alaska, however, it is the
equivalent of a county. The Scottish form is burgh. The Old English dative
singular byrig survives in many place names as -bury.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">cage</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> (n.)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Look
up cage at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>early 13c., from Old French cage "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cage, prison; retreat, hideout</b>"
(12c.), from Latin cavea "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">hollow
place, enclosure for animals, coop, hive, stall, dungeon, spectators' seats in
the theater</b>" (cf. Italian gabbia "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">basket for fowls, coop;" see cave (n.)).</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Compare cave</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">hell (n.) </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Look up hell at Dictionary.com</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old English hel, helle, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">nether world, abode of the dead, infernal
regions</b>," from Proto-Germanic *haljo "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the underworld" (</b>cf. Old Frisian helle, Dutch hel, Old Norse
hel, German Hölle, Gothic halja <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"hell")
"the underworld," literally "concealed place</b>" (cf. Old
Norse hellir "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">cave, cavern</b>"),
from PIE *kel- "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to cover, conceal,
save" (see cell).</b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The English word may be in part from Old
Norse Hel (from Proto-Germanic *halija "<b>one who covers up or hides
something")</b>, in Norse mythology the name of Loki's daughter, <u>who rules
over the evil dead</u> in Niflheim, <u>the lowest of all worlds (nifl
"mist"</u>). Transfer of a pagan concept and word to a Christian idiom.
In Middle English, also of the Limbus Patrum, place where the Patriarchs,
Prophets, etc. awaited the Atonement. Used in the KJV for Old Testament Hebrew
Sheol and New Testament Greek Hades, Gehenna. Used figuratively for "state
of misery, any bad experience" since at least late 14c. <b>As an expression
of disgust, etc., </b>first recorded 1670s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Inhabiters of
the earth and of the sea</span></b></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2730</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">katoikeō</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From G2596
and G3611; to house permanently, that is, reside (literally or figuratively): -
<b>dwell (-er), inhabitant (-ter).</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2596</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kata</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A primary
particle; (preposition) down (in place or time), in varied relations (according
to the case [genitive, dative or accusative] with which it is joined): - about,
according as (to), after, against, (when they were) X alone, among, and, X
apart, (even, like) as (concerning, pertaining to, touching), X aside, at,
before, beyond, by, to the charge of, [charita-] bly, concerning, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">+ covered</b>, [dai-] ly, down, every, (+
far more) exceeding, X more excellent, for, from . . . to, godly, in (-asmuch,
divers, every, -to, respect of), . . . by, after the manner of, + by any means,
beyond (out of) measure, X mightily, more, X natural, of (up-) on (X part), out
(of every), <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">over against</b>, (+ your) X
own, + particularly, so, through (-oughout, -oughout every), thus, (un-) to
(-gether, -ward), X uttermost, where (-by), with. In composition it retains
many of these applications, and frequently denotes opposition, distribution or
intensity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2596</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">kata</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thayer
Definition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1) down
from, through out</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2)
according to, toward, along</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Part of
Speech: preposition</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Related
Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: a primary particle</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3611</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikeō</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From G3624;
to occupy a house that is, reside (figuratively inhabit, remain, inhere); by
implication to cohabit: - <b>dwell.</b> See also G3625.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3611</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikeō</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thayer
Definition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1) to dwell
in</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Part of
Speech: verb</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Related
Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from G3624</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Citing in
TDNT: 5:135, 674</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3624</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikos</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of
uncertain affinity; a dwelling (more or less extensive, literally or
figuratively); by implication a family (more or less related, literally or
figuratively): - <b>home, house (-hold), temple.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">temple - see also church </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3624</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikos</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thayer
Definition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1) a house</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1a) an inhabited house, home</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1b) any building whatever</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1b1) of a palace</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1b2) the house of God, the tabernacle</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c) any dwelling place</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c1) of the human body as the abode of demons
that possess it</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c2) of tents, and huts, and later, of the
nests, stalls, lairs, of animals</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c3) the place where one has fixed his
residence, one’s settled abode, domicile</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2) the inmates of a house, all the persons
forming one family, a household</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2a) the family of God, of the Christian Church,
of the church of the Old and New Testaments</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">3) stock, family, descendants of one</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Part of
Speech: noun masculine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Related
Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: of uncertain affinity</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Citing in
TDNT: 5:119, 674</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3625</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikoumenē</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Feminine
participle present passive of G3611 (as noun, by implication of G1093); land,
that is, the (terrene part of the) globe; specifically the Roman empire: -
earth, world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G3625</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikoumenē</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thayer
Definition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1) the
inhabited earth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1a) the
portion of the earth inhabited by the Greeks, in distinction from the lands of
the barbarians</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1b) the
Roman empire, all the subjects of the empire</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1c) the
whole inhabited earth, the world</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">1d) the
inhabitants of the earth, men</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2) the
universe, the world</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Part of
Speech: noun feminine</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Related
Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: feminine participle present passive of G3611
(as noun, by implication of G1093)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Citing in
TDNT: 5:157, 674</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Compare</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rev 18:2<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he cried mightily with a strong voice,
saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, <u>and is become the habitation</u></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2732 of devils</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">G2732 - G3625 see strongs.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">oikoumenē</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Gill</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Revelation
18:2</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And he
cried mightily with a strong voice,.... Which shows not only the vehemence and
affection of the ministers of the word, who will publish what follows, but the
greatness and importance of it; and this loud voice may be, as for the sake of
the whole church in general, that all may bear, so for the sake of those of the
Lord's people in particular, that will be in Babylon at this time; and it may
have regard to that deep sleep and spirit of slumber that Babylon itself will
be in, which, notwithstanding this loud cry, will remain insensible of its ruin
till it comes upon her, as was the case of old Babylon, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jer_51:39,</b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">saying,
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen: the whole world is not designed by
Babylon, for it is distinguished from all nations in the following verse; nor
Babylon in Chaldea, which was fallen long before John saw this vision, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">but Rome Papal; See Gill on Rev_14:8 so the
woman is called in Rev_17:5 who sits on seven mountains, and is that great
city, the city of Rome, that reigns over the kings of the earth, Rev_18:9 </b>this
is said to be fallen, because, in a very little time after this declaration, it
will fall; for as yet it was not destroyed, since after this the Lord's people
are called upon to come out of her, and are bid to reward her double; and it is
declared, that her plagues, should come in one day, and she should be burnt
with fire; and an angel after this throws a millstone into the sea, saying,
that so should Babylon be thrown down, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rev_18:4</b>
and it is repeated to denote the certainty and utter destruction of her: and
which is more fully expressed by what follows, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and is become
the habitation of devils; as old Babylon was of satyrs, Isa 13:21 demons, which
appeared in a hairy form, like goats, and the word is rendered devils in Lev 17:7
<u>and the inhabitants of Rome now are no other; the pope and his cardinals,
the priests, Jesuits, monks, and friars, are the spirits of devils, and their
doctrines the doctrines of devils</u>; see Rev 16:14</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and the
hold of every foul spirit: devils are frequently called unclean spirits, and
these appear in desert and desolate places, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mat_12:43</b> where they are either of choice, or rather are obliged to
it; and so the word translated <b>"hold" signifies a prison, or place of
confinement; and such as are comparable to unclean spirits now haunt and abound
in Rome, and its territories; </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">see
Rev_16:13</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and a cage
of every unclean and hateful bird; such, as vultures, kites, owls, &c.
which generally reside in desolate and uninhabited places; the Alexandrian
copy, the Syriac and Ethiopic versions, add, "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>and the hold", or "seat of every unclean and hateful beast";</u></b>
and so the desolation of old Babylon is described by wild beasts and doleful
creatures dwelling in it, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 13:21</b>.
Some consider all this as a reason of the destruction of Babylon or Rome,
because it now is the residence of persons comparable to devils, foul spirits,
hateful birds, and beasts of prey; but this account rather describes its state
and case in which it will be after its ruin, being never more to be inhabited
by men, in allusion to old Babylon, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Isa 13:19.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">JFB</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Revelation 18:2</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">mightily
... strong — not supported by manuscripts. But A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and
Coptic read, “with (literally, ‘in’) a mighty voice.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">is fallen,
is fallen — so A, Vulgate, Syriac, and Andreas. But B and Coptic omit the
second “is fallen” (Isa_21:9; Jer_51:8). This phrase is here prophetical of her
fall, still future, as Rev_18:4 proves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">devils —
Greek, “demons.”</span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>
</b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">the hold —
a keep or prison.</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">SCOFIELD</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Revelation
18:2</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Babylon </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Babylon,
"confusion," </b>is repeatedly used by the prophets in a symbolic sense </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(See
Scofield) - (Isa 13:2), note 2. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Two
"Babylons" are to be distinguished in the Revelation: ecclesiastical
babylon, which is apostate Christendom, headed up under the Papacy; and
political babylon, which is the Beast's confederated empire, the last form of
Gentile world-dominion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Ecclesiastical
Babylon is "the great whore" (Rev 17:1) and is destroyed by political
Babylon (Rev 17:15-18) that the beast may be the alone object of worship.
(2Th 2:3); (2Th 2:4); (Rev 13:15). The power of political Babylon is destroyed
by the return of the Lord in glory. </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(See
"Armageddon,"); (Rev_16:14); (Rev_19:17). </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The notion
of a literal Babylon to be rebuilt on the site of ancient Babylon is in
conflict with (Isa_13:19-22). But the language of (Rev_18:10); (Rev_18:16);
(Rev_18:18) seems beyond question to identify "Babylon," the
"city" of luxury and traffic, with "Babylon" the
ecclesiastical centre, namely, Rome. The very kings who hate ecclesiastical
Babylon deplore the destruction of commercial Babylon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>see also:</b></span><br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names.</span></b></div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Learn the true origins of:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Mother and Child</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Mass</span></div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The Wafer (Eucharist)</span></div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Purgatory</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Sovereign Pontiff</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Prayers for the Dead</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Rosary</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Sign of the Cross</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">The Confessional</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Clothing and Crowning of Images</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Priests, Monks, and Nuns</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Relic Worship</span></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Worship of the Sacred Heart</span></div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Extreme Unction</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">and much more!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span lang="EN-US">Although difficult reading, this book accurately provides a fascinating historical in-depth examination of the shocking similarities between the practices of ancient Babylonian religion and those of today's Roman Catholic church.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">See how a religion that was started by Nimrod and his wife spread to various regions, taking on different names, but keeping the same pagan rituals and trappings. These same rituals embody the Catholic church of today.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Similar items:</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.eaec.org/bookstore/books/50_years_church_of_rome.htm"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;">50 Years in the "Church" of Rome</span></a><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><a href="http://www.eaec.org/bookstore/books/answers_catholic_%20friends.htm"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;">Answers to my Catholic Friends</span></a><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><a href="http://www.eaec.org/bookstore/books/understanding_rc.htm"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue;">Understanding Roman Catholicism</span></a></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>go to: </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://missionoc.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/judgment-therefore-begins-with-the-harlot-as-in-privileges-the-house-of-god/" rel="bookmark" title="Permalänk till Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God.">Judgment, therefore, begins with the harlot, as in privileges the house of God.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://missionoc.wordpress.com/">http://missionoc.wordpress.com/</a></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Rev 18:20</span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Rejoice over her,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i><span style="color: grey;">thou</span></i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>heaven, and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i><span style="color: grey;">ye</span></i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.</span></b></div>
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<b>Mera om:</b><br />
<br />
<h1>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Suspended Sentence, Probation and Fines for Convicted South Korean Pastor, David Yonggi Cho</span></span></h1>
<h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=13416">http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=13416</a>
<span> </span></span></div>
</h1>
<div id="articleinfo">
Aimee Herd : Feb 26, 2014 : <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/42918-setting-the-record-straight-on-david-yonggi-cho" target="_blank">Dr. Bob Rodgers, Sr. – Charisma News</a><br /><br />
<span style="height: 20px; vertical-align: bottom; width: 621px;"></span>
</div>
<div id="articlecontent">
<em><strong>"The court considered that
even though Pastor Cho had the final say in the church, he never took
the lead in any of the crimes, including tax evasion, committed on the
suggestion of the accounting firm." -Presiding judge</strong></em><br />
<br />
<img align="left" alt="BNPS photo " height="164" hspace="20" src="http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/images/news/chodown1.jpg" width="210" />(South
Korea)—News reports, this week, have been swirling around the
indictment of South Korean Pastor David Yonggi Cho—Founder of the
world's largest church; Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul—on fraud and
embezzlement of $12 million in church funds. <em>(Photo via Crossmap) </em><br />
</div>
<b>Cho
(78) was sentenced to three years in prison-suspended, and five years
probation, along with a fine of $5 million. He was also found guilty of
tax evasion.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Cho's oldest son, Cho Hee-Jun (49), was found guilty of the same charges, and according to the <em>Charisma News</em> <a href="http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/42918-setting-the-record-straight-on-david-yonggi-cho">report</a>,
because he was considered a flight risk, he was taken into custody
immediately after his sentencing to serve a 3-year sentence.</b><br />
<br />
The <em>Charisma</em> report noted that
the court had "considered Cho's life journey as a religious leader and
his long-term contribution to social welfare as mitigating circumstances
on his behalf. The court ruled that his son, Cho Hee-Jun, was the
instigator of the crime related to the purchase of the shares of
1-Service stock."</div>
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<br />
<img align="right" alt="BNPS photo " height="116" hspace="20" src="http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/images/news/chodown2.jpg" width="210" />The
presiding judge had reportedly stated, "The court considered that even
though Pastor Cho had the final say in the church, he never took the
lead in any of the crimes, including tax evasion, committed on the
suggestion of the accounting firm." <em>(Photo via Charisma News) </em><br />
<br />
Which is probably why his prison term was suspended for probation.<br />
In the <em>Charisma</em> report, Louisville,
Kentucky pastor, Dr. Bob Rodgers also noted that in spite of his
convictions, Cho didn't live an elaborate lifestyle. According to
Rodgers, he didn't own a car, he lived in a 1,000-square-foot church
apartment, and he had "raised and given personally to the church more
than $170 million."<br />
<br />
David Yonggi Cho told his congregation on
February 23rd, "Through this suffering, I've learned a homework. An
individual shouldn't possess anything."</div>
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Inlagt av Leif Berg</div>
GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-13588727574296635482012-08-03T01:08:00.003-07:002012-10-08T08:44:35.255-07:00A man greater than Jesus is on Earth, beware of the false gospel!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A man greater than Jesus is on Earth </b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1Co 8:5</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For though there be that are called gods,
whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">called</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G3004</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">legō</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">A
primary verb; properly to “lay” forth, that is, (figuratively) <i>relate</i>
(in words [usually of systematic or set <i>discourse</i>; whereas <u><span style="color: green;">G2036</span></u> and <u><span style="color: green;">G5346</span></u>
generally refer to an <i>individual</i> expression or speech respectively;
while <u><span style="color: green;">G4483</span></u> is properly to <i>break</i>
<i>silence</i> merely, and <u><span style="color: green;">G2980</span></u> <b>means
an <i>extended</i> or random harangue]); by implication to <i>mean:</i> - ask,
bid, boast, call, describe, give out, name, put forth, say (-ing, on), shew,
speak, tell, utter.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G5346</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">phēmi</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Properly
the same as the base of <u><span style="color: green;">G5457</span></u> and <u><span style="color: green;">G5316</span></u>; to <i>show</i> or <i>make</i> <i>known</i>
one’s thoughts, that is, <i>speak</i> or <i>say</i>: - affirm, say. Compare <u><span style="color: green;">G3004</span></u>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">gods</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">G2316</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">theos</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Of
uncertain affinity; <b>a <i>deity</i>, especially (with <u><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></u>) <i>the</i> supreme <i>Divinity</i>; figuratively a <i>magistrate</i>;
by Hebraism <i>very:</i> - X exceeding, God, god [-ly, -ward].</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">gods, 8</span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Joh_10:34-35</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (2), <u><span style="color: green;">Act_7:40</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Act_14:11</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Act_19:26</span></u>,
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green;">1Co_8:5</span></u>
(</b>2), <u><span style="color: green;">Gal_4:8</span></u></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Barnes</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1
Corinthians 8:5</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">That are called gods - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Gods so
called. The pagans everywhere worshipped multitudes, and gave to them the name
of gods.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Whether in heaven - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Residing in heaven, as a
part of the gods were supposed to do. Perhaps, there may be allusion here to
the sun, moon, and stars; but I rather suppose that reference is made to the
celestial deities, or to those who were supposed to reside in heaven, though
they were supposed occasionally to visit the earth, as Jupiter, Juno, Mercury,
etc.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Or in earth - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Upon the earth; or that
reigned particularly ever the earth, or sea, as Ceres, Neptune, etc. The
ancient pagans worshipped some gods that were supposed to dwell in heaven; others
that were supposed to reside on earth; and others that presided over the
inferior regions, as Pluto, etc.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">As there be gods many - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ω</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">̔́</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">σπερ</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">hōsper</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, etc. As there are, in
fact, many which are so called or regarded. It is a fact that the pagans
worship many whom they esteem to be gods, or whom they regard as such. This
cannot be an admission of Paul that they were truly gods, and ought to he
worshipped; but it is a declaration that they esteemed them to be such, or that
a large number of imaginary beings were thus adored. The emphasis should be
placed on the word “many;” and the design of the parenthesis is, to show that
the number of these that were worshipped was not a few, but was immense; and
that they were in fact worshipped as gods, and allowed to have the influence
over their minds and lives which they would have if they were real; that is,
that the effect of this popular belief was to produce just as much fear, alarm,
superstition, and corruption, as though these imaginary gods had a real
existence. So that though the more intelligent of the pagan put no confidence
in them, yet the effect on the great mass was the same as if they had had a
real existence, and exerted over them a real control.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">And lords many - </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">(</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">κυ</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">́</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ριοι</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">πολλοι</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">̀</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>kurioi
polloi</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">).
Those who had a “rule” over them; to whom they submitted themselves; and whose
laws they obeyed. <b>This name “lord” was often given to their idol gods.</b> Thus,
among the nations of Canaan their idols was called </span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">בּצל</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">Ba‛al</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">,
(<b>“Baal, or lord”</b>), the tutelary god of the Phoenicians and Syrians; <u><span style="color: green;">Jdg_8:33</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Jdg_9:4</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Jdg_9:46</span></u>. It is used here with
reference to the IdoLS, and means that the laws which they were supposed to
give in regard to their worship had control over the minds of their
worshippers.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Gill</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1 Corinthians 8:5</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>For though there be that are called gods</b>,....
That are so by name, though not by nature; who are called so in Scripture, as
angels and magistrates, or by men, who give them such names, and account them
so: </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">whether in heaven</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">; as the sun, moon, and
stars: </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">or in earth</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">; as men who formerly
lived on earth; or various creatures on earth, who have been accounted deities;
or stocks and stones graven by man's device: </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">as there be gods many</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">:
almost without number, as were among the Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, and
others; yea, even among the Jews, who falling into idolatry, their gods were
according to the number of their cities, <u><span style="color: green;">Jer_2:28</span></u></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">and lords many</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">; r<b>eferring to the
Baalim, or the several idols that went by the name of Baal, or lord, as Baal
Peor, <u><span style="color: green;">Num_25:3</span></u> Baal Zephon, <u><span style="color: green;">Exo_14:2</span></u> Baal Zebub, <u><span style="color: green;">2Ki_1:2</span></u>
Baal Berith, <u><span style="color: green;">Jdg_8:33</span></u>.</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">JFB</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1 Corinthians 8:5</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“For even supposing there are (exist) gods so called </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(<u><span style="color: green;">2Th_2:4</span></u>),</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> whether in heaven (as the sun, moon, and stars) or in
earth (as deified kings, beasts, etc.), as there be (a recognized fact, <u><span style="color: green;">Deu_10:17</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_135:5</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Psa_136:2</span></u>) gods many and lords many.”
Angels and men in authority are termed <i>gods</i> in Scripture, as exercising
a divinely delegated power under God (compare <u><span style="color: green;">Exo_22:9</span></u>,
with <u><span style="color: green;">Exo_22:28</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_82:1</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Psa_82:6</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Joh_10:34</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Joh_10:35</span></u>).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Tsk</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1 Corinthians 8:5</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">that:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <u><span style="color: green;">Deu_10:17</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Jer_2:11</span></u>, <u><span style="color: green;">Jer_2:28</span></u>,
<u><span style="color: green;">Jer_11:13</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Dan_5:4</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Joh_10:34-35</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Gal_4:8</span></u>; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green;">2Th_2:4</span></u></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:1</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and <i><span style="color: grey;">by</span></i> our
gathering together unto him, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be
troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the
day of Christ is at hand. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:3</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let no man deceive you by any means: for <i><span style="color: grey;">that day shall not come,</span></i> except there come a
falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:4</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:5</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with
you, I told you these things? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:6</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now ye know what withholdeth that he
might be revealed in his time. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:7</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work: only he who now letteth <i><span style="color: grey;">will let,</span></i>
until he be taken out of the way. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming: </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:9</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i><span style="color: grey;">Even him,</span></i>
whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:10</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the
truth, that they might be saved. </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:11</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for this cause God shall send them strong
delusion, that they should believe a lie: </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">2Th 2:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That they all might be damned who believed
not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">VWS</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1 Corinthians 8:5</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Gods - lords</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Superhuman beings to whom these titles are given, as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green;">Eph_6:12</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">2Co_4:4</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Joh_12:31</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Joh_14:30</span></u>.</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">For
though there be (kai gar eiper eisi). </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Literally,</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">‘For even if indeed there
are’ (a concessive clause, condition of the first class, assumed to be true for
argument’s sake). </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Called
gods</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">
(legomenoi theoi). </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">So-called
gods, reputed gods</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">reputed gods</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> - seeming, ostensible, deceptive,
misleading, illusory, deceiving, to be regarded with suspicion, not to be
trusted, unreliable, erratic, changeable, variable, untrustworthy, undependable,
fly-by-night, fallacious, flimsy, untrue, inaccurate, falsified, anecdotal, erroneous,
doubtful, unrepresentative,</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">Paul
denied really the existence of these so-called gods and held that those who
worshipped idols (non-entities) <u>in reality worshipped demons or evil
spirits, agents of Satan</u> </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">(1
Cor. 10:19-21). (RWP)</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1Co 8:6</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But to us <i><span style="color: grey;">there is but</span></i> one God, the Father, of whom <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> all things, and we
by him. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>
</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u>Quotes from the antichristian catholic church, making the priest greater than God</u>.</span></b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"The Dignity of the Priest Surpasses all other
Created</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> Dignities."</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">"The kings of the earth
glory in honoring priests: bend their knee before the priest of God; they kiss
his hands, and with bowed down head receive his benediction</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">."</span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></b></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Holy Virgin,excuse me, for I speak not
against thee: the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The saint assigns the reason of the
superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once;
but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as
often as he wishes, so that if the person of the Redeemer had not as yet been
in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would
produce this great person of a Man-God.;</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">O wonder ful dignity of the priests; cries out
St. Augustine;; in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of
God becomes- incarnate. : Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ:
such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by
which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be
called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of consecration,
he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental
existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As in creating the world it was sufficient for
God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created He spoke, and they were
made? so it is sufficient for</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the priest to say,</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hoc est corpus meum and behold the bread is</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The power of the priest; says St. Bernardine
of Sienna,; is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of the
bread requires as much power as the</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">creation
of the world</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">."</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Holy Virgin,excuse me, for I speak not
against thee: the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The saint assigns the reason of the
superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once;
but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as
often as he wishes, so that if the person of the Redeemer had not as yet been
in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would
produce this great person of a Man-God.;</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">O wonder ful dignity of the priests; cries out
St. Augustine;; in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of
God becomes- incarnate. : Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ:
such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by
which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be
called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of consecration,
he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental
existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As in creating the world it was sufficient for
God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created He spoke, and they were
made? so it is sufficient for</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the priest to say,</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hoc est corpus meum and behold the bread is</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The power of the priest; says St. Bernardine
of Sienna,; is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of the
bread requires as much power as the</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">creation
of the world</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">."</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Holy Virgin,excuse me, for I speak not
against thee: the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The saint assigns the reason of the
superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once;
but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as
often as he wishes, so that if the person of the Redeemer had not as yet been
in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would
produce this great person of a Man-God.;</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">O wonder ful dignity of the priests; cries out
St. Augustine;; in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of
God becomes- incarnate. : Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ:
such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by
which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be
called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of consecration,
he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental
existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As in creating the world it was sufficient for
God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created He spoke, and they were
made? so it is sufficient for</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the priest to say,</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hoc est corpus meum and behold the bread is</span></b></u></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ</span></b></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The power of the priest; says St. Bernardine
of Sienna,; is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of the
bread requires as much power as the</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">creation
of the world</b></span></u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">."</span></b></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><u>But our wonder<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>should be far greater when we find that in obedience to<br />the words of his priests Hoc EST CORPUS MEUM God<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>himself descends on the altar, that he comes wherever<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>they call him, and as often as they call him, and places himself in their hands, even though they should be his enemies</u>."</span></b></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Holy Virgin,excuse me, for I speak not
against thee: the Lord has raised the priesthood above thee.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The saint assigns the reason of the
superiority of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only once;
but by consecrating the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, conceives him as
often as he wishes, so that if the person of the Redeemer had not as yet been
in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would
produce this great person of a Man-God.;</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">O wonder ful dignity of the priests; cries out
St. Augustine;; in their hands, as in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of
God becomes- incarnate. : Hence priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ:
such is the title that St. Bernard gives them, for they are the active cause by
which he is made to exist really in the consecrated Host.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Thus the priest may, in a certain manner, be
called the creator of his Creator, since by saying the words of consecration,
he creates, as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental
existence, and produces him as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father.</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As in creating the world it was sufficient for
God to have said, Let it be made, and it was created He spoke, and they were
made? so it is sufficient for</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">the priest to say,</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hoc est corpus meum and behold the bread is</span></b></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">no longer bread, but the body of Jesus Christ</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The power of the priest; says St. Bernardine
of Sienna,; is the power of the divine person; for the transubstantiation</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">of the
bread requires as much power as the</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">creation
of the world</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Courier; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">."</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">A
God deigns to obey my voice.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qp1iHYOyHkk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Benny Hinn exposed</b></span></div>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" style="background-color: #ebebeb; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 1.8333em; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; height: 1.1363em; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.1363em; margin: 0px 0px 5px; max-height: 1.1363em; orphans: 2; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;"></span>
</h1>
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<span class=" " dir="ltr" id="eow-title" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 22px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Prosperity Teachers In Their Own Words">Prosperity Teachers In Their Own Words</span></h1>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Jesus Christ interviewed on Glenn Beck</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>False Christ, man who claims to be Jesus Watch Out !!!!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> A man greater than Jesus is on Earth - CNN News announces Christ is back in a Puerto Rican man!</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Det katolska prästerskapet, biskopsväldet, universal bishop, antichrist, demoners läror från draknästet i Rom, varifrån de ekumeniska och karismatiska villfarelserna har sitt ursprung frodas i olika skepnader i den frikyrkliga miljön, Ulf Ekman förför och snärjer frikyrkorna in i sin ekumeniska, karismatiska värld av främmande läror.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>På bokbordet hos livets ord frodas böcker med mystikläror från katolska källor, samt samröret med Benny Hinn, Joel Osteens böcker med sitt Kristuslösa evangelium.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ulf Ekman och de<span style="font-size: large;">n katolska karismatiska mystikrörelsen</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ulf Ekman styr över till det Katolska antikristna Biskopsväldet.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Och vart är pingst ffs på väg?</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">Sten Gunnar Hedin</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Niklas
Piensoho</span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> Hur var det med Ulf Ekm<span style="font-size: large;">ans ekumenik?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ulf Ekman exopsed! </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Men vad sa Lester Sumrall?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lester Sumrall talks about the pope! </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sist men inte minst Stanley Sjöberg den tvetydiga predikanten.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Uttalanden av Stanley Sjöberg</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><b><span style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">"I <a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/viewNews.do?NewsID=1382"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Hemmets Vän</span></a> skriver
Stanley: ”Kritiken har hårdnat ju närmare vi kommer den 3 maj. Det finns de som
tror att de ska hindra vittnesbördet om Jesus från en sådan samverkan genom att
just nu uppmärksamma de historiska kyrkornas fel och brister. En
nyprotestantisk iver kan dock inte släcka den eld som den helige Ande tänt
bland mer än 120 miljoner andefyllda katoliker.”</span></b></i></span></span></div>
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Stanley Sjöberg har synpunkter på att det förs fram<br />
kritik mot katolska kyrkans felaktigheter just nu.</span></span> </span></b></i></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Jag är gripen av att ortodoxa och katolska kyrkoledare, tillsammans med Svenska kyrkans och frikyrkosamfundens ledare, ska stå tillsammans med trosrörelsens ledare Ulf Ekman och hans medarbetare. "</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>- ochännu ett underligt uttalande av Stanley Sjöberg i Hemmets Vän.</b></span></span><br />
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<h1>
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=3009&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=3009&coid=3</a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></h1>
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</xml><![endif]--></b><b><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">"Christofer
Columbus,</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="float: none; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: SV; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;">en karismatisk kristen man med historisk betydelse är
en förebild i att stödja det judiska folkets kamp för sina rättigheter. Han är
ett exempel på hur Gud leder och förser sitt folk när stödet från ett område
sviktar och ännu ej upptäckta resurser ger styrka åt löftets
förverkligande." ???</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;">Stanley Sjöberg</span></b></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h1 style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
Vår fiende är ateismen - inte de historiska kyrkorna</h1>
<h1 style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 24px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=2078&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=2078&coid=3</a> </span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Varnar för islams inflytande</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Vi gör väl i att lyssna till våra syrisk-ortodoxa trossyskon när de varnar oss för islams inflytande över tänkandet i Europa. Det är också en sådan historisk kyrka som känner igen falskheten i den teologi som introduceras i Europa och som genom att kompromissa vill söka enhet med islams religion.</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Det finns frikyrkokristna och karismatiska ledare som ensidigt vänder sin kritik mot den katolska och ortodoxa kyrkans tro och närvaro i vårt land. Jag hävdar, att även om vi alltid ska våga öppenhet i tänkandet, är en sådan inskränkthet ett farligt historiskt misstag. </b>Vår fiende är ateismen och vårt problem är den humanistiska teologin. Det är därför vi ger appellen om att i tusental samlas i Stockholm den 2 maj till en mäktig Jesusmanifestation och visa vårt land att vi är många som håller fast vid övertygelsen om att Jesus är gudomlig. Jesus är mänsklighetens Frälsare.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">När Süleyman Wannes beskriver sin kyrkas tro och i detalj berättar om hur kristen tro tillämpas bland syrianerna, då väcker det respekt och tacksamhet. <b>Varje gudstjänst förmedlar budskapet med symboler som talar till alla mänskliga sinnen och som samtidigt syftar till att människan ska öppna sitt inre för den helige Andes närvaro. Vi som formats av frikyrkorörelsen kan uppleva det främmande med de liturgiska dräkterna och ceremonier med rökelse och korstecken, men det är viktigt att känna till hur gudstjänsten förmedlar textläsning från olika delar av Nya testamentet och hur man förkunnar Jesu liv, död och uppståndelse.</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Süleyman Wannes skriver om att när den sjuke blir smord med olja är det inte som en förberedelse inför döden, utan i samband med bön för att den sjuke ska bli frisk från både andlig och fysisk svaghet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">---</span></span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">"Därför behöver vi samverkan med både katolska och ortodoxa kristna ledare och deras medlemmar!"</span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Stanley Sjöberg</span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1903&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1903&coid=3</a></span></span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Gemensam övertygelse</span> </span></span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Ulf Ekman skrev också om hur vi står i tacksamhetsskuld till den katolska kyrkan ”för definitionen av de grundläggande dogmerna som vi delar med dem”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span> </span></span></span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">---</span></span></span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></span></b></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Lewi Pethrus gav den ekumeniken sitt helhjärtade stöd!</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Stanley Sjöberg</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1362&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1362&coid=3</a><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Generositet</span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Många har oroats över den allkristna bredden. Det är ett uttryck för stor generositet och djärv Kristuskärlek när ortodoxa kyrkoledare och den romerska katolska kyrkans ledning accepterar att vara tillsammans med fristående kristna grupper. <b>Vi är medvetna om att det förekommit tanklösa och kränkande exempel på vad som blivit sagt av allt för ivriga ”karismatiker” som ensidigt sökt att framhäva sin egen stil i motsats till de historiska kyrkornas gudstjänstformer.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Vi möter tyvärr också en ”protestantisk” envishet </b>som vägrar bejaka annat än den egna väckelserörelsens exklusiva uttryck av spontanitet och hängivenhet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">J<b>esusmanifestationens stora syfte är att bekänna vår enhet i tron</b> på Jesus <b>och ödmjukt bekräfta vår tacksamhet för alla som i en tid som denna mer noggrant än vi själva fördjupat teologin </b>och tillbedjan inför Jesus som evighetens Herre och mänsklighetens Frälsare.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>Den Romerska katolska kyrkans påve Benedikt XVI har i sin bok om Jesus från Nasaret beskrivit en kristologi som höjer sig över allt annat i västerlandets teologiska arbete</b> genom att försvara och befästa tron på vem Jesus verkligen är. <b>De ortodoxa kyrkornas teologer och andliga ledare är föredömen i att inte tillåta Jesus att bli nedvärderad och ens ifrågasatt på det sätt som sker inom den västerländska akademiskt anpassade teologin. </b>De som finns i Sverige inom dessa kyrkor har fortfarande blodfläckar från sin martyrhistoria ända in i 2000-talets globala verklighet.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Det är en kärlekens förpliktelse att som Jesustroende kristen <b>manifestera samhörighet och tillhörighet med dessa historiska kyrkor, </b>även om vi också själva har en unik kallelse och personlig integritet att vårda och bevara. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Jag är gripen av att ortodoxa och katolska kyrkoledare, tillsammans med </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Svenska kyrkans och frikyrkosamfundens ledare, ska stå tillsammans med </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>trosrörelsens ledare Ulf Ekman och hans medarbetare.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stanley Sjöberg</span></div>
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Ett besök i Vatikanen jag sent ska glömma</h1>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=29&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=29&coid=3</a><br />
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<strong>En hel värld har följt det som hänt i samband med att påven Johannes Paulus II avslutade sitt livsverk och begravdes under högtidliga former i Sankt Peterskyrkan i Rom. Vi har alla våra minnesbilder och relationen till den katolska kyrkan är inte enkel</strong>.</div>
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<b>När Johannes Paulus II var präst i Krakow under 1970-talet vet jag att han var en vän till baptisterna och pingstvännerna och vågade visa omsorg, medan andra såg frikyrkorörelserna som ett hot. En av hans medarbetare besökte bland annat Citykyrkan i Stockholm där han upplevde den helige Ande på ett märkbart sätt.</b> Den mannen predikade omvändelse och förde fram för allt ett stort antal studenter till livsförvandling och ett dop i den helige Ande.</div>
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En välsignad bordsbön</h2>
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Några år efter att Johannes Paulus II hade installerats som påve i Rom hade jag tillfälle att besöka Vatikanen. Jag träffade aldrig påven personligen, även om min fru Kerstin och jag var med på en audience tillsammans med ett stort antal andra besökare. Men en av hans medarbetare i kurian tog hand om oss och vi inbjöds till en samtalslunch som jag sent ska glömma. <b>När vi skulle nedkalla Guds välsignelse över måltiden fick vi vara med om en sådan tydlig Guds Andes närvaro att det blev bön, tillbedjan och lovsång ganska länge. Maten kallnade men atmosfären berörde oss i djupet.</b></div>
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<b>Samma kväll blev vi inbjudna till en aftongudstjänst intill Vatikanen. Framme vid altaret var det förbön och man förklarade för mig att många upplevde ett "andligt helande". </b>Människor som hade varit under inflytande av demoniska makter, blev fria. Alkoholskadade blev friska. Sökare fann en levande gemenskap med Kristus. <b>När mässan skulle firas, det vi kallar nattvarden, kom prästen ner till mig och omfamnade mig, kysste mig på kinden och sa medan tårarna flödade; "You understand". Han menade att jag förstod att vi som inte tillhör den katolska kyrkans gemenskap, vi får inte ta emot nattvarden tillsammans med dem.</b></div>
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Ungefär vid den tiden var jag på besök i ett ökenområde i Pakistan som kallas Sind och där vi samlades i staden Hyderabad. Jag var inbjuden tillsammans med den anglikanske prästen Michael Harper och vi skulle undervisa hundratals nyomvända kristna om hur man tar emot den helige Ande. En väckelse hade gått fram bland speciellt hinduer som tagit emot Jesus till frälsning.</div>
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<b>Sent en kväll kom en katolsk präst fram till mig efter att gudstjänsten var slut. Han ville att vi skulle be tillsammans. Vi gick in i en liten katolsk kyrkolokal med jordgolv och ett enkelt altare med sitt krucifix. Prästen var ung, han var barfota, med långt hår och skägg, mager och innerligt intensiv.</b> Han arbetade ibland de allra fattigaste och längtade efter en andlig utrustning för sitt missionsarbete.</div>
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Vi böjde våra knän framme vid altaret och efter en stund av stillhet kom den helige Andes närvaro med en obeskrivlig atmosfär av renhet, helighet och kärlek. Vi överraskades av att börja sjunga en lovsång där vi hade en gemensam melodi och ett gemensamt språk.<span style="font-size: small;"><b> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Ut ur altaret trädde en gestalt fram till oss och sträckte sina händer över oss för att ge oss sin välsignelse. Vi såg honom båda två och visste vem det var.</span></b></span> Jesus var mitt ibland genom den helige Andes förmedlande närvaro.</div>
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Det finns en del kristna vänner som den senaste tiden blivit upprörda över att vi som tillhör väckelserörelserna, samtidigt kan ha gemenskap med katolska kristna. Jag har den senaste tiden fått brev och e-mail med utrop att jag måste vakna. En orsak är att jag nyligen besökte den katolska kyrkan vid Kungsträdgården i Stockholm och talade om innebörden av Herrens Heliga Måltid.</div>
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Även jag har upplevelser av katoliker som varit skrämmande. Under 1950-talet var konflikten så dramatisk att våra vänner i olika länder blev förföljda. Jag är också starkt medveten om teologiska skillnader och jag är inte överens med katolsk teologi och absolut inte med den ämbetssyn som format påvens makt.</div>
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Bevara vår identitet</h2>
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När en ny påve väljs och den katolska kyrkans inflytande får allt större betydelse i världen, då är det viktigt att ha ögonen öppna och inte låta sig manipuleras. Jag är övertygad om att det som finns av andligt liv inom de historiska kyrkorna har givits som en andlig förnyelse tack vare väckelserörelserna under 1900-talet. Därför har vi en större uppgift än någonsin och ett ansvar att bevara vår identitet som troendeförsamlingar med Bibeln i centrum för vårt tänkande och allt vi gör.</div>
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Jag tvekar inte att berätta om ett sammanträffande jag hade med professor Harald Risenfeldt. Det var han som gav oss den översättningen av Nya testamentet 1981. I samband med den tiden lämnade han Svenska Kyrkan och den lutherska gemenskapen i Europa därför att han upplevde hur teologer och kyrkoledare allt mer övergav tron på Jesus som Gudomlig. Han berättade med djup gripenhet hur han också inom den katolska kyrkan hade mött kardinaler och högt uppsatta teologer som inte längre stod fast i sin tro på inkarnationen och Jesu Kristi Gudom. <b>Jag minns att Harald Risenfeldt lyfte sitt finger och varnade för den kommande utvecklingen.</b></div>
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<b>Låt oss be att nästa påve är en troende man. ???</b></div>
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<strong>Stanley Sjöberg</strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1463&coid=3">http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=1463&coid=3</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Den helige Ande har på ett tydligt sätt visat oss en strategi ... ???</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Därför står vi tillsammans, ortodoxa och katolska, lutherska och frikyrklighetens folk, tillsammans med nysvenska kristna församlingar i Storstockholm.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Kritiken har hårdnat ju närmare vi kommer den 3 maj. Det finns de som tror att de ska hindra vittnesbördet om Jesus från en sådan samverkan genom att just nu uppmärksamma de historiska kyrkornas fel och brister. En nyprotestantisk iver kan dock inte släcka den eld som den helige Ande tänt bland mer än 120 miljoner andefyllda katoliker.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Det är dessutom ett tanklöst förakt att år 2008 ifrågasätta den ortodoxa kyrkogemenskapens rätt att få tillhöra Jesus i en tid när det just bland dem är många som dör som martyrer inför valet att förneka Jesus och överleva eller tro på Jesus och dö genom halshuggning eller ett gevärsskott.</span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Det gemensamma vittnesbördet om Jesus innebär inte att vi blir katoliker eller ortodoxa, anglikaner eller lutheraner, om vi i nuläget tillhör Trosrörelsen, Pingströrelsen eller Evangeliska Frikyrkan etc.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Från olika delar av Sverige kommer bussar och tåg med frimodiga bekännelsemedvetna kristna. Vi tror att det som nu ska ske kan bli ett nytt ”Karmel”, en ny ”pingstdag”, <b>en vändpunkt för kristendomens utveckling i vårt land. </b>Vi ber om förbön av alla som läser det här, att vädret ska bli gynnsamt, att motdemonstrationer och angrepp ska hållas borta och att Jesus ska bli uppmärksammad, ärad och respekterad av vårt folk på nytt.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Stanley Sjöberg</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">kommentar av Harry Forsgren</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Håller med Dig Sköld i vad Du skriver. Det är så beklämmande vad som idag sker på den andliga arenan, där allsköns villfarelse legaliseras. Inte minst nu genom denna "Jesusmanifestation".<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Inte är det en manifestation av Jesus att göra det tillsammans med villolära och villolärare! Det är en manifestation, som förbereder människors sinnen och hjärtan för att hälsa antikrist välkommen som Kristus.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Och det är för tragiskt att Stanley, Hedin, Ekman, Halldorf, Arborelius och de kristna ledarna skapar dimma i de kristnas ögon genomn att mena att detta är en "Jesus manifestation". Medan det egentligen är en manifestation av en "annan Jesus", tillsammans med villfarelse och villolärare! Det är bara så beklämmande att Stanley blivit så vilsen, så att han är beredd att bejaka förförelsen både i trosförkunnelelsen och katolicismen!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">HaFo<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">min kommentar i Hemmets vän</span></span></span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333; display: inline ! important; float: none; font-family: Verdana,Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space">Väckelse på vilken grund?</span></span></span></span></b><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Ja vi väntar en väckelse från Guds eget Ord, alltför länge har vi fått "stå ut med" en ljum, sammanblandad, mixad, tillsatt, mängd, kristendoms-typ i detta Sverige, Ekumeniken, karismatiker med charm, tjuskraft, lockelse, magnetism, och självgjorda förkunnare, propagandister, som fört människor alltmer vilse in i en obekant, underlig Bibelsyn.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Själv minns jag det år då jag blev frälst 1971 hur Andens eld tog tag om mångas liv, de blev livsförvandlade av Den Helige Ande och Guds Ord blev dyrbart och levande, verksamt för dem, nu har åren gått och många har prövats på olika sätt, en del har gått in i ”kyrkofromhet” Övergått till att vara irr-religiösa trälar, andra har fallit av, och Gud vare lov en del är fortfarande brinnande, Guds nåds fostran har gjort dem till dugliga tjänare!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Men den brinnande skaran synes liten! </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Nu är det kains-religionen, mängdläran som gäller, penningdyrkan, prosperity, lockelser och tjusningar av alla upptänkliga slag och arter! Men man har för länge sedan förlorat styrrodret man är på väg från värre till värst, en kulminering och avfallstendens tills den når sin höjdpunkt, precis såsom det gick för de religiösa på Jesu tid, domen kom obönhörligt allt föll i ruiner, trots varningar genom profeterna och Jesu egna Ord.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Man vill nämligen inte höra! De stoppade till öronen. De var ju självutnämnda ”herdar” och snickarens Son – vem trodde han sig vara?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Väckelsen gick utanför lägret, Jesus frågade inte om lov, så även i den Laodiceanska tidsåldern, Jesus står utanför lägret och kallar dem ut därifrån, än mer i Upp 18 Och jag hörde en annan röst från himmelen säga: "Dragen ut ifrån henne, I mitt folk, så att I icke gören eder delaktiga i hennes synder och fån eder del av hennes plågor. Alla varningar från apostlarna går i samma spår. Oupphörligt undervisade och lärde man Guds väg, varnade för sammanblandnig och avfall av olika slag. De var otröttliga och gav inte upp, de kämpade trons goda kamp och sträckte sig fram mot målet, efter stadgad ordning.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Nu står domen över Sverige, kanske några skall vakna upp innan dörren blir tillsluten och ingen återvändo blir möjlig! Kanhända en ny knäväckelse kan rädda de som räddas skall tills Jesus återhämtar Sin Brudeskara!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Kom Herre Jesus Kom snart!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Leif Berg<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="http://gospelofchrist-bibel.blogspot.se/2009/11/stanley-sjoberg-vander-svart-till-vitt.html" target="_blank">http://gospelofchrist-bibel.blogspot.se/2009/11/stanley-sjoberg-vander-svart-till-vitt.html</a> </b></span><br />
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<b><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Massaprocessen<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Citat S. Sjöberg:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></div>
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<b><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Jesusmanifestationen 2010<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></div>
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<b><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">”Ingen av oss ges tillåtelse att tala om olika böneämnen i det här mötet.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Citat Sven Nilsson:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">”Jag tror att den pågående enhetsrörelsen har sina transportsträckor, där vi inte riktigt vet vart vi är på väg.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">”Både de historiska kyrkorna och frikyrkorörelsen står inför stora utmaningar.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">”Frikyrkosamfunden och fria församlingsrörelser behöver erkänna de historiska kyrkornas betydelse som traditionsbärare”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">– Slut citat.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Här får vi exempel på vart man är på väg i denna ”enhetssträvan” målet är svävande och man vet inte vart man är på väg. Samtidigt tillåts ingen att uttala sig!? Stanley själv har en hel del sådana ämnen!?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Manipulativt styr man vägen mot målet!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Men under ytan pågår en process att alltmer närma sig Världs-kyrkan i det ekumeniska strävandet att ena allt under påven.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Det märkbara är att denna enhets-förklaring som syftar till att beblanda sig med hedniskt avguderi, gnosticism och irrläror som är så uppenbara i den katolska Moderkyrkan, nu skall få en Institutionell dimension! Man går steg för steg genom provisoriska ”lägerplatser”!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Hur kan man förlika Kristus och Beliar, eller om man går in till en sköka då blir man ett kött med Henne, det är just detta som sker i dessa kopplingar! Det som betecknas stort är avfallet, och lösaktigheten!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Att man i detta samgående också förnekar Kristus är det ingen som ens vågar tala om!?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Nu styr man mot Rom!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Inlagt av Leif Berg<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Charismatic Wolves</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Beware Masonic Charismatic Wolves, Knights of Malta Dominionist False Prophet Heretics</b></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ce5Kg1alpLQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<b>Chuck Smith - Calvary Chapel - Knights of Malta - Vatican connection</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Here some stratagems </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b><b> from the ecumenical catholic intruders.</b></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Will There Be an Ecumenical Pope Who Will Be
the Antichrist?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">http://www.cogwriter.com/antichrist.htm</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Will There Be an Ecumenical Pope Who Will Be
the Antichrist?</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">While many Protestants, others, and even various Catholics have believed
that the final Antichrist will be a pope, certain Catholic writings support the
idea that a final (or nearly final) pope will be ecumenical, be an antipope,
and be the "false prophet" and/or the final Antichrist.</span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Furthermore, it appears that many Catholic prophecies suggests that it
is an antipope that supports a new religious order:</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Also notice the following:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Priest P. Huchedé (19th century): <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Antichrist
will further make all men, great and small, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen,
bear a sign on their right arm or their forehead. (Apoc. 13:16).</b> What this
sign shall be time alone will reveal. Yet there are some {Catholic}
commentators of the Holt Writ, who, according to a special revelation pretend
to say that it shall be formed out of the Greek letters X and P,
interlaced...which resembles the number of Christ. (Cornelius a Lapide in Epis.
2 to Thes.). No one can either buy or sell without this mark, as specified in
the Apocalypse (13:17). (Huchedé, P.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Translated by JBD. History of Antichrist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imprimatur: Edward Charles Fabre, Bishop of
Montreal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>English edition 1884, Reprint
1976.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TAN Books, Rockford (IL), p. 24).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hence the idea of someone claiming to be a Roman pope and insisting on
some type of cross, yet possibly being the final Antichrist is supported by
several Catholic writings. The Antichrist is likely to claim to be Catholic,
but will have changed that faith. People need to understand this now, before it
is too late! All people everywhere should keep the original faith (for more
details on what that was and who changed, please see the article Which Is
Faithful: The Roman Catholic Church or the Genuine Church of God?).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Thus, while some Catholic prophecies praise a new religious order, it is
clear that others correctly indicate that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a
new type of Catholicism</b> will not be true to some of its beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final Antichrist will betray the Church
of Rome since he is with the Beast power until the very end (cf. Revelation
17:16-18; 19:20).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Furthermore, it needs to be understood that the Great Monarch would seem
to be the same person as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the ten-horned
Beast (also known as 666</b>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus,
there are Catholic prophecies that support the idea that a Pope/anti-pope will
accept changes that a new European military leader will implement. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">In addition, since most
Protestants have no knowledge of Catholic prophecies, they do not grasp the
danger of the “ecumenical” plans of some affiliated with the Roman Church.</span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because after
all is said and done,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the one we in the
faithful Church of God would consider to be the ten-horned Beast (also known as
666 and the King of the North), </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">will, according to Catholic prophecy,
eliminate Protestantism:</span></u></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Father Laurence Ricci, S.J. (died 1775): "After the rule of
Napoleon a time will come when the people will become poor and the world will
be punished in three ways: wars, famines, and pestilences. At a time when the
whole world seems doomed, God will intervene. With His aide a valiant duke will
arise from the ancient German house which was humiliated by the French monarch.
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This great ruler will restore stolen
Church property. Protestantism will cease and the Turkish empire will end. This
duke will be the most powerful monarch on earth. At a gathering of men noted
for piety and wisdom he will, with the aid of the Pope, introduce new rules,
and ban the spirit of confusion.</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everywhere
there will be one fold and one shepherd"</b> (Connor, p.37).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">St. Francis of Paola (Born in Italy, 15th century). "By the grace
of the Almighty, the Great Monarch will annihilate heretics and
unbelievers" (Dupont, p.38).</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because many Catholics have long considered
Protestantism, and all non-Greco-Roman Catholicism as false</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">.</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notice what one priest reported</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">:</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><b>Pope St. Pius V teaches in his Catechism, the Roman Catechism — also
known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent </b>— </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">that all of the
Protestant religions are false religions, they’re inspired by the devil; and
therefore their fruits are evil…The Protestant religions, as such, are inspired
by the devil, as Pope St. Pius V teaches in his catechism</span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (Kramer P. The Imminent Chastisement for Not
Fulfilling Our Lady’s Request. An edited transcript of a speech given at the
Ambassadors of Jesus and Mary Seminar in Glendale, California, September 24,
2004. THE FATIMA CRUSADER Issue 80, Summer 2005, pp. 32-45 </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr80/cr80pg32.asp viewed 4/15/08).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Notice what some
Catholics have written about certain of their “ecumenical plans”:</span></u></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">D.A. Birch “The Pope calls an Ecumenical
Council which will be viewed as the greatest in the history of the Church. The
world is spiritually and materially prosperous as never before and many Jews,
Mohammedans, heathens and heretics will enter the Church”</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (Birch, p. 555).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (Born in the 17th century, in Germany)
…God will bind Satan for a number of years until the days of the Son of
Perdition…</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">there will be an ecumenical council which will
be the greatest of all councils</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the grace
of God, </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">by the power of the Great Monarch, and by the
authority of the Holy Pontiff, and by the union of the most devout princes,
atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Council will define the true sense of
Holy Scripture, and this will be believed and accepted by everyone</span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> (Dupont, p. 40).</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Priest Herman Kramer “The thunders may mean
the dogmatic declarations of the Church against infidels expressed in an
ecumenical council…such as that of…the Infallibility of the Pope…TheSeven
Thunders may then be declarations of an ecumenical council clearing up all that
was left unfinished by the magisterial office of the Church, before God will
permit Satan to exert his supreme efforts to destroy her from without.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Seven Thunders will strengthen the
faithful and loyal clergy”…</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Kramer H., pp. 241-242).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Priest Paul Kramer</b></span> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“The errors of Orthodoxy and of Protestantism
will be embraced by that false church, it will be an ecumenical church because
the Anti-Pope will be recognized by the world — not by the faithful, but by the
world — by the secular world and the secular governments. The Anti-Pope will be
recognized as the legitimate Pope of the "church," and the legitimate
head of the Vatican State. That "church" will be united with all the
false religions. They will be united together under the universality of the
Masonic umbrella. In that motley ecumenical union will be the established
religion of the so-called civilized world. This is how we will get into the
time of great persecution such as the world has never seen </span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">(Kramer P. The Imminent Chastisement for Not
Fulfilling Our Lady’s Request. An edited transcript of a speech given at the
Ambassadors of Jesus and Mary Seminar in Glendale, California, September 24,
2004. THE FATIMA CRUSADER Issue 80, Summer 2005, pp. 32-45</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr80/cr80pg32.asp
viewed 4/06/08).</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hence some Catholics are
looking to a time that an ecumenical pontiff will appear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some (like the first quotations above) are
looking forward to that, while many others (like the last quotation above)
consider that this will be a sign of an Anti-pope.</span></u></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Notice that the last
quote indicates that some of t<u>he “errors of Orthodoxy and of Protestantism
will be embraced”, yet this will be a church ruled by some type of a Pope. </u></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">That is where all of these “ecumenical discussions” are going to lead to
as far as Catholic prophecies are concerned</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">.<u> </u></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The current Pope (Benedict XVI) has been
working for ecumenical unity and is apparently setting the way for a more
ecumenical pontiff to arise (for information, see the news items Pope Benedict
XVI to Have “Ecumenical” USA Trip and Pope Trying to Appease the Orthodox and
the Lutherans)--even though I do not believe that even he understands that this
will ultimately lead to the rising up of an antipope,</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the final
Antichrist</b>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">On a somewhat related note, the Pope who works with and/or precedes the
Great Monarch is specifically prophesied to rule over the Eastern Orthodox
Church as well—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and re-establish Babylon!</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notice the following:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Abbott Joachim (died 1202)…A remarkable Pope will be seated on the
pontifical throne, under special protection of the angels. Holy and full of
gentleness, he shall undo all wrong, he shall recover the states of the Church,
and reunite the exiled temporal powers. As the only Pastor, he shall reunite
the Eastern to the Western Church...This holy Pope shall be both pastor and
reformer. Through him the East and West shall be in ever lasting concord. The
city of Babylon shall then be the head and guide of the world. Rome, weakened
in temporal power, shall forever preserve her spiritual dominion, and shall
enjoy great peace...At the beginning, in order to bring these happy results,
having need of a powerful assistance, this holy Pontiff will ask the cooperation
of the generous monarch of France (Great Monarch)… A man of remarkable sanctity
will be his successor in the Pontifical chair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Through him God will work so many prodigies that all men shall revere
him (Connor, pp. 31-33).</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“Prodigies” means miracles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Interestingly, the Roman Catholics do realize that the expression,
"Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place
of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and
hated bird!" (Revelation 18:2) is referring to Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And the Bible says this happens after the Antichrist comes. It needs to
be understood that although the above quote is in a book with an Imprimatur
(high level Roman Catholic approval), some Roman Catholics have somewhat
distanced themselves from some of Abott Joachim's writings (i.e. Birch, pp.
143,235, but other Roman Catholics writings tend to support the Abbott's
writings, but I do not recall seeing others that support "Babylon" as
the head of the world).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">But it is clear that there is confusion amongst Catholic writers. And I
believe that those who are warning against an ecumenical antipope who will make
changes to their faith and lead the world astray are biblically and
historically more correct than those who seem to embrace an ecumenical faith.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Perhaps it might be helpful to note that while the Bible shows that the
Beast and the False Prophet perform miracles (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Revelation 16:13-14</b>), certain Catholic prophecies indicate that one
of the popes also does miracles:</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi (19th century)…. “After
the three days of darkness, St. Peter and St. Paul, having come down from
Heaven, will preach in the whole world and designate a new Pope. A great light
will flash from their bodies and will settle upon the cardinal who is to become
Pope. Christianity, then, will spread throughout the world. He is the Holy
Pontiff, chosen by God to withstand the storm. At the end, he will have the
gift of miracles, and his name shall be praised over the whole earth (Dupont,
p.45).</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The following suggest that the Great Monarch may also perform some type
of miracles:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Abbe Souffrand (died 1828): "The Great Ruler will perform such
great and noble deeds that the infidels will be forced to admit the working of
God's Providence. Under this reign the greatest righteousness will be practiced
and the earth will bear in overabundance…”(Connor, p. 37)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">St. Thomas a'Becket (12th Century)…"A knight shall come from the
West. He shall capture Milan, Lombardy, and the three Crowns. He shall then
sail to Cyprus and Famagoste and land at Jaffa, and reach Christ's grave where
he will fight. Wars and wonders shall befall till the people believe in Christ
toward the end of the world" (Birch, p. 255).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The parallels to the ten-horned Beast and the False Prophet are
undeniable (cf. Revelation 16:13;19:20).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And because of the wars, economic pressure, and wonders, many will be
deceived into accepting the religion of the Beast and the False Prophet
(Revelation 13).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, also including
many Protestants. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A new ecumenical
religion is coming, probably trying to claim that it is Roman Catholic, that
many will sadly follow. The Great Monarch that many Catholics seem to look
forward to is apparently the coming future King of the North that certain other
Catholic writings warn against!</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Even though he had some incorrect ideas,
notice what one famous Catholic saint and pontiff wrote:</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">St. Gregory the Great, Pope (d. 604): In those
days, near the end ... an army of priest and two-thirds of the Christians will
join the Schism (Culleton, R. Gerald. The Reign of Antichrist, p. 122)</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Part of the reason that at least two-thirds (as I believe it will be
substantially more than that) are likely to follow the changed version of
Catholicism is that there is confusion amongst Catholic and other writings. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And part of this is because Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most
Protestants simply do not realize that true Christianity was from the
beginning, and will be until the end of the Church era, opposed to
participation in carnal warfare (Military Service and the Churches of God: Do
Real Christians Participate in Carnal Warfare?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Because nearly all who profess Christ do not really understand what
happened to the true Church in the second through fourth centuries (and
beyond), their foundation is on sand and thus their combined house shall fall
greatly (c.f. Matthew 7:26-27). </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Some Catholic Misunderstandings of Prophecy</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">One of the reasons that certain Roman
Catholics and others who listen to them will have a difficult time
understanding who the final Antichrist is is because the Roman Catholics tend
to base their understanding of prophetic matters more on tradition than the
Bible.</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Although he originally had some of his information correct, the Roman
Catholic supporting Irenaeus later misunderstood about Antichrist. Look at some
of what he wrote: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And not only by the particulars already mentioned, but also by means of
the events which shall occur in the time of Antichrist is it shown that he,
being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God; and that,
although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he (Antichrist)
being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous
king, nor as a legitimate king, [i.e., one] in subjection to God, but an
impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as
a robber, concentrating in himself [all] satanic apostasy, and setting aside
idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only
idol, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">having in himself the multifarious
errors of the other idols</b> (Irenaeus. Adversus Haereses, Book V, Chapter 5,
Verses 1). </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Antichrist will not come setting aside idols.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">------- </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2Ti 3:13 Men onda människor och bedragare skola gå allt längre i ondska; de skola förvilla andra och själva bliva förvillade. </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />2Ti 4:3 Ty den tid kommer, då de icke längre skola fördraga den sunda läran, utan efter sina egna begärelser skola samla åt sig lärare hoptals, alltefter som det kliar dem i öronen, </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Inlagt av Leif Berg</div>
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GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-36870978272478406682012-04-14T05:44:00.002-07:002012-07-31T01:59:19.903-07:00Frikyrkor i kris!<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Frikyrkor i kris! </span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA4Qt2lc0Rz96MYd19SN5LxC0d1sXi1gtsiFDYEbI4yaLm78UYny29PV9PT4kda4a3NWi2nA7OkaK9VCMDe9eXPE9daRf-V78khePrekCCGVElma7o9lb39l6TBIrr_8tVB7VJvcgzzA2I/s1600/p%C3%A5ven+och+blandreligion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA4Qt2lc0Rz96MYd19SN5LxC0d1sXi1gtsiFDYEbI4yaLm78UYny29PV9PT4kda4a3NWi2nA7OkaK9VCMDe9eXPE9daRf-V78khePrekCCGVElma7o9lb39l6TBIrr_8tVB7VJvcgzzA2I/s320/p%C3%A5ven+och+blandreligion.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Skiljelinjen (röset, skogsråt, skogsrået,
gnomen levnadsregeln, tänkespråket, sentensen, häxan, sierskan, spåkvinnan, maran,
haggan) inom frikyrkan!?</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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se http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=304832</div>
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citat:</div>
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"I både frikyrkor och Svenska kyrkan finns en kris som
främst har att göra med den inre sekulariseringen, menar Roine Swensson i en
replik till Siewert Öholm.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Vi behöver både den
helige Andes hjälp och varandras stöd. Vi har olika styrkor och svagheter inom
våra olika kyrkotraditioner. Låt oss ta vara på det bästa hos varandra, men
också lära oss av varandras svagheter, brister och misstag.</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Vi behöver en
kombination av helighet och folklighet, ordning och frihet, planering och
spontanitet, det himmelska och det vardagliga, det övernaturliga och det
naturliga, det enkla evangeliserande budskapet och den djupare
bibelundervisningen och lärjungaträningen. Om Sverige skall beröras av
evangelium så behövs såväl frikyrkorna som Svenska kyrkan. </b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Låt oss berika och komplettera varandra!"</span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Roine Swensson, pastor och resande förkunnare</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>slut citat.</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Här ser vi prov på karismatisk
"förnyelse"?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Andens
enhet i centrum under den Nordiska karismatiska konferensen</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Skrivet av: <a href="http://www.isidor.se/karismatiskfornyelse/Aktuellt/tabid/397/bID/10/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Bengt Malmgren</span></a> on
2010-11-02 </span></b><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 14pt;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.isidor.se/karismatiskfornyelse/tabid/397/PostID/55/Andens-enhet-i-centrum-under-den-Nordiska-karismatiska-konferensen.aspx">se http://www.isidor.se/karismatiskfornyelse/tabid/397/PostID/55/Andens-enhet-i-centrum-under-den-Nordiska-karismatiska-konferensen.aspx</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">28-31 oktober ägde den</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.isidor.se/karismatiskfornyelse/Aktuellt/Nordiskkarismatiskkonferens/tabid/473/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Nordiska karismatiska
konferensen</span></b></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">i Stockholm rum <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">arrangerad
av KKS i samverkan med Stockholms katolska stift och S:ta Clara kyrkas vänner.</b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Den ägde rum i S:ta Eugenia katolska
kyrka och S:ta Clara kyrka, men för de olika seminarierna fick man även låna
lokaler från Frälsningsarméns citykår och Citykyrkan.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ett
femtiotal personer, de flesta från Sverige, men även från Finland, Norge och
Island hade föranmält sig till konferensen, men kvällsmötena samlade många
fler. I avslutningsmötet i S:ta Clara på söndagseftermiddagen deltog uppemot
400 personer, och i S:ta Eugenia på fredagkvällen var 120 personer och
kring 200 på lördagskvällen. Det märktes tydligt att behovet av förbön var
stort, för många personer, majoriteten av deltagarna, kom fram för att ta emot
förbön under kvällsmötena. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I mässan på fredagskvällen med biskop
Anders Arborelius och den påvlige nuntien, hans excellens ärkebiskop Emil Paul
Tscherrig framförde nuntien personliga hälsningar från påve Benedikt XVI och
betonade flera gånger att påven och biskoparna ser den karismatiska förnyelsen
som ett viktigt bidrag till Kyrkans förnyelse.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">Den karismatiska förnyelsen berikar
Kyrkan med öppenheten för en mer personlig gudstro, karismatiska nådegåvor och
ekumenisk gemenskap i Anden. Karismatiska förnyelsen är inte till för sig själv
enl. f Wilfried Brieven, en av konferensens talare, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">den har som yttersta mål att avskaffa sig själv och uppgå i Kyrkan som
helhet.</b> Förnyelsens uppdrag är att föra fram den personliga pingsten
"dopet i den helige Ande" (jfr Apg) som något som Kyrkan behöver.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">Ekumenik och enhet var ett annat
tema under konferensen. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Charles
Whitehead redogjorde för de ekumeniska principer som finns i ett av Katolska
kyrkans grunddokument angående ekumeniken: EncyklikanUt unum sint av Johannes
Paulus II. </b>Där fastslås att Katolska kyrkan erkänner andra kristna som
bröder och systrar i tron, att vi alla är förenade i en och samma kropp genom
dopet och att katoliker skall be, diskutera och samtala, studera och praktiskt
samarbeta med kristna från andra samfund.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">Talare från flera samfund var
inbjudna. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Inga Pagreus</b> från S:ta
Clara kyrka talade om diakonalt arbete i Stockholms city. Pastor <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ulf Ekman från Livets ord</b> framförde
en inspirerande förkunnelse om det personliga livet i den helige
Ande på söndagseftermiddagen, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">och
tidigare under konferensen hade han berättat om sitt samarbete
med Charles Whitehead där bl.a.pastorer från Livets Ord
träffat personer från ICCRS i Rom och haft ett utbyte, bl.a.
att man direkt i anslutning till de historiska platserna
studerat kyrohistorien.</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Svar:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gal 6:7 Faren icke vilse. Gud låter icke gäcka sig. Ty vad
människan sår, det skall hon ock skörda. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gal 6:8 Den som sår i sitt kötts åker, han skall av köttet
skörda förgängelse, men den som sår i Andens åker, han skall av Anden skörda
evigt liv. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Job 31:40 Då må törne växa upp för vete, och ogräs i stället
för korn. Slut på Jobs tal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pro 24:31 Och se, den var alldeles full av ogräs, dess mark
var övertäckt av nässlor, och dess stenmur låg nedriven.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mat 13:25 men när
folket sov, kom hans ovän och sådde ogräs mitt ibland vetet och gick sedan sin
väg.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mat 13:27 Då trädde
husbondens tjänare fram och sade till honom: 'Herre, du sådde ju god säd i din
åker; varifrån har den då fått ogräs? </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mat 13:28 Han svarade
dem: 'En ovän har gjort detta.'</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ovän</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G2190</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">echthros</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
a primary word </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">echthō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">(to <i>hate</i>); <i>hateful</i>
(passively <i>odious</i>, or actively <i>hostile</i>); usually as a noun, an <i>adversary</i>
(especially <i>Satan</i>): - enemy, foe.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Mat 13:28</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> <u>And he said to them, an
enemy,<sup><span style="color: green;"> </span></sup>a man did this</u>. And <u>the<sup><span style="color: green;"> </span></sup> manservants</u> said to him, <u>Do you want
then having gone forth we gather them</u>?<sup><span style="color: green;"></span></sup></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Mat 13:29</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> And he said, No, lest gathering
the tares you should root out together with them the grain. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And the
manservants said to him, Do you want then having gone forth we gather them?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">having gone </span></b><span lang="EN-US">- no longer present in a place, no
longer existing, or all used, all gone, spent, finished, consumed, depleted, drained,
exhausted, absent, away, left, disappeared, moved out, departed, vanished,
dead, deceased, disappeared, left, moved out, departed, vanished, not here,
spent, used up, finished, consumed, dead, deceased, passed away, passed on, no
more, go, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">gone forth</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> - not here, departed, late, delayed,
belated, put off, deferred, postponed, after everything else, in the nick of
time, after everyone else, much-lamented, late lamented, howling, cry, crying, lamentation,
weeping, dirge, funeral song, elegy, poem, composition, speech, work of art, concerto,
symphony, opus, masterpiece, sonata, work, arrangement, organization, constitution,
makeup, structure, framework, frame, scaffold, skeleton, support, construction,
structure, background, structure, basis, context, outline, agenda, milieu, perspective,
environment, background, locale conditions, set surroundings, environment, milieu,
backdrop setting, upbringing circumstances, personal history, family, social
class, credentials, qualifications, education, training, experience, identification,
ID, permit, passport, authorization, diploma, recommendation, qualifications, testimonial,
certificate, circumstance, situation, requiem, funeral hymn, hymn, chant, mantra,
tune, hymn, song, sing, recite, intone, repeat, vocalize, lament, mournful
song, sad song, sad music, slow music, funeral song, expression of grief, moved
out, left, disappeared, vanished, spent, used up, finished, consumed, dead, deceased,
passed away, passed on, no more, go, out, onward, onwards, beyond, past, over
and done, elapsed, gone, forgotten, ancient history, forward, forwards, ahead, frontwards,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Alltså ska vi blanda
dem tillsammans? eller ha gemenskap med dem?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">blanda dem
tillsammans</b> - tillsätt, rör ihop, mixa, mäng, späd ut, blanda, förväxla, uppblanda,
inblanda, bemäng, bemänga, tillsätta, röra ihop, mixa, mänga, späda ut, ihop, gemensamt,
i samarbete, tillsamman, i sällskap, sammanlagt, totalt, sammanlagt, hopräknat,
helt, enhetligt, helgjutet, restlöst, totaliter, inalles, tillhopa,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>eller ha gemenskap
med dem</b> - samhörighet, gemensamhet, samfälldhet, samband, beröring, förbindelse,
samvaro, sällskap, krets, samfund, sammanslutningar, sällskap, societeter, ordnar,
akademier, föreningar, gemenskaper, församlingar, kyrkor,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">G4862sunA
primary preposition denoting <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">union; with
or together </b>(but much closer than G3326 or G3844), <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">that is, by association, companionship, process, resemblance,
possession, instrumentality, addition, etc.: - beside, with. </b>In compounds
it has similar applications, including completeness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
(LITV) <span style="font-size: large;"><b>But the hireling</b></span>, not even being a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and forsakes the sheep and flees. <b>And the wolf seizes them, and scatters the sheep. </b><br />
<br />
(Bibeln) <b>Men den som är lejd och icke är herden själv</b>, när han, den som fåren icke tillhöra, ser ulven komma, då övergiver han fåren och flyr, <b>och ulven rövar bort dem och förskingrar dem. </b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>hireling - legohjon, </b>mutkolv,girig, mutbar,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">korrupt, korrumperad, ohederlig, oärlig, fal, besticklig, fördärvad, vanställd,
förvanskad, mutad, bestucken,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>see hire-ling</b></span><br />
-ling suffix indicating "<b>person or thing of a specific kind or origin;"</b> in masculine nouns also <span style="font-size: large;"><b>"son of"</b></span> (cf. farthing, atheling, O.E. <span style="font-size: large;"><b>horing "adulterer, fornicator"). </b></span><br />
<br />
Norse, where it commonly was used as a diminutive suffix, especially in words designating the young of animals (e.g. gæslingr "gosling"). Thus it is possible that the diminutive use that developed in Middle English is from Old Norse.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hireling</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">HI'RELING</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, n. One who is hired, or
who serves for wages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">1. A mercenary; a prostitute.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">-- interested only in the money or other personal advantages that you can
get from something, acquisitive, greedy, grasping, avaricious, covetous, venal, corruptible,
<b>corrupt, lawless, amoral, crooked, decadent, degenerate, corrupt</b>, --</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">HI'RELING</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">, a. Serving for wages;
venal; mercenary; employed for money or other compensation.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A tedious crew</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Of hireling mourners.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Nave</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hireling</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Not to be oppressed</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 20.15pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Mal 3:5</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">See Servant</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">ISBE</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hireling</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">h</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic"; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">ı</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">̄</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">r</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">´</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ling</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"> (</span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">שׂכיר</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";"><span dir="LTR"></span>, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">sākh</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">ı</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">̄</span></i><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">r</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">):
Occurs only 6 times in the Old Testament, and uniformly means a laborer for a
wage. In <u><span style="color: green;">Job_7:1</span></u> f there is reference
to the hireling's anxiety for the close of the day. In <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_16:14</span></u> and <u><span style="color: green;">Isa_21:16</span></u>
the length of the years of a hireling is referred to, probably because of the
accuracy with which they were determined by the employer and the employee. Malachi
(<u><span style="color: green;">Mal_3:5</span></u>) speaks of the oppression of
the hireling in his wages, probably by the smallness of the wage or by in some
way defrauding him of part of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">In
the New Testament the word “hireling” (</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">μισθωτο</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">́</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">ς</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-hansi-font-family: Georgia;">misthōtós</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic";">)
occurs only in <u><span style="color: green;">Joh_10:12</span></u> f, where his
neglect of the sheep is contrasted unfavorably with the care and courage of the
shepherd who owns the sheep, who leads them to pasture and lays down his life
for their protection from danger and death.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Easton</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Hireling</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">A labourer employed on hire for a limited time (<u><span style="color: green;">Job_7:1</span></u>; <u><span style="color: green;">Job_14:6</span></u>;
<u><span style="color: green;">Mar_1:20</span></u>). His wages were paid as soon
as his work was over (<u><span style="color: green;">Lev_19:13</span></u>). In
the time of our Lord a day's wage was a “penny” (q.v.) i.e., <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a Roman denarius (<u><span style="color: green;">Mat_20:1-14</span></u>).</b></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>gosling</b><br />
<br />
<b>gunsel </b><br />
1914, Amer.Eng., from hobo slang, <span style="font-size: large;"><b>"a catamite;"</b></span> specifically "a young male kept as a sexual companion, especially by an older tramp," from Yiddish genzel, from Ger. Gänslein "gosling, young goose." The secondary, non-sexual meaning "<b>young hoodlum"</b> seems to be entirely traceable to Dashiell Hammett, who sneaked it into "The Maltese Falcon" (1929) while warring with his editor over the book's racy language. <br />
<br />
<b> "Another thing," </b>Spade repeated, glaring at the boy: "Keep that gunsel away from me while you're making up your mind. I'll kill him."<br />
<br />
<b>see also a chasseur - betjänt,</b> <b>piccolo, jägare, trapper, fångstman, förföljare, flickjägare, stalkare </b>- s<b>omeone who prowls or sneaks about; usually with unlawful intentions</b>, kommandosoldat, alpjägare, jägarsoldat, fältjägare,<b></b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%;">På sådd
kommer skörd!</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luk 6:48 Han är lik en man som ville bygga ett hus och som
då grävde djupt och lade dess grund på hälleberget. När sedan översvämning kom,
störtade sig vattenströmmen mot det huset, men den förmådde dock icke skaka
det, eftersom det var så byggt. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luk 6:49 Men den som hör och icke gör, han är lik en man som
byggde ett hus på blotta jorden, utan att lägga någon grund. Och vattenströmmen
störtade sig emot det, och strax föll det samman, och det husets fall blev
stort." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jer 18:12 Men de skola svara: "Du mödar dig förgäves.
Vi vilja följa vara egna tankar och göra var och er efter sitt onda hjärtas
hårdhet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jer 46:11 Drag upp till Gilead och hämta balsam, du jungfru
dotter Egypten. Men förgäves skaffar du dig läkemedel i mängd; du kan icke
bliva helad. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lagen om sådd och skörd är avgörande, grunden som består,
eller säden som kvävs, eller saknar rot, fler orsaker finns att nämna ex. den
blandade säden, den mixade hopen, ändetidens förförelser och svekfullhet mot
Guds Ord och den allt mer ljumma-mixade, sammanblandade, förväxlade, utbytta,
ersatta förkunnelsen, och sammanblandningar som pågår med hednisk- religion,
mystikläror, falsk ekumenism, det är med en trolöshetens och falskhetens ande
som man manipulerar de svaga församlingarna till att avfalla från den
uppriktiga troheten i Kristus!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Då lär fallet bli stort!</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Det är hög tid att se om sitt hus!</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">”Artisteri har ersatt helighet”</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Därför lämnar Siewert Öholm Missions-kyrkan och begär
inträde i Svenska kyrkan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Publicerad: 2012-04-04 03:00 | Uppdaterad: 2012-04-12 15:28</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=304514</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Jag lämnar nu min gamla föreningskyrka, Svenska
Missionskyrkan, och begär inträde i Svenska kyrkan. Jag har tagit ett beslut
att jag vill tillhöra den ännu lite imaginära ´Troendekyrkan´."<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Det skriver tv-profilen Siewert Öholm, som här ger en analys
av frikyrklighetens bakgrund, utveckling och framtid - och sin egen förhoppning
att Svenska kyrkan ska bli de engagerade troendes nya samfund i Sverige.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Redan på förmiddagen den 2 januari 1952 stod min far,
baptistpastorn, på pastorsexpeditionen i Ramsele för att begära sitt utträde ur
Svenska kyrkan. Den nya religionsfrihetslagen hade gjort det möjligt och som
minderårig sveptes jag helt ofrivilligt med i uttåget. Pastorn och kyrkoherden
var goda vänner, de till och med bytte predikstol ibland, men den religiösa
integriteten och den frikyrkliga stoltheten och visionen krävde en markering
och ett medvetet förhållningssätt till andra kristna samfund. Statskyrkan var
just Statskyrka, ofri och bitvis "oevangelisk". Frikyrkan var
Kallelsen och Missionsbefallningen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Någon månad senare döptes jag, genom nedsänkning, av min
far, baptistpastorn, i samma dopgrav där han hade döpt sina egna föräldrar och
i kapellet som hade tillkommit efter att hans mormor på 1860-talet varit med om
att mot konventikelplakat och vanära grunda den nya församlingen. Där skulle
ingen stat blanda sig i tron och där skulle evangeliet förkunnas rent och
fritt. Jag var engagerad. Jag var baptist i ung övertygelse. Vi var bara
hundratjugofem baptister i Ramsele. Men i hela världen var vi flera hundra
miljoner. Jag var en del av Frikyrkan med betoning på fri, men också lite på
"kyrkan". Jag hatade redan då det slarvigt nedvärderande uttrycket
"frireligiösa".</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jag trodde att jag skulle bli missionär i Indien, eller
pastor i Sverige. Jag var dedicerad till Rörelsen. Men verkligheten utanför
knackade på. Jag blev först folkskollärare några år på 1960-talet, för att
sedan bli tv-producent, programledare och journalist. Jag behöll ändå det
märkliga, men osynliga nätverk som byggts upp i flera generationer av
folkrörelseengagerade, antingen det gällde frikyrka, nykterhetsrörelse eller
till och med facklig rörelse.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I den här tiden fick jag extremt stora möjligheter som
tv-journalist och programskapare. På det personliga planet fanns alla mina
andliga erfarenheter kvar, men nästan på gränsen till journalistisk yrkesskada
behandlade jag däremot min egen tro som något jag skulle betrakta utifrån och
ha ett journalistiskt och kritiskt förhållningssätt till. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I den offentliga debatten efter vänstervågens 1970-tal blev
religion alltmer ifrågasatt eller marginaliserad. Avfolkningen av kyrkorna
trummades ut som fakta och frikyrkan blev allt mer osynlig. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Min journalistiska slutsats, både tidigare på 1970-talet och
in i 2000-talet blev att med program och i debatter i någon mån påvisa att
religionen är större i människors liv än den offentliga bilden ger sken av.
Mellan 1973 och 1983 producerade jag sångprogrammet "Hela kyrkan
sjunger" från Umeå med min personliga ideologiska motivering att public
service-tv skulle stå för "tele" så fick kyrkan klara
"visionen". Jag har genom åren antagligen producerat fler
tv-gudstjänster än någon annan i bolaget, och verkat i en tid då religion fanns
med i målskrivningar och förutsättningar för SVT som public servicebolag.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Givetvis har jag påverkats av allt detta i min personliga
tro och övertygelse. Jag har kunnat följa statskyrka och frikyrka under 60 år
både som privatperson och som yrkesman. Jag har sett svängningarna i Svenska
kyrkan, alla dess strider och alla dess teologiska bubblor, kulminerande i K G
Hammars tid som ärkebiskop. I dag är Svenska kyrkan en frikyrka bland andra,
men med många "kyrkotraditioner" inom sina ramar. <b>Jag har samtidigt
sett frikyrkan dra åt minst två håll, kanske tre.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
De gamla "torra" samfunden Missionsförbundet,
Baptistsamfundet, (ej att förväxla med Örebromissionen-EFK) och Metodisterna är
en strömning. <b>På ett nästan raffinerat sätt har deras ledningar satt sin ära i
att tränga bort den genuina fromheten markerad på västkusten och i Småland till
förmån för ett så kallat samhällsengagemang som gärna skulle ligga så långt
bort som möjligt i världen men inte i socialt och medmänskligt engagemang i närområdet.</b>
De är stagnationssamfund o<b>ch försöker rädda sig själva med fusioner.</b> Mycket
ärlighet och äkthet finns trots detta ändå kvar bland rötterna och fotfolket.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Den andra strömningen är utvecklingen inom Pingströrelsen, i
EFK och i Alliansmissionen. Upplevelsefromheten finns fortfarande kvar som
kärna, men alla tre slits av olika trender och försök att förnya sig och nå ut.
Oftast utan synliga resultat. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
En belysande bild är när jag för inte så länge sedan bad en
taxichaufför, medelålders och infödd stockholmare, köra mig från Stockholms
Central till <b>Filadelfiakyrkan.</b> Han hade ingen aning om var den låg.
Församlingsledningen i Filadelfia tycks vilja lösa det problemet med att inhysa
diverse sekulära musikaler och rockgalor i kyrkan vid Rörstrand. Även om dagens
föreståndare har goda intentioner och ett brett teologiskt
undervisningsprogram, förefaller det genuint frikyrkliga självförtroendet i
kallelse och uppdrag svikta.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">EFK fortsätter att
vara två organismer i en. Ledningen är lite snobbigt intellektuell med många
idéer och aktiviteter, väl samhällsanpassade, medan gräsrötterna ute i de olika
församlingarna har svårt att hänga med. Teologiska högskolan är bara ett
exempel nära denna snobbism. Den mer provinsiella Alliansmissionen tar det
lugnt och är bra på att vara stillsam föreningskyrka på småländska höglandet. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Den tredje och färskaste frikyrkliga strömningen är <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Trosrörelsens etablering</b> och
stabilisering. Livets ord uppstod som en naturlig "andlig protest"
mot en frikyrka och allmän kristenhet i Sverige som alltmer ifrågasatte
bibeltro och personliga andliga erfarenheter.<br />
<br />
--- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>(Mitt inlägg:</b><br />
<br />
<b>I Sven Lidmans bok Resan till domen, kan vi läsa om den inre maktkampen inom den svenska pingströrelsen, därifrån urartar pingströrelsen till att bli en splittrad gemenskap, och resan gick åt olika väderstreck, genom diffusa ledare som kämpade om positioner och ärebetygelser lät man sig inympas alltmer åt katolsk mystiklära och satte rodret åt Rom.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Krisen blev akut och man startade sammanslagningar av alla slag. Det kallades "tillväxt". </b><br />
<b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Den inbrytande karismatiska röran, kaoset har vänt upp och ner på allt,
förblandat och förväxlat, ersatt och bytt ut den ursprungliga pingst-väckelsen, därigenom har man åstadkommit förvillelser och återtåg till
katolsk hednisk mystik religion. Där är man idag.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Nu har man bildat samfund med anslutning till den ekumeniska rörelsen, något som var otänkbart för några årtionden sedan.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Där står Ulf Ekman i spetsen inom Livets ords
rörelsen.)</b><br />
<br />
<b>--- </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ulf Ekman gjorde en hel del övertramp och sa saker som han
senare ångrat. Men han såg det de andra kyrkorna inte ville se, att de stelnat
och inte längre attraherade människors längtan efter andliga, personliga
erfarenheter. Tomrummet låg öppet och Livets ord blev en förebild inte minst
för en del stagnerande och förstelnade pingstförsamlingar. Några har utvecklats
till "Livets ord light".<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Samtidigt med den här enkelt skissade utvecklingen i
Frikyrkan, finns en tydlig andlig väckelserörelse inom Svenska kyrkan. Den har
funnits länge med inomkyrkliga och fromma EFS, men tycks ha grenats ut .
Tydligast har det märkts efter den så kallade Nattvardsväckelsen för ett
par-tre decennier sedan, som i dag ser ut att ha blivit flera inomkyrkliga
rörelser.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oas-rörelsen är en, med nära relationer till Frikyrkan, och
med den personliga omvändelsen som centralt budskap. S:ta Clara kyrka i
Stockholm har blivit förebild för en annan och starkt social strömning i
Svenska kyrkan. Här finns förkunnelse om helande för både utslagna människor
och sjuka kroppar.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nattvardsväckelsen lever också kvar och förnyad i vad som i
dag närmast är en liturgisk väckelse, där liturgin blir trons ryggrad i stället
för ett dött staket, i Svenska kyrkan. Mest profilerad i den utvecklingen är
prästen och teologen Bo Brander. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Om än amatörmässigt och grovhugget tycker jag att den här
analysen visar på en stark brytningstid för religionens och kristendomens
uttryck i Sverige. Frikyrkan kämpar ofta krampaktigt för sin existens. I en del
församlingar har det inneburit att man rensat ut orglar och nattvardsbord till
förmån för trumset och lovsångsteam. Performens och artisteri har ersatt
helighet och tjänande. Andlig substans i sånger och tal har fått vika för
banalitet och traditionsförakt.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Svenska kyrkan är minst sagt komplicerad i alla sina
variationer från nymoderna new age-experiment till djupaste andlig kristen
identitet. Jag tycker mig där också kunna spåra en dragning mot den
Jesusförkunnelse som, märkligt nog för oss gamla frikyrkliga, de senaste
påvarna Johannes Paulus och Benedikt initierat. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I grunden ser jag två ganska tydliga spår för den kristna
utvecklingen i Sverige. Det ena är den <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"relik
och kulturtraditionsbevarande kyrkan" </b>med ett efterhand utdöende
prästerskap av förvaltare och tjänstemän varav allt fler är tjänstekvinnor. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Religionssynkretismen är här en påtaglig
ingrediens.</b><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Det andra spåret är <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">en
"Troendekyrka",</b> en levande trosgemskap som byggs av människor från
de gamla frikyrkosamfunden liksom från <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Svenska
kyrkan och från stora delar av den Svenska Katolska kyrkan. Katolske biskop
Anders Aborelius och journalisten Marcus Birro är bra person-exempel. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Det är i den här krysspunkten som jag
tagit ett beslut att jag vill tillhöra den ännu lite <u>imaginära</u> "<u>Troendekyrkan</u></span></b>".
Jag gör det genom att lämna min gamla <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">föreningsfrikyrka</b>,
Svenska missionskyrkan, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">och begära inträde i Svenska kyrkan
med sina "många rum". </span></b>Jag har just blivit välkomnad, trots
att jag uppriktigt berättat att jag är döpt till Kristus i god baptistisk
tradition. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lite motvilligt men också
lite spännande känner jag för min nya kyrkotillhörighet. Men jag vill
"höra hemma". </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jag ser i framtidens kyrkostrukturer något som mer kommer
att handla om medveten tro och överlåtelse. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I den analysen utgör dagens andliga "retroströmningar" inom
Svenska kyrkan viktiga delar för mitt beslut. De handlar för mig om att hitta
tillbaka till både trons ideologiska och historiska rötter. Den apostoliska och
kyrkohistoriska förankringen, helt enkelt.</b> De strömmarna motsvaras
egentligen inte av liknande medvetenhet eller engagemang hos någon frikyrka.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
redtro- </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">prefix
meaning <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"backwards, behind," </b>from
L. retro (prep.) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"backward, back,
behind,"</b> probably originally the ablative form of *reteros, based on
re- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"back."</b> </span>Common
in combinations in post-classical Latin.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>retrospektiv - tillbakablickande,
återblickande, nostalgiskt,</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">andliga retro
strömningar</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></b><span lang="EN-US">- </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">läger,
sängar, bäddar, sidor, fraktioner, partier, församlingar, bivack, inkvartering,
förläggning, viste, lair, cover, den , the habitation of wild animals,
stånd (jakt), kula, håla (zoologi), gömställe, lya (zoologi), viste (zoologi) riktning, rörelse, tendens, trend,
ideologi, lära, strömrörelse, strömmande, see retro, camp, campy, providing
sophisticated amusement by virtue of having artificially (and vulgarly)
mannered or banal or sentimental qualities, "they played up the silliness
of their roles for camp effect", </span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">gammaldags, camp,</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a place
with tents or other shelters for people such as soldiers or prisoners to live
in,</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a group of people within a
larger group who have the same ideas or support the same person,</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a style of art or entertainment that
deliberately does not follow traditional ideas about what is considered good in
order to produce a humorous effect,</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in
order to attract attention, prison, group with shared beliefs, site, campsite,
campground, encampment, base camp. holiday camp, campsite, go camping, camp
out, group, faction, clique, followers,
supporters, cohorts, go camping,</b> site,
campsite, campground, encampment, base camp, camp out, sleep outdoors, faction,
party, splinter group, bloc, division,</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fakta:<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Siewert Öholm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Född 7 augusti 1939
i Husby, Hedemora kommun, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">son till en
baptistpastor.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Har arbetat som
journalist, programledare i tv och tv-producent. Han producerade bland annat
allsångsprogrammet "Hela kyrkan sjunger" 1973-1983. Han har varit
programledare i långkörare som "Kvällsöppet", "Nattcafé"
och "Svar direkt". </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Efter åren på SVT har han bland varit
redaktör på Dagen och Världen idag. </b>En kort tid var han chef för den
kristna tv-kanalen Värdikanalen i Oslo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Siewert öholm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
redaktionendagen.se</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
------------ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Pingströrelsens historia har
förbleknat.</span></b></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Från att varit en pingstpionjär i början, då man lämnade falsk
religion, hyckleri, förställdhet, surdegsreligion, mänskliga traditioner,
läror, människoverk, bröt upp från den sekulariserade kristendoms
kulturen, byggde sin tro på Guds
ofelbara Ord, och aldrig sammanjämkade sig med världen, osv. har andra och tredje generationens
"arvtagare" gjort sig en estrad, och blivit estradörer, scenunderhållare,
idag bevittnar vi hur man transformerat, omformat, omvandlat, ombildat,
församlingar till ekumeniska, karismatiska röror, oordningar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> gyttringar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> villervallor<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> förvirringar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> oredor<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> blandningar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> kompotter<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> mixer<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> mixar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> hopkok<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> smeter<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> grötar<span style="font-size: large;">,</span> sörjor.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Nu har sådden i köttet satt sina spår, avvikelserna från den
första troheten står som spön i backen, den ena efter den andra famlar i mörker
och vet ej vart man går, okunnigheten är stor, man gör sig uppfinningar och
metoder som alltmer för samlingarna längre bort och skapar främlingskap,
förvirring, kaos, oordning, man ser nu alltmer hur man vandrar som fiender till
Kristi kors.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Man har vänt kappan
efter vinden.</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Väckelsen som man längtade efter eller som man levde i har
sedan länge slocknat ut!</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Den har ersatts </b>av attraktioner, ett slags rollspel med tomt
innehåll, det är skyar för vinden., bortblåsta och utslocknade stjärnor som
irrar omkring i mörkret! <b>De lovar dem framgång, men är idel tomma skyar.</b></span><br />
</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Det är Satan som sått ogräset och det har fått växa till sig
vilt, ohämmat, nu skördar man vad man har sått. De olika sammanslagningarna och
influenserna som stormar in i församlingslivet ödelägger Tron, uppriktigheten,
troheten i Kristus, man blir en kropp med en sköka. Nu idkar man skökoreligion.</span></b><br />
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Man har blivit "vän" med allt och alla, och vill
ha gemenskap "över gränserna" se rågångarna, och blir alltmer inympad av främmande gods,
läror. Så formas, skapas, bildas, gestaltas, modelleras, utformas, framställas,
uttrycks, <u><b>en annan slags kristendomstyp</b></u>.</span><br />
</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Sa_23:6</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But <i><span style="color: grey;">the sons</span></i> of <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Belial</span> <i><span style="color: grey;">shall be</span></i>
all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(ASV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But the ungodly shall be all of them as
thorns to be thrust away, Because they cannot be taken with the hand; </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(BBE)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But the evil-doers, all of them, will be like
thorns to be pushed away, because they may not be gripped in the hand: </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bibeln)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men de onda äro allasammans lika bortkastade
törnen, som man ej vill taga i med handen. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bishops)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But the vngodly man, shall be as a thorne
cleane pluckt vp, which can not be taken with handes: </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Brenton)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All
these are as a thorn</b> thrust forth, for they shall not be taken with the
hand, </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Darby)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But <i><span style="color: grey;">the sons</span></i>
of Belial <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> all of them as thorns
thrust away, Because they cannot be taken with hands; </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(DRB)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But transgressors shall all of them be
plucked up as thorns: which are not taken away with hands. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(LITV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> As to the ungodly, all of them <i><span style="color: grey;">shall be</span></i> as a thorn driven away; for they cannot
be taken by the hand; </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(SFB)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men de onda är alla lika bortkastade törnen,
som man ej kan ta i med handen. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Webster)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But <i><span style="color: grey;">the sons</span></i>
of Belial <i><span style="color: grey;">shall be</span></i> all of them as thorns
thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(YLT)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> As to the worthless--As a thorn driven away <i><span style="color: grey;">are</span></i> all of them, For--not by hand are they taken;
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Ch 13:7</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And
there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Belial</span>, and have strengthened themselves
against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted,
and could not withstand them.</span></b><br />
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2 Chronicles 13:7</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(ABP+)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
there gathered together<sup><span style="color: green;">G4863</span></sup> with<sup><span style="color: green;">G4314</span></sup> him<sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup>
[<sup><span style="color: red;">2</span></sup><b>men<sup><span style="color: green;">G435</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: red;">1</span></sup>mischievous],<sup><span style="color: green;">G3061</span></sup> sons<sup><span style="color: green;">G5207</span></sup>
of lawbreakers,</b><sup><span style="color: green;">G3892.1</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> they grew in strength<sup><span style="color: green;">G1765</span></sup> against<sup><span style="color: green;">G1909</span></sup>
Rehoboam<sup><span style="color: green;">G*</span></sup> son<sup><span style="color: green;">G5207</span></sup> of Solomon,<sup><span style="color: green;">G*</span></sup>
and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> Rehoboam<sup><span style="color: green;">G*</span></sup> was<sup><span style="color: green;">G1510.7.3</span></sup>
younger<sup><span style="color: green;">G3501</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup> timid<sup><span style="color: green;">G1169</span></sup>
<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> in heart,<sup><span style="color: green;">G2588</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
he did not<sup><span style="color: green;">G3756</span></sup> fortify<sup><span style="color: green;">G2901</span></sup> against<sup><span style="color: green;">G2596</span></sup>
their face.<sup><span style="color: green;">G4383</span></sup> <sup><span style="color: green;">G1473</span></sup> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(ASV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> A<b>nd there were gathered unto him worthless
men, base fellows,</b> that strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of
Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tender-hearted, and could not withstand
them. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(BBE)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>And certain foolish and good-for-nothing men
were joined with him</b>, and made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son of
Solomon, when he was young and untested and not able to keep them back. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bibeln)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och till honom församlade sig löst folk, onda
män, och de blevo Rehabeam, Salomos son, för starka, eftersom Rehabeam ännu var
ung och försagd och därför icke kunde stå dem emot. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bishops)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>And there gathered to him lewde men, the
children of Belial, </b>and preuailed against Rehoboam the sonne of Solomon, when
Rehoboam was young and tender hearted, and could not stand before them. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Brenton)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>and there are gathered to him pestilent men,
transgressors,</b> and he has risen up against Roboam the son of Solomon, while
Roboam was young and fearful in heart, and he withstood him not. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Darby)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>And vain men, sons of Belial,</b> gathered to him
and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and Rehoboam
was young and faint-hearted, and did not shew himself strong against them. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(DRB)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And there were gathered to him vain men, and
children of Belial: and they prevailed against Roboam the son of Solomon: for
Roboam was unexperienced, and of a fearful heart, and could not resist them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(KJV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And there are gathered unto him vain men, the
children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son
of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand
them. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(LITV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>And vain men gathered to him, sons of
worthlessness,</b> and they made themselves strong against Rehoboam the son of
Solomon; and Rehoboam was a youth and tender of heart, and could not be strong
against them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(SFB)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> En skara löst folk slöt sig till honom, onda
människor, som blev för starka för Rehabeam, Salomos son. Rehabeam var ung och
ängslig och kunde därför inte stå emot dem. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Webster)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>And there are gathered to him vain men, the
children of Belial,</b> and <i><span style="color: grey;">they</span></i> have
strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was
young and tender-hearted, and could not withstand them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(YLT)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> `And there are gathered unto him vain men,
sons of worthlessness, and they strengthen themselves against Rehoboam son of
Solomon, and Rehoboam was a youth, and tender of heart, and hath not
strengthened himself against them. </span><br />
</div>
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2Ch 13:1 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah. <br />
2Ch 13:2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Michaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. <br />
2Ch 13:3 And Abijah set the battle in array with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men: Jeroboam also set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, being mighty men of valour. <br />
2Ch 13:4 And Abijah stood up upon mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, thou Jeroboam, and all Israel; <br />
2Ch 13:5 Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt? <br />
2Ch 13:6 Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, is risen up, and hath rebelled against his lord. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2Ch 13:7 And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />2Ch 13:8 And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the LORD in the hand of the sons of David; and ye be a great multitude, a<u>nd there are with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods</u>. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />2Ch 13:9 Have ye not cast out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, <u>the same may be a priest of them that are no gods</u>. </b></span><br />
<b><br />2Ch 13:10 But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests, which minister unto the LORD, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business: <br />2Ch 13:11 And they burn unto the LORD every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense: the shewbread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of the LORD our God; but ye have forsaken him. <br />2Ch 13:12 And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, <span style="font-size: large;">and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you.</span> O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper. </b><br />
2Ch 13:13 But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them. <br />
2Ch 13:14 And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. <br />
2Ch 13:15 Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. <br />
2Ch 13:16 And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand. <br />
2Ch 13:17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men. <br />
2Ch 13:18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers. <br />
2Ch 13:19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephrain with the towns thereof. <br />
2Ch 13:20 Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and the LORD struck him, and he died. <br />
2Ch 13:21 But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters. <br />
2Ch 13:22 And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Php_3:2</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Given akt
på de hundarna, given akt på de <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> arbetarna, given akt på "de sönderskurna". </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Th_3:2</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> så ock
att vi må bliva frälsta ifrån vanartiga och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> människor. Ty tron är icke var mans. </span></b><br />
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Th_3:3</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men
Herren är trofast, och han skall styrka eder och bevara eder från det <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span>. </span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Ti_4:1</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men Anden
säger uttryckligen, att i kommande tider somliga skola avfalla från tron och
hålla sig till villoandar och till <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> andars läror. </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Ti_2:22</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Fly</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> ungdomens <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> begärelser, och far
efter rättfärdighet, tro och kärlek, och frid med dem som av rent hjärta åkalla
Herren. </span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Ti_3:13</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> människor och
bedragare skola gå allt längre i ondska; de skola förvilla andra och själva
bliva förvillade. </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jas_2:19</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Du tror
att Gud är en. Däri gör du rätt; också de <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> andarna tro det och bäva. </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jas_3:15</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Sådan
"vishet" kommer icke ned ovanifrån, utan är av jorden och tillhör de
"själiska" människorna, ja, de <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> andarna. </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Pe_3:12</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ty
Herrens ögon äro vända till de rättfärdiga, och hans öron till deras bön. Men
Herrens ansikte är emot dem som göra det <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span>". </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Här visar uppenbarelseboken på den demoniska
ekumeniken.</span></u></b></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Rev_18:2</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Och han ropade med stark röst och sade:
"Fallet, fallet är det stora Babylon; det har blivit en boning för <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">onda</span> andar, ett tillhåll
för alla slags orena andar och ett tillhåll för alla slags orena och
vederstyggliga fåglar. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co_6:15</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And
what concord hath Christ with <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Belial</span>? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? </span></b><br />
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 6:14</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Gån icke i ok tillsammans med dem som icke
tro; det bleve omaka par. Vad har väl rättfärdighet att skaffa med
orättfärdighet, eller vilken gemenskap har ljus med mörker? </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 6:15</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Huru förlika sig Kristus och Beliar, eller
vad delaktighet har den som tror med den som icke tror? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 6:16</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Eller huru låter ett Guds tempel förena sig
med avgudar? Vi äro ju ett den levande Gudens tempel, ty Gud har sagt:
"Jag skall bo i dem och vandra ibland dem; jag skall vara deras Gud, och
de skola vara mitt folk." </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 6:17</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Alltså: "Gån ut ifrån dem och skiljen
eder ifrån dem, säger Herren; kommen icke vid det orent är. Då skall jag taga
emot eder </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 6:18</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> och vara en Fader för eder; och I skolen vara
mina söner och döttrar, säger Herren, den Allsmäktige." </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">hat concord hath </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">- agreement, harmony, accord, accordance, unity, friendship,
peace, treaty, pact, agreement, settlement, compact,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(ASV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or
what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(BBE)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what agreement is there between Christ
and the Evil One? or what part has one who has faith with one who has not? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bibeln)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Huru förlika sig Kristus och Beliar, eller
vad delaktighet har den som tror med den som icke tror? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Bishops)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Or what concorde hath Christe with belyall?
Eyther what part hath he that beleueth, with an infidell? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Darby)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> and what consent of Christ with Beliar, or
what part for a believer along with an unbeliever? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(DRB)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or
what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(KJV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br />
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(LITV)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what agreement does Christ <i><span style="color: grey;">have</span></i> with Belial? Or what part does a believer <i><span style="color: grey;">have</span></i> with an unbeliever? </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Murdock)</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> or what concord hath the Messiah with Satan?
or what part hath a believer with an unbeliever? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(SFB)</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hur kan Kristus och Beliar komma överens?
Eller vad kan den som tror dela med den som inte tror? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(Webster)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">WNT)</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Where can harmony between Christ and Belial
be found? Or what participation has a believer with an unbeliever? </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">(YLT)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> and what fellowship to light with darkness? <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and what concord to Christ with Belial? or
what part to a believer with an unbeliever? </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><u>Vilddjurets bild tar form</u>.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Det är ingen oskyldig lek man gett sig in på utan en
livsavgörande kamp som mynnar ut i utplåning, ödeläggelse, förödelse, skövling,
utradering, förfall. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">De som velat värna om äkta väckelse liv, har blivit satta åt
sidan, utfrysta eller förlöjligade etc.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Inom de olika frikyrkorna även pingströrelsen, har och pågår en maktkamp om estraden,
företrädena och topp styrning, genom manövrering, påverkan, målinriktning, målsättning,
reglering, kontroll, styrinrättningar, manöverorgan, har man styrt
församlingarna med dessa medel till att
i dag stå fullkomligt tömda på den första troheten och kärleken till Kristus. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Det är genom små-påvars välde det gått utförs och nu har man gjutit sig en ny,
annan slags kristendom som går rakt mot Rom, påvekyrkan har fått inträde genom
falsk och bedräglig förkunnelse, nu står
pingst kyrkorna tomma på dess innehåll, man har ersatt, förväxlat och
bytt ut den äkta pingsten mot en avart, (countered) typ av religiositet, där
uppblandas allt slag av världslig, m<span style="font-size: large;">y</span>stik hindu visdom som får ersätta Tron, med katolsk mystik tro och katolicism,
påvedöme.</span><br />
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">se <b>Antikrist</b>, <b>den laglöse!</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Man säger sig värna
om församlingsgemenskapen men har satt "djävulen i båten", kyrkorna
som gett makt åt vilddjurets bild.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Dessa har blivit Märkta.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_13:16</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och det
förmår alla, både små och stora, både rika och fattiga, både fria och trälar, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">att låta giva sig ett <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">märke</span> på högra handen
eller på pannan, </b></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_14:9</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och ännu
en tredje ängel följde dem; denne sade med hög röst: "Om någon tillbeder
vilddjuret och dess bild och tager dess <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">märke</span> på sin panna eller på sin hand, </span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_14:9</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And the third
angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive <i><span style="color: grey;">his</span></i> mark in his <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">forehead</span>, or in his hand, </b></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">se forehead - brow, temple, church</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">, </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">place of worship, house of worship, refuge, asylum,
shelter, cover, harbor, take in, housing, lodging, somewhere to stay, somewhere
to live, accommodation,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">hand - </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">hand
over, offer, pass, supply, furnish, dispense, administer, distribute, worker, hired
hand, laborer, employee, power, direction, authority, control, influence, supremacy,
rule, command, clout, muscle, sway, dominance, license, entitlement, authorization,
nation, inhabitants, residents, citizens, country, state, world power, nation-state,
sovereign state,</span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">see
inhabitants, dwellers, </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 3pt 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 17:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> With whom the
kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">inhabitants</span> of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. </span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G2730</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">katoikeō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
<u><span style="color: green;">G2596</span></u> and <u><span style="color: green;">G3611</span></u>;
to <i>house</i> <i>permanently</i>, that is, <i>reside</i> (literally or
figuratively): - dwell (-er), inhabitant (-ter).</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G2596</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">kata</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
primary particle; (preposition) <i>down</i> (in place or time), in varied
relations (according to the case [genitive, dative or accusative] with which it
is joined)<i>:</i> - about, according as (to), after, against, (when they were)
X alone, among, and, X apart, (even, like) as (concerning, pertaining to,
touching), X aside, at, before, beyond, by, to the charge of, [charita-] bly,
concerning, + covered, [dai-] ly, down, every, (+ far more) exceeding, X more
excellent, for, from . . . to, godly, in (-asmuch, divers, every, -to, respect
of), . . . by, after the manner of, + by any means, beyond (out of) measure, X
mightily, more, X natural, of (up-) on (X part), out (of every), over against,
(+ your) X own, + particularly, so, through (-oughout, -oughout every), thus,
(un-) to (-gether, -ward), X uttermost, where (-by), with. In composition it
retains many of these applications, and frequently denotes <i>opposition</i>, <i>distribution</i>
or <i>intensity</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3611</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">oikeō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
<u><span style="color: green;">G3624</span></u>; to <i>occupy</i> <i>a</i> <i>house</i>
that is, <i>reside</i> (figuratively <i>inhabit</i>, <i>remain</i>, <i>inhere</i>);
by implication to <i>cohabit:</i> - dwell. See also <u><span style="color: green;">G3625</span></u>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3624</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">oikos</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Of
uncertain affinity; a <i>dwelling</i> (more or less extensive, literally or
figuratively); by implication a <i>family</i> (more or less related, literally
or figuratively): - home, house (-hold), temple. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 4pt 0cm 2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 4pt 0cm 2pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>see <u>church, forehead</u>,</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 4pt 0cm 2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3625</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">oikoumenē</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Feminine
participle present passive of <u><span style="color: green;">G3611</span></u> (as
noun, by implication of <u><span style="color: green;">G1093</span></u>); <i>land</i>,
that is, the (terrene part of the) <i>globe</i>; specifically the Roman <i>empire:</i>
- earth, world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G1093</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">gē</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Contracted
from a primary word; <i>soil</i>; by extension a <i>region</i>, or the solid
part or the whole of the <i>terrene</i> globe (including the occupants in each
application): - country, earth (-ly), ground, land, world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 14:10</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> så skall ock han få dricka av Guds vredesvin,
det som är iskänkt i hans vredes kalk, obemängt; och han skall bliva plågad med
eld och svavel, i heliga änglars och i Lammets åsyn. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 14:11</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och när de så plågas, uppstiger röken därav i
evigheters evigheter, och de hava ingen ro, vaken dag eller natt, de som
tillbedja vilddjuret och dess bild, eller som låta märka sig med dess namn. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 14:12</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Här gäller det för de heliga att hava
ståndaktighet, för dem som hålla Guds bud och bevara tron på Jesus." </span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_17:5</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And
upon her <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">forehead</span> <i><span style="color: grey;">was</span></i> a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. </span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">see Jer 3:3 </span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
The godless followers of the beast are marked on the (right) hand and on the forehead (Rev_13:16; Rev_14:9; Rev_20:4), and the apocalyptic woman dressed in scarlet and purple has her name written on her forehead (Rev_17:5).<br />
<br />(2) In a metaphorical sense the expression, “a harlot's forehead,” is used (Jer_3:3) to describe the shameless apostasy and faithlessness of Israel. Ezek speaks of the stiff-necked obstinacy and the persistent unwillingness of Israel to hear the message of Yahweh: <b>“All the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and of a stiff heart” (Jer_3:7),</b> and God makes his prophet's “forehead hard ... as an adamant harder than flint,” whereby an unflinching loyalty to God and a complete disregard of opposition is meant (Jer_3:8, Jer_3:9). Compare the phrase: “to harden the face,” under the word <b>FACE.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Forehead</b><br />The practice common among Oriental nations of colouring the forehead or impressing on it some distinctive mark as a sign of devotion to some deity is alluded to in Rev_13:16, Rev_13:17; Rev_14:9; Rev_17:5; Rev_20:4. The “jewel on thy forehead” mentioned in Eze_16:12 (R.V., “a ring upon thy nose”) was in all probability the “nose-ring” (Isa_3:21). In Eze_3:7 the word “impudent” is rightly rendered in the Revised Version “an hard forehead.” (See also Eze_3:8, Eze_3:9.)<br />
<br />
<b>foredhead -</b><br />
<br />
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<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">forehead, <span style="font-size: large;">brow, top, summit, crown</span>, crest, ridge, peak, <span style="font-size: large;">temple, place of
worship, church, </span>cathedral, harbor, port, retreat, asylum, sanctuary, housing, lodging,</span></b><br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 3pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 16:2</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och den
förste gick åstad och göt ut sin skål på jorden. <b>Då kommo onda och svåra
sårnader på de människor som buro vilddjurets <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">märke</span> och tillbådo dess bild.</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 3pt 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 3pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">som buro</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b>G2192</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">echō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
primary verb (including an alternate form </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">σχε</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">́</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">ω</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">scheō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i>skheh'-o</i> used in
certain tenses only); <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to <i>hold</i></b>
(used in very various applications, literally or figuratively, direct or
remote; such as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>possession</i>, <i>ability</i>,
<i>contiguity</i>, <i>relation</i> or <i>condition</i></b>): - be (able, X
hold, possessed with), accompany, + begin to amend, can (+ -not), X <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">conceive,</b> count, diseased, do, + eat, +
enjoy, + fear, following, have, hold, keep, + lack, + go to law, lie, + must
needs, + of necessity, + need, next, + <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">recover</b>,
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">+ reign, + rest, return</b>, X sick,
take for, + tremble, + uncircumcised, use.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">conceive</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> - imagine, visualize, envision,
envisage, picture, conjure up, perceive, consider, regard, think of, look on, create,
make up, elaborate, think up, dream up, form, invent, formulate, devise, plan, work
out, invent, develop, set up, formulate, create, think up, concoct, make up, dream
up, fabricate, put together, cook up, conceive, prepare, cook, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">make, put together, mix up, stir up,</b> rustle
up, create, produce, conceive, contrive,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 3pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">och tillbådo</span></b></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G4352</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">proskuneō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
<u><span style="color: green;">G4314</span></u> and probably a derivative of <u><span style="color: green;">G2965</span></u> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(meaning
to <i>kiss</i>, like a dog <i>licking</i> his master’s hand); to <i>fawn</i> or
<i>crouch</i> <i>to</i>, that is, (literally or figuratively) <i>prostrate</i>
oneself in homage (<i>do</i> <i>reverence</i> to, <i>adore</i>): - worship.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G4314</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">pros</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
strengthened form of <u><span style="color: green;">G4253</span></u>; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a preposition of direction; <i>forward</i> <i>to</i>,
that is, <i>toward</i> (with the genitive case <i>the</i> <i>side</i> of, that
is, <i>pertaining</i> <i>to</i>; with the dative case <i>by</i> <i>the</i> <i>side</i>
<i>of</i>, that is, <i>near</i> <i>to</i>; usually with the accusative case the
place, time, occasion, or respect, which is the <i>destination</i> of the
relation, that is, <i>whither</i> or <i>for</i> which it is predicated):</b> -
about, according to, against, among, at, because of, before, between,
([where-]) by, for, X </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">at
thy house</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">, in, for intent, nigh unto, of, which pertain to,
that, to (the end that), <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">+ together, to
([you]) -ward, unto, with (-in).</b> In compounds it denotes essentially the
same applications, namely, motion towards, accession to, or nearness at.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G4253</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">pro</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
primary preposition; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“fore”, that is, <i>in</i>
<i>front</i> <i>of</i>, <i>prior</i> (figuratively <i>superior</i>) <i>to</i>.
In compounds it retains the same significations: - above, ago, before, or ever.</b>
</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">In compounds it retains the same significations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">see compound</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> - mix, complex, amalgam,
composite, multipart, multifarious, multiple, complex, composite, multifaceted,
many-sided, versatile, comprehensive, all-around, talented, complex, complicated,
involved, intricate,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">it
retains</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> - keep, keep hold of, hold
on to, hold, hang on to, hoard, store, preserve, conserve, care for, defend, maintain,
uphold, keep, continue, carry on, sustain, jam, jelly, marmalade, conserve, territory,
realm, domain, sphere, field, ambit, game reserve, reserve, reservation, sanctuary,
refuge, asylum, shelter, cover, protection, refuge, harbor, take in, housing, lodging,
house, residence, abode, dwelling, quarters, domicile, address, mansion, farmhouse,
manor, council house, villa, studio, loft, household, family, dynasty, line, stock,
company, firm, partnership, organization, take in, board, put up, accommodate, safe
haven, haven, place of safety, maintain, save,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_19:20</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och
vilddjuret blev gripet, därjämte ock den falske profeten, som i dess åsyn hade
gjort de tecken med vilka han hade förvillat dem som hade tagit vilddjurets <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">märke</span>, och dem som hade
tillbett dess bild. Båda blevo de levande kastade i eldsjön, som brann med
svavel. </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Rev_20:4</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Och jag såg troner stå där, och de satte sig
på dem, de åt vilka gavs makt att hålla dom. Och jag såg de människors själar,
som hade blivit halshuggna för Jesu vittnesbörds och Guds Ords skull, och som
icke hade tillbett vilddjuret eller dess bild, och icke heller tagit dess <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">märke</span> på sina pannor och
sina händer; dessa blevo nu åter levande och fingo regera med Kristus i tusen
år. </span></b></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co_6:16</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And what
agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> in them, and walk in <i><span style="color: grey;">them;</span></i>
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eph_3:17</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> That Christ
may <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> in your
hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Col_1:19</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For it pleased
<i><span style="color: grey;">the Father</span></i> that in him should all
fulness <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>; </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Col_3:16</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Let the word
of Christ <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> in
you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Pe_3:7</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Likewise, ye
husbands, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
with <i><span style="color: grey;">them</span></i> according to knowledge, giving
honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of
the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Jn_4:13</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hereby know we
that we <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> in
him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. </span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_3:10</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <span style="color: red;">Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will
keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to
try them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
upon the earth.</span> </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_6:10</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And
they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost
thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> on the earth? </span></b><br />
</div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">on them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> on the earth</span></b></span></u><br />
</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G2730</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">katoikeō</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
<u><span style="color: green;">G2596</span></u> and <u><span style="color: green;">G3611</span></u>;<b>
to <i>house</i> <i>permanently</i>, that is, <i>reside</i> (literally or figuratively):
- dwell (-er), inhabitant (-ter).</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G2596</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">kata</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
primary particle; (preposition) <i>down</i> (in place or time), in varied
relations (according to the case [genitive, dative or accusative] with which it
is joined)<i>:</i> - about, according as (to), after, against, (when they were)
X alone, among, and, X apart, (even, like) as (concerning, pertaining to,
touching), X aside, at, before, beyond, by, to the charge of, [charita-] bly,
concerning, + covered, [dai-] ly, down, every, (+ far more) exceeding, X more
excellent, for, from . . . to, godly, in (-asmuch, divers, every, -to, respect
of), . . . by, after the manner of, + by any means, beyond (out of) measure, X
mightily, more, X natural, of (up-) on (X part), out (of every), over against,
(+ your) X own, + particularly, so, through (-oughout, -oughout every), thus,
(un-) to (-gether, -ward), X uttermost, where (-by), with. In composition it
retains many of these applications, and frequently denotes <i>opposition</i>, <i>distribution</i>
or <i>intensity</i>.</span><br />
</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3611</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">oikeō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From
<u><span style="color: green;">G3624</span></u>; </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">to <i>occupy</i> <i>a</i> <i>house</i> that is, <i>reside</i>
(figuratively <i>inhabit</i>, <i>remain</i>, <i>inhere</i>); by implication to <i><u>cohabit</u>:</i>
- <u>dwell</u>.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> See also <u><span style="color: green;">G3625</span></u>.</span><br />
</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3624</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">oikos</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Of
uncertain affinity; a <i>dwelling</i> (more or less extensive, literally or
figuratively); by implication a <i>family</i> (more or less related, literally
or figuratively): <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">- home, house (-hold),
temple. - see church</b></span><br />
</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G3625</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">oikoumenē</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Feminine
participle present passive of <u><span style="color: green;">G3611</span></u> (as
noun, by implication of <u><span style="color: green;">G1093</span></u>); <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>land</i>, that is, the (terrene part of
the) <i>globe</i>; specifically the Roman <i>empire:</i> - earth, world.</b></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G1093</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">gē</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Contracted
from a primary word; <i>soil</i>; by extension a <i>region</i>, or the solid
part or the whole of the <i>terrene</i> globe (including the occupants in each
application): - country, earth (-ly), ground, land, world.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">terrene
- worldly or earthly as opposed to heavenly or spiritual, subject, field, area
of interest, department, realm,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 4.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">se även</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">catholic,</b></span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">papal,</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> proceeding from or ordered by or subject to a
pope or the papacy regarded as the successor of the Apostles ,</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">"papal
dispensation" preference, indulgence, allowance, dispensation, concession,
yielding, surrendering, granting, giving way, conceding, compromise, cooperation,
conciliation, finding the middle ground, give and take, cooperate, do a deal, bargain,
negotiate, meet halfway, give in, concede, find the middle ground, deal, settlement,
arrangement, agreement, bargain, concession, contract, transaction, agreement, arrangement,
pact, treaty, covenant, compact, exchange, trade, do business, buy, sell, transact
business, apportion, divide up, split, share out, distribute, dole out, all-embracing,
all-inclusive, across-the-board, comprehensive, complete, absolute, entire, total,
whole, overall, extensive, finish, end, bring to an end, put the last touches
on, finalize, conclude, fulfill, carry out, achieve, accomplish, realize, accomplished,
fulfilled, done, extreme, utter, great, absolute, downright, very great, finalize,
complete, reach the summit of, top off, work on, round off, put the finishing
touches to, improve, absolute, total, supreme,
unconditional, unlimited, unquestionable, unchangeable, fixed idea, solution, answer,
resolution, given truth, legitimacy, legality, authority, authenticity, dependability,
accuracy, loyalty, extensive, wide-reaching, varied, speckled, spotted, marked,
covered, blemished, spot, freckled, dotted, stippled, dappled, mixed, mottled, different,
various, assorted, miscellaneous, sundry, pied, diverse, wide-ranging, vary, broad,
far-reaching, general, all-encompassing, marked, pronounced, strong, unsubtle, sketchy,
imprecise, hazy, wide-ranging,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">bugger </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">"sodomite,"</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> 1550s, earlier <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"heretic"</b>
(mid-14c.), from M.L. Bulgarus "a Bulgarian" (see Bulgaria), so
called from Catholic bigoted notions of the sex lives of Eastern Orthodox
Christians or of the sect of heretics that was prominent there 11c.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Bulgaria </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">M.L., from Bulgari "Bulgarians,"
perhaps lit. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"the men from the
Bolg,</b>" the River Volga, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">upon
whose banks they lived</b> until 6c. But the people's name for themselves in
O.Bulg. was Blugarinu, according to OED, which suggests a different origin. In
other sources, the name is said to be ultimately from Turk. bulga <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"mixed,"</b> in reference to the
nature of this people of Turko-Finnish extraction but Slavic language.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">imprimatur
</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1640, from Mod.L. "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">let it be printed,"</b> the formula of a book licenser, third
person singular present subjunctive passive of L. imprimere <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to print" (see impress).</b>
Originally of state license to print books, later only of Roman Catholic
Church.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">biretta </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">square cap worn by Catholic clergy, 1590s,
from It. beretta, from L.L. birrus, birrum "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">large cloak with hood;"</b> perhaps of Gaulish origin, or from Gk.
pyrros <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"flame-colored,
yellow."</b></span><br />
</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">ex </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1827, originally short for ex-Catholic;
ultimately from L. ex (see ex-). Since 1929 as abbreviation for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">ex-wife, ex-husband</b>, etc. Also used in
some commercial senses for "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">from,
out of."</b></span><br />
</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jesuit </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1540s, from Mod.L. Jesuita, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">member of the Society of</b> Jesus, founded
1533 by Ignatius Loyola to combat Protestantism. Their enemies (in both
Catholic and Protestant lands) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">accused
them of belief that ends justify means, hence the sense "a dissembling
person" </b>(1630s), and jesuitical <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"deceitful"</b>
(1610s).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">a
dissembling person -</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">hedge, mislead, pretend,
put on an act, play-act, dissimulate, feign,</span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">deceitful
- </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">cunning, lying, devious, falsehearted, cheating,
faithless, untrustworthy, fraudulent, dishonest, deceiving,</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">factitious
</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">contrived,
artificial, simulated, affected, unnatural, insincere,</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1640s, from L. factitius <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"artificial,"</b> from factus, pp. of facere <b>"do"</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">clastic
</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1875, from Gk. klastos "broken in
pieces," from klan, klaein "to break," from PIE *kla-, variant
of root *kel- "to strike."</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">vicar</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">c.1300, from O.Fr. vicaire, from L. vicarius <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"substitute, deputy,"</b> noun
use of adj. vicarius <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"substituting,"
</b>from vicis </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">"change, turn, office" (see
vicarious).</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> The original notion is
of "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">earthly representative of God
or Christ;" but also used in sense of "person acting as parish priest
in place of a real parson"</b> (early 14c.). </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">vandal </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1660s, "willful destroyer of what is
beautiful or venerable," from Vandals, name of the Germanic tribe that
sacked Rome in 455 </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">from P.Gmc. *Wandal- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"Wanderer." </b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Tory </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1566, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"an
outlaw," specifically "a robber,"</b> from Ir. toruighe <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"plunderer,"</b> originally <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"pursuer, searcher</b>," from
O.Ir. toirighim "<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I pursue</b>,"
related to toracht <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"pursuit."</b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">vicarious
</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1630s, from L. vicarius <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"substitute, deputy"</b> (adj. and n.), from vicis <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"turn, change, exchange,
substitution,"</b> from PIE root *weik-, *weig- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to bend, wind"</b> (cf. Skt. visti <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"changing, changeable;" </b>O.E. wician <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to give way, yield,"</b> wice "wych elm;" O.N.
vikja <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"to bend, turn;"</b>
Swed. viker <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"willow twig,
wand;"</b> Ger. wechsel <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">"change").</b>
Related: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Vicariously.</b></span></div>
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_7:15</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Therefore are
they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and
he that sitteth on the throne shall <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> among them. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><br /><b>Rev 11:7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, </b>the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">- “be victorious over”; traditionally, “overcome.”</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> (<b>YLT)
`And when they may finish their testimony, the beast that is coming up
out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill
them, </b></span><br />
<br />
ex. när de eventuellt upplöst, fördärvat, omintetgjort, kullkastat, ödelagt, spolierat, vandaliserat förslösat, havererat, skövlat, förlorat, deras vittnesbörd, --<br />
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">“be victorious over”;
traditionally, “overcome.”</span></b></i></div>
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">victorious - </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">champion, title holder,
campaigner, guardian, backer, supporter, side with, stand up for, support, back,
campaign, movement, operation, fight, battle, war, promotion, crusade, operation,
struggle, canvass, run for election, campaign, drum up support, solicit votes, electioneer,
investigate, poll, seek, ballot, survey, test, research, </span></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">conquering, winning, glorious,
leading, main, central, overriding, foremost, prevailing, governing, principal,
major, chief, ascendant, influential, authoritarian, assertive, forceful, heavy-handed,
overbearing, domineering, bossy, dominant, proud, exultant, celebratory, jubilant,
elated, delighted, gleeful, successful, winning, merry</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Rev 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, <u>that the image of the beast should both speak</u>, <u>and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed</u>. </b></span><br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. </span></b><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b><br />Rev 11:9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. </b></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 11:10</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And
they that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts
one to another; <u>because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the
earth</u>. </span></b><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 12:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Therefore
rejoice, <i><span style="color: grey;">ye</span></i> heavens, and ye that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> in them. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of
the sea</u>! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he
knoweth that he hath but a short time.</b></span><br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 13:6</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And he opened
his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle,
and them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
in heaven. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>13:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <u>And all that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> upon the earth
shall worship him</u>, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. </span></b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 13:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And he
exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, <b>and causeth the earth
and them which <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. </b></span><br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 13:14</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b> And deceiveth
them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> on
the earth by <i><span style="color: grey;">the means of</span></i> those miracles
which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> on the earth, that
they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did
live.</b> </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b> G3625</b><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>oikoumenē</b></span><br /><br />Feminine participle present passive of G3611 <b>(as noun, by implication of G1093); land, that is, the (terrene part of the) globe; specifically the Roman empire: - earth, world.</b></span><br />
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<u><span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_14:6</span></u><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And I saw
another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to
preach unto them that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span>
on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 17:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> The beast that
thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go
into perdition: <b>and they that <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in
the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast
that was, and is not, and yet is. </b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 21:3</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And I heard a
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i> with men, and he will <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">dwell</span> with them, and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them, <i><span style="color: grey;">and be</span></i>
their God.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:14</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b> Och detta
är icke att undra på. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>
själv förskapar sig ju till en ljusets ängel.</b> </span></div>
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<span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Th 2:18</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ty vi
hava varit redo att komma till eder - jag, Paulus, för min del både en och två
gånger - men <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>
har hindrat oss. </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Ti 5:15</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Redan
hava ju några vikit av och följt efter <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 2:13</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Jag vet
var du bor: där varest <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>
har sin tron. Och dock håller du fast vid mitt namn; och tron på mig förnekade
du icke ens på den tid då Antipas, mitt vittne, min trogne tjänare, blev dräpt
hos eder - där varest <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>
bor. </span></b></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_12:9</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och den
store draken, den gamle ormen, blev nedkastad, han som kallas Djävul och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>, <b>och som förvillar
hela världen</b>; han blev nedkastad till jorden, och hans änglar kastades ned
jämte honom. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_20:2</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och han
grep draken, den gamle ormen, det är djävulen och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span>, och fängslade honom för tusen år </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_20:7</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men när
de tusen åren hava gått till ända, skall <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satan</span> komma lös ur sitt fängelse. </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Th 2:9</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Honom som
efter <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satans</span>
tillskyndelse kommer med lögnens alla kraftgärningar och tecken och under </span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: large;"><b>Rev 2:9 <u>I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan</u>. </b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev 3:9</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: large;"><b> </b> Se, jag
vill överlämna åt dig några från <u><b><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">Satans</span> synagoga</b></u>,
några av dem som säga sig vara judar, men icke äro det, utan ljuga; ja, jag
vill göra så, att de komma ock falla ned för dina fötter, och de skola förstå,
att jag har fått dig kär.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";"><b>2</b><b>Co 4:4</b></span></span><b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: large;"><u> </u> Ty de
otrognas sinnen har denna tidsålders gud så <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">förblindat</span>, att de icke se det sken som utgår från
evangelium om Kristi, Guds egen avbilds, härlighet. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jer 9:14</span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: large;"> utan
vandrat efter sina egna hjärtans hårdhet och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efterföljt</span> Baalerna, såsom deras fader lärde dem. </span></b><br />
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Lev_18:30</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Iakttagen
därför vad jag har bjudit eder iakttaga, så att I icke gören <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> någon av de
styggeliga stadgar som man har <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span> före eder, och så orenen eder genom dem. Jag är HERREN,
eder Gud. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Lev_20:5</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> då skall
jag själv vända mitt ansikte mot den mannen och mot hans släkt; och honom och
alla dem som hava <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span>
honom och i trolös avfällighet lupit <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> Molok skall jag utrota ur deras folk. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job_31:7</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hava mina
steg vikit av ifrån vägen, har mitt hjärta <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> mina ögon, eller låder vid min händer en fläck? </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jer_2:23</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Huru kan
du säga: "Jag har ej orenat mig, jag har icke <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> Baalerna"? Besinna vad du har bedrivit
i dalen, ja, betänk vad du har gjort. Du är lik ett ystert kamelsto, som löper
hit och dit. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jer_11:10</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> De hava
vänt tillbaka till sina förfäders missgärningar, deras som icke ville höra mina
ord. Själva hava de så <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span>
<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> andra gudar
och tjänat dem. Ja, Israels hus och Juda hus hava brutit det förbund som jag
slöt med deras fäder. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Ti_5:15</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Redan
hava ju några vikit av och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">följt</span>
<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">efter</span> Satan. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jas_4:7</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Så varen
nu Gud underdåniga, men stån emot <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span>, så skall han fly bort ifrån eder. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Pe_5:8</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Varen
nyktra och vaken. Eder vedersakare, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span>, går omkring såsom ett rytande lejon och söker vem han
må uppsluka. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Jn_3:8</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Den som
gör synd, han är av <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span>,
ty <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span> har
syndat från begynnelsen. Och just därför uppenbarades Guds Son, att han skulle
göra om intet djävulens gärningar. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jud_1:9</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Icke så
Mikael, överängeln; när denne tvistade med <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span> angående Moses' kropp, dristade han sig
icke att över honom uttala någon smädande dom, utan sade allenast: "Herren
näpse dig." </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_2:10</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Frukta
icke för det som du skall få lida. Se, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span> skall kasta somliga av eder i fängelse,
för att I skolen sättas på prov; och I skolen få utstå bedrövelse i tio dagar.
Var trogen intill döden, så skall jag giva dig livets krona, </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_12:12</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Glädjens
fördenskull, I himlar och I som bon i dem. Men ve dig, du jord, och dig, du
hav! Ty <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span>
har kommit ned till eder i stor vrede, eftersom han vet att den tid han har
kvar är kort." </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_20:2</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och han
grep draken, den gamle ormen, det är <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span> och Satan, och fängslade honom för tusen år </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_20:10</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">djävulen</span>, som förvillade
dem, bliver kastad i samma sjö av eld och svavel, dit vilddjuret och den falske
profeten hade blivit kastade; och de skola där plågas dag och natt i
evigheternas evigheter. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Deu_9:12</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och
HERREN sade till mig: "Stå upp och gå med hast ned härifrån, ty ditt folk,
som du har fört ut ur Egypten, har tagit sig till, vad fördärvligt är. De hava
redan <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span> ifrån den väg som jag
bjöd dem gå; de hava gjort sig ett gjutet beläte." </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Deu_9:16</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och jag
fick då se att I haven syndat mot HERREN, eder Gud: I haden gjort eder en
gjuten kalv; så haden I redan <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span>
ifrån den väg som HERREN hade bjudit eder gå. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Sa_16:14</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men sedan
HERRENS Ande hade <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span>
ifrån Saul, kvaldes han <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span>
en ond ande från HERREN. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job_31:7</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hava mina
steg <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span> ifrån vägen, har mitt
hjärta följt efter mina ögon, eller låder vid min händer en fläck? </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Dan_9:5</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Vi hava
syndat och gjort illa och varit ogudaktiga och avfälliga; vi hava <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span> ifrån dina bud och
rätter. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Mal_2:8</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men I
haven <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span> ifrån vägen; genom
eder undervisning haven I kommit många på fall. I haven fördärvat förbundet med
Levi, säger HERREN Sebaot. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Mal_3:7</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> allt
ifrån edra fäders dagar haven I <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">vikit</span> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">av</span>
ifrån mina stadgar och icke hållit dem Vänden om till mig, så vill jag vända om
till eder, säger HERREN Sebaot. Nu frågen I: "Varutinnan skola vi vända
om?" </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Hos_4:13</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> På
bergens toppar frambära de offer, och på höjderna tända de offereld, under
ekar, popplar och terebinter, eftersom skuggan där är så god. Så bliva edra
döttrar skökor, och edra söners <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">hustrur</span> äktenskapsbryterskor. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Hos_4:14</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Dock kan
jag icke straffa edra döttrar för att de äro skökor, eller edra söners <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">hustrur</span> för att de äro
äktenskapsbryterskor, ty männen själva gå ju avsides med skökor, och offra med
tempeltärnor. Så löper folket, som intet förstår, till sin undergång. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Co_10:8</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Låtom oss
icke heller <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriva</span>
otukt, såsom somliga av dem gjorde, varför ock tjugutre tusen föllo på en enda
dag. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eph_4:19</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ty i sin
försoffning hava de överlämnat sig åt lösaktighet, så att de i girighet <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriva</span> alla slags orena
gärningar. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_2:14</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men jag
har något litet emot dig: du har hos dig några som hålla fast vid Balaams lära,
hans som lärde Balak huru han skulle lägga en stötesten för Israels barn, så
att de skulle äta kött från avgudaoffer och <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriva</span> otukt. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_2:20</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men jag
har det emot dig att du är så efterlåten mot kvinnan Jesabel - hon som säger
sig vara en profetissa och uppträder såsom lärare och förleder mina tjänare
till att <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriva</span>
otukt och till att äta kött från avgudaoffer. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Hos_6:10</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> I Israels
hus har jag sett gruvliga ting; där <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriver</span> Efraim sin otukt, där orenar sig Israel. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">1Co_6:18</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Flyn
otukten. All annan synd som en människa kan begå är utom kroppen; men den som <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">bedriver</span> otukt, han
syndar på sin egen kropp. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Isa_46:1</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Bel
sjunker ned, Nebo måste böja sig, deras bilder lämnas åt djur och fänad; de som
I förden omkring i högtidståg, de lastas nu på ök som bära sig <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">trötta</span> av bördan. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jer_9:5</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Var och
en handlar svikligt mot sin vän, och ingen talar vad sant är; de öva sina
tungor i att tala lögn de arbeta sig <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">trötta</span> med att göra illa. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jer_51:58</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Så säger
HERREN Sebaot: Det vida Babels murar skola i grund omstörtas, och dess höga
portar skola brännas upp i eld. Så möda sig folken för det som skall bliva till
intet, och folkslagen arbeta sig <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">trötta</span> för det som skall förbrännas av elden. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Hab_2:13</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Se, av
HERREN Sebaot är det ju sagt: "Så möda sig folken för det som skall
förbrännas av elden - och folkslagen arbeta sig <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">trötta</span> för det som skall bliva till intet." </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Mal_2:17</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> I trötten
ut HERREN med edert tal. Nu frågen I: "Varmed <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">trötta</span> vi då ut honom?" Jo, därmed att
I sägen: "Den som gör ont är ändå god i HERRENS ögon, och till sådana har
han behag. Ty varför kommer icke eljest domens Gud?" </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co_11:3</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men jag <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">fruktar</span> att såsom ormen i
sin illfundighet bedrog Eva, så skola till äventyrs också edra sinnen fördärvas
och dragas ifrån den uppriktiga troheten mot Kristus. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:1</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Jag skulle önska att I villen hava fördrag med
mig, om jag nu talar något litet efter dårars sätt. Dock, I haven helt visst
fördrag med mig. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">2Co 11:2</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Ty jag nitälskar för eder
såsom Gud nitälskar, och jag har trolovat eder med Kristus, och ingen annan,
för att kunna ställa fram inför honom en ren jungfru. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">2Co 11:3</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Men jag fruktar att såsom
ormen i sin illfundighet bedrog Eva, så skola till äventyrs också edra sinnen
fördärvas och dragas ifrån den uppriktiga troheten mot Kristus. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">2Co 11:4</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Om någon kommer och predikar
en annan Jesus, än den vi hava predikat, eller om I undfån ett annat slags
ande, än den I förut haven undfått, eller ett annat slags evangelium, än det I
förut haven mottagit, då fördragen I ju sådant alltför väl. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">se
föredrar - övermåttan, </span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">mycket, högeligen, omåttligt, hejdlöst, måttlöst,
gränslöst, överdrivet, bottenlöst, obegränsat, omätligt, outtömligt,
outsinligt, fullständigt, oinskränkt, obundet, förbehållslöst, vidsträckt,
oändligt, underkastar sig, kapitulerar, fogar sig, går med på, utsätter sig
för, ger sig, finner sig i, accepterar, är nöjd med, antar, godtar, säger ja
till, godkänner, går med på, tillåter, bifaller, approberar, ackrediterar,
sanktionerar, bekräftar, stadfäster, auktoriserar, attesterar,</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">en
annan - se Jud 1:7, Gal 1:6,</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">2Co 11:5</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Jag menar nu att jag icke i
något stycke står tillbaka för dessa så övermåttan höga "apostlar". </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:6</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Om jag än är oförfaren i talkonsten, så är
jag det likväl icke i fråga om kunskap. Tvärtom, vi hava på allt sätt, i alla
stycken, lagt vår kunskap i dagen inför eder. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:7</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Eller var det väl en synd jag begick, när jag
för intet förkunnade Guds evangelium för eder och sålunda ödmjukade mig, på det
att I skullen bliva upphöjda? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:13</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ty de männen äro falska apostlar, oredliga
arbetare, som förskapa sig till Kristi apostlar. </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:14</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och detta är icke att undra på. Satan själv
förskapar sig ju till en ljusets ängel. </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Co 11:15</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Det är då icke något märkligt, om jämväl hans
tjänare så förskapa sig, att de likna rättfärdighetens tjänare. Men deras ände
skall svara emot deras gärningar. </span></b></span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Rev_14:4</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Dessa äro
de som icke hava orenat sig med <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">kvinnor</span>; ty de äro såsom jungfrur. Dessa äro de som följa Lammet
varthelst det går. De hava blivit friköpta ifrån människorna till en förstling
åt Gud och Lammet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Man har istället velat främja Karismatiska främmande läror,
ekumeniska lögn läror!</b></span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">2Pe_2:17</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Dessa
människor äro källor utan vatten, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">skyar</span> som drivas av stormvinden, och det svarta mörkret är
förvarat åt dem. </span></div>
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<u><span style="color: green; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Jud_1:12</span></u><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Det är
dessa som få hålla gästabud med eder, där de sitta såsom skamfläckar vid edra
kärleksmåltider och oförsynt se sig själva till godo. De äro <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">skyar</span> utan vatten, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% yellow;">skyar</span> som drivas bort av
vindarna. De äro träd som stå nakna på senhösten, ofruktbara, i dubbel måtto
döda, uppryckta med rötterna. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:1</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men du, stäm upp en klagosång över Israels
furstar; </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:2</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> säg: Huru var icke din moder en lejoninna!
Bland lejon låg hon; hon födde upp sina ungar bland kraftiga lejon. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:3</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Så födde hon upp en av sina ungar, så att han
blev ett kraftigt lejon; han lärde sig att taga rov, människor åt han upp. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:4</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Men folken fingo höra om honom och han blev
fångad i deras grop; och man förde honom med krok i nosen till Egyptens land. </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:5</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> När hon nu såg att hon fick vänta förgäves,
och att hennes hopp blev om intet, då tog hon en annan av sina ungar och gjorde
denne till ett kraftigt lejon. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:6</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Stolt gick han omkring bland lejonen, ja, han
blev ett kraftigt lejon; han lärde sig att taga rov, människor åt han upp. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:7</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Han våldförde deras änkor, deras städer
förödde han. Och landet med vad däri var blev förfärat vid dånet av hans
rytande. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:8</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Då bådade man upp folk mot honom runt omkring
från länderna; och de bredde ut sitt nät för honom, och han blev fångad i deras
grop </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:9</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Sedan satte de honom i en bur, med krok i
nosen, och förde honom till konungen Babel Där satte man honom in i fasta
borgar, för att hans röst ej mer skulle höras bort till Israels berg. </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:10</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Medan de levde i ro, var din moder såsom ett
vinträd, planterat vid vatten. Och det blev ett fruktsamt träd, rikt på skott,
genom det myckna vattnet. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:11</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Det fick starka grenar, tjänliga till
härskarspiror, och dess stam växte hög, omgiven av lövverk, så att det syntes
vida, ty det var högt och rikt på rankor. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Eze 19:12</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> Då ryckte man upp det i vrede,
och det blev kastat på jorden, och stormen från öster förtorkade dess frukt.
Dess starka grenar brötos av och torkade bort, elden fick förtära dem. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">stormen</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">G5594</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "TITUS Cyberbit Basic","serif";">psuchō</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">A
primary verb; to <i>breathe</i> (<i>voluntarily</i> but <i>gently</i>; thus
differing on the one hand from <u><span style="color: green;">G4154</span></u>,
which denotes properly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a <i>forcible</i>
respiration</b>; and on the other from the base of <u><span style="color: green;">G109</span></u>,
which refers properly to an inanimate <i>breeze</i>), </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">that is, (by implication
of reduction of temperature by evaporation)</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to <i>chill</i> (figuratively): - wax cold.</b></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">reduction </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">-
drop, fall, decline, diminution, attenuation, shrinking, dwindling, falling,
deteriorating, diminishing, retreating, withdrawing, moving back, losing
ground, thinning, dwindle, cutback, cut, decrease, lessening, bargain, discount</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">by evaporation </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">-
loss, desertion, abandonment, neglect, departure, leaving, discarding,
forsaking, running away, abandonment, AWOL, disappearance, absconding,
departure, fading, vanishing, disappearance, </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">wax cold </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">- aloof, remote, inaccessible,
far-flung, far-off in the sticks, secluded, out-of-the-way, faraway, apart, withdrawn,
reserved, diffident, uninvolved, inaccessible, unlikely, improbable, faint, unapproachable,
unfriendly, standoffish, proud, superior, snobbish, snooty, distant, unfeeling,
indifferent, formal, cool, remote, detached, frosty, arctic, wintry, bitter,
sour, astringent, vinegary, harsh, embittered, resentful, cheated, angry,
cynical, indignant, sulky, nasty, vicious, hostile, acrimonious, unpleasant, very
cold, icy, biting, raw, sharp, piercing, cutting, stinging, arctic,</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:13</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Nu är det utplanterat i öknen, i ett torrt
och törstande land. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:14</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och eld har gått ut från dess yppersta gren
och har förtärt dess frukt. Så finnes där nu ingen stark gren kvar, ingen
härskarspira! En klagosång är detta, och den har fått tjäna såsom klagosång.</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:1</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the
princes of Israel, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And say, What <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among
young lions. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:3</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And she brought up one of her whelps: it
became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:4</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> The nations also heard of him; he was taken
in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:5</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Now when she saw that she had waited, <i><span style="color: grey;">and</span></i> her hope was lost, then she took another of
her whelps, <i><span style="color: grey;">and</span></i> made him a young lion. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:6</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And he went up and down among the lions, he
became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, <i><span style="color: grey;">and</span></i>
devoured men. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:7</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And he knew their desolate palaces, and he
laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by
the noise of his roaring. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Then the nations set against him on every
side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their
pit. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:9</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And they put him in ward in chains, and
brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice
should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:10</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Thy mother <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of
branches by reason of many waters. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:11</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And she had strong rods for the sceptres of
them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and
she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:12</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast
down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were
broken and withered; the fire consumed them. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:13</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And now she <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Eze 19:14</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And fire is gone out of a rod of her
branches, <i><span style="color: grey;">which</span></i> hath devoured her fruit,
so that she hath no strong rod <i><span style="color: grey;">to be</span></i> a
sceptre to rule. This <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i> a lamentation,
and shall be for a lamentation. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:1</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ett förbund slöt jag med mina ögon: aldrig
skulle jag skåda efter någon jungfru. </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:2</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Vilken lott finge jag eljest av Gud i höjden,
vilken arvedel av den Allsmäktige därovan? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:3</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ofärd kommer ju över de orättfärdiga, och
olycka drabbar ogärningsmän. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:4</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ser icke han mina vägar, räknar han ej alla
mina steg? </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:5</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag väl umgåtts med lögn, och har min fot
varit snar till svek? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:6</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Nej, må jag vägas på en riktig våg, så skall
Gud förnimma min ostrafflighet. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:7</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hava mina steg vikit av ifrån vägen, har mitt
hjärta följt efter mina ögon, eller låder vid min händer en fläck? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:8</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Då må en annan äta var jag har sått, och vad
jag har planterat må ryckas upp med roten. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:9</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har mitt hjärta låtit dåra sig av någon
kvinna, så att jag har stått på lur vid min nästas dörr? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:10</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Då må min hustru mala mjöl åt en annan, och
främmande män må då famntaga henne. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:11</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ja, sådant hade varit en skändlighet, en straffbar
missgärning hade det varit, </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:12</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> en eld som skulle förtära intill avgrunden
och förhärja till roten all min gröda. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:13</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag kränkt min tjänares eller tjänarinnas
rätt, när de hade någon tvist med mig? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:14</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Vad skulle jag då göra, när Gud stode upp,
och när han hölle räfst, vad kunde jag då svara honom? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:15</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Han som skapade mig skapade ju och dem i
moderlivet, han, densamme, har berett dem i modersskötet. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:16</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag vägrat de arma vad de begärde eller
låtit änkans ögon försmäkta? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:17</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag ätit mitt brödstycke allena, utan att
den faderlöse och har fått äta därav? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:18</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Nej, från min ungdom fostrades han hos mig
såsom hos en fader, och från min moders liv var jag änkors ledare. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:19</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag kunnat se en olycklig gå utan kläder,
se en fattig ej äga något att skyla sig med? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:20</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Måste ej fastmer hans länd välsigna mig, och
fick han ej värma sig i ull av mina lamm? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:21</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag lyft min hand mot den faderlöse,
därför att jag såg mig hava medhåll i porten? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:22</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Då må min axel lossna från sitt fäste och min
arm brytas av ifrån sin led. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:23</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Jag måste då frukta ofärd ifrån Gud och
skulle stå maktlös inför hans majestät. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">31:24</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag satt mitt hopp till guldet och kallat
guldklimpen min förtröstan? </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:25</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Var det min glädje att min rikedom blev så
stor, och att min hand förvärvade så mycket? </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:26</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Hände det, när jag såg solljuset, huru det
sken, och månen, huru härligt den gick fram, </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:27</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> att mitt hjärta hemligen lät dåra sig, så att
jag med handkyss gav dem min hyllning? </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:28</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Nej, också det hade varit en straffbar
missgärning; därmed hade jag ju förnekat Gud i höjden. </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:29</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag glatt mig åt min fiendes ofärd och
fröjdats, när olycka träffade honom? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:30</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Nej, jag tillstadde ej min mun att synda så,
ej att med förbannelse begära hans liv. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:31</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Och kan mitt husfolk icke bevittna att envar
fick mätta sig av kött vid mitt bord? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:32</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Främlingen behövde ej stanna över natten på
gatan, mina dörrar lät jag stå öppna utåt vägen. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:33</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag på människovis skylt mina
överträdelser och gömt min missgärning i min barm, </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:34</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> av fruktan för den stora hopen och av rädsla
för stamfränders förakt, så att jag teg och ej gick utom min dörr? </span></b></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:35</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Ack att någon funnes, som ville höra mig! Jag
har sagt mitt ord. Den Allsmäktige må nu svara mig; ack att jag finge min
vederparts motskrift! </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:36</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Sannerligen, jag skulle då bära den högt på
min skuldra, såsom en krona skulle jag fästa den på mig. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:37</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Jag ville då göra honom räkenskap för alla
mina steg, lik en furste skulle jag då träda inför honom. </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:38</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har min mark höjt rop över mig, och hava dess
fåror gråtit med varandra? </span></div>
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<span style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:39</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Har jag förtärt dess gröda obetald eller
utpinat dess brukares liv? </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:40</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Då må törne växa upp för vete, och ogräs i
stället för korn. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Slut på Jobs tal. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:1</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then
should I think upon a maid? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:2</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For what portion of God <i><span style="color: grey;">is there</span></i> from above? and <i><span style="color: grey;">what</span></i> inheritance of the Almighty from on high? </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:3</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i><span style="color: grey;">Is</span></i> not
destruction to the wicked? and a strange <i><span style="color: grey;">punishment</span></i>
to the workers of iniquity? </span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:3</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Woe,<sup><span style="color: green;">G3759</span></sup> destruction<sup><span style="color: green;">G684</span></sup>
to the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> unjust,<sup><span style="color: green;">G94</span></sup> and<sup><span style="color: green;">G2532</span></sup>
alienation<sup><span style="color: green;">G526.1</span></sup> <u>to the<sup><span style="color: green;">G3588</span></sup> one committing<sup><span style="color: green;">G4160</span></sup> lawlessness</u>.<sup><span style="color: green;">G458</span></sup> </span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:4</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Doth not he see my ways, and count all my
steps? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:5</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot
hath hasted to deceit; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:6</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God
may know mine integrity. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:7</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If my step hath turned out of the way, and
mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:8</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i><span style="color: grey;">Then</span></i>
let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:9</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If mine heart have been deceived by a woman,
or <i><span style="color: grey;">if</span></i> I have laid wait at my neighbour's
door; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:10</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i><span style="color: grey;">Then</span></i>
let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:11</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For this <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
an heinous crime; yea, it <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i> an iniquity
<i><span style="color: grey;">to be punished by</span></i> the judges. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:12</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For it <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i>
a fire <i><span style="color: grey;">that</span></i> consumeth to destruction,
and would root out all mine increase. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:13</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I did despise the cause of my manservant
or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:14</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> What then shall I do when God riseth up? and
when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:15</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Did not he that made me in the womb make him?
and did not one fashion us in the womb? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:16</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have withheld the poor from <i><span style="color: grey;">their</span></i> desire, or have caused the eyes of the
widow to fail; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:17</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the
fatherless hath not eaten thereof; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:18</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> (For from my youth he was brought up with me,
as <i><span style="color: grey;">with</span></i> a father, and I have guided her
from my mother's womb;) </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:19</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have seen any perish for want of
clothing, or any poor without covering; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:20</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If his loins have not blessed me, and <i><span style="color: grey;">if</span></i> he were <i><span style="color: grey;">not</span></i>
warmed with the fleece of my sheep; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:21</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have lifted up my hand against the
fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:22</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i><span style="color: grey;">Then</span></i>
let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:23</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> For destruction <i><span style="color: grey;">from</span></i>
God <i><span style="color: grey;">was</span></i> a terror to me, and by reason of
his highness I could not endure. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:24</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have made gold my hope, or have said to
the fine gold, <i><span style="color: grey;">Thou art</span></i> my confidence; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:25</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I rejoiced because my wealth <i><span style="color: grey;">was</span></i> great, and because mine hand had gotten much;
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:26</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the
moon walking <i><span style="color: grey;">in</span></i> brightness; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:27</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or
my mouth hath kissed my hand: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:28</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> This also <i><span style="color: grey;">were</span></i>
an iniquity <i><span style="color: grey;">to be punished by</span></i> the judge:
for I should have denied the God <i><span style="color: grey;">that is</span></i>
above. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:29</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that
hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:30</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by
wishing a curse to his soul. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:31</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that
we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:32</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> The stranger did not lodge in the street: <i><span style="color: grey;">but</span></i> I opened my doors to the traveller. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:33</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by
hiding mine iniquity in my bosom: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:34</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Did I fear a great multitude, or did the
contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, <i><span style="color: grey;">and</span></i> went not out of the door? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:35</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire <i><span style="color: grey;">is, that</span></i> the Almighty would answer me, and <i><span style="color: grey;">that</span></i> mine adversary had written a book. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:36</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Surely I would take it upon my shoulder, <i><span style="color: grey;">and</span></i> bind it <i><span style="color: grey;">as</span></i>
a crown to me. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:37</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> I would declare unto him the number of my
steps; as a prince would I go near unto him. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: maroon; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:38</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If my land cry against me, or that the
furrows likewise thereof complain; </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:39</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> If I have eaten the fruits thereof without
money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life: </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: teal; font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Job 31:40</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and
cockle instead of barley. </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">The words of Job are ended. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> </span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-style: normal;">För övrigt så kan man se hur det går med det ekumeniska
" samrådet "!</span></b></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-style: normal;">Då tron ändras från en synod till
en annan, (kyrkomöte, koncilium)</span></b></i></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Halva församlingen blev katoliker</span></b></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 7.5pt;">Publicerad: 2012-04-15 14:09 |</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 7.5pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">Uppdaterad:
2012-04-16 10:30</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=305206</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">70
anglikaner från en församling i södra London gjorde gemensam sak med sin präst
när de strax före påsk konverterade till katolska kyrkan. Beslutet är ett
ställningstagande mot att anglikanska kyrkan har öppnat för vigning av
kvinnliga präster, skriver det katolska magasinet Signum.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">Prästen
Donald Minchew, 63, säger till The Daily Telegraph:</span></i></div>
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal;">-
I den anglikanska kyrkan vet man inte längre vad som gäller, tron ändras från
en synod till en annan. Det som var klart för 30 år sedan är det inte längre.</span></b></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">Minchew
talar dock med värme om det bemötande han fått av sina överordnade under
processen. De 70 medlemmarna som följde med honom utgör nästan hälften av
medlemmarna i den anglikanska församlingen i Croydon där Minchew arbetat.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal;">Förutsättningarna
för grupper av anglikaner att konvertera till katolska kyrkan och ändå i stort
sett behålla sin liturgi öppnades i november 2009 genom ett ingripande av påven
Benedict XVI.</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt;"> Inlagt av Leif Berg</span></div>
</div>GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-49365957358000478212011-09-05T11:05:00.000-07:002011-09-05T11:43:13.908-07:00THE MAN OF SIN REVEALED<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2bGiQlR0rka_QCHJ4sDLD-FyzquCOrGnaViC6cgRq_PSCs63Q67YDJSAY-u5LDXMu8JJq34imuQdAE4VNAHQybch5XBUCTYUbL1qaFhFnIrqKOwZxOWWzutoJfq6kjKr7TVu5hixepOa/s1600/Tower+of+Babylon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc2bGiQlR0rka_QCHJ4sDLD-FyzquCOrGnaViC6cgRq_PSCs63Q67YDJSAY-u5LDXMu8JJq34imuQdAE4VNAHQybch5XBUCTYUbL1qaFhFnIrqKOwZxOWWzutoJfq6kjKr7TVu5hixepOa/s400/Tower+of+Babylon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> THE MAN OF SIN REVEALED </b></span><br />
<br />
By Pastor D Badger (reprinted by kind permission)<br />
http://www.otteryreformed.freeola.net/man-sin.htm<br />
<br />
<b>MATTHEW HENRY, one of the most esteemed of Christian writers commenting on 2 Thessalonians 2 v4 writes: 'To whom can this better apply than to the Bishop of Rome'. On Revelation 17 he says, 'This Beast is the Papacy'.</b><br />
<br />
WILLIAM BURKITT writes on 2 Thessalonians 2, 'By the Man of Sin understand not a particular and individual person, but a society and succession of men. Such as is found in and among the Papacy'. On Revelation 17 he writes: 'The present Papal Church of Rome deserves this name, the great Whore having been guilty of the greatest defection and apostasy from the true evangelical doctrine and worship that ever was in the world'.<br />
<br />
JOHN TRAPP - Spurgeon said of him, 'He who shall excel Trapp had need rise very early in the morning'. Trapp applies the whole of 2 Thessalonians 2 to the Papacy and on Revelation 17 he comments thus: 'The Romish Whore condemned of God'.<br />
<br />
ADAM CLARKE - Among Methodist scholars few could surpass him. On 2 Thessalonians Clarke spends six pages on the evidence of scholars and in his summary says, 'The most pointed part of the evidence here adduced tends to fix the whole on the Romish Whore and on no other'. On Revelation 17 he writes: 'This Woman is the Latin Church she affects the style and title of our Holy Mother Church; but she is, in truth, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth'.<br />
<br />
BISHOPS ELLICOTT - On Revelation 17 he writes : 'Is it then, the question must be asked, Papal Rome? The answer is: In so far as Papal Rome has wielded tyrant power, turned persecutor, stood between the spirits of men and Christ, depraved men's consciences, withheld the truth, connived at viciousness, sought aggrandisement, and been a political engine rather than a witness for the Righteous King, she has inherited the features of Babylon'. Even Dante the Poet and Writer applies this passage to Rome.<br />
<br />
JOHN WESLEY - He applies these prophecies of Revelation to the Roman Church in considerable detail.<br />
<br />
DEAN HENRY ALFORD - On Revelation 17 says, 'I do not hesitate therefore to maintain that interpretation which regards Papal Rome as pointed out by the Harlot of this vision'.<br />
<br />
CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, CANON OF WESTMINSTER, BISHOP OF LINCOLN, DOCTOR OF DIVINITY - 'Nearly eighteen centuries have passed since the Holy Spirit prophesised by the mouth of John, that this mystery would be revealed in that city which was then the Queen of the earth, the city on seven hills, the city of Rome. Age after age rolled away. Then the form of the mystery became more and more distinct. The seven hills and the Woman sitting upon them became visible. Her voice was heard, strange sounds of blasphemy were muttered by her. Then they became louder and louder. The golden chalice in her hand, her scarlet attire, her pearls and jewels, glittering in the sun. Kings and nations were seen prostrate at her feet, and drinking her cup. Saints were slain by her sword. Now the prophecy became clear, clear as noonday; and we tremble at the sight, whilst we read the inscription in large letters, 'MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT' written by the hand of JOHN guided by the Spirit of God, on the forehead of the Church of Rome'.<br />
<br />
<b>DR H GRATTAN GUINNESS</b> - One of the greatest scholars of the historical school writes: 'Read this wonderful prophecy concerning Babylon the Great in the clear and all revealing light of history. I ask those of you who have read the history of the last eighteen centuries did not Rome Christian become a Harlot? Did it not glorify itself to be as a Queen, and call itself the mistress of the world? Did it not ride upon the body of the Beast, or fourth empire and govern its actions for centuries? Did not Papal Rome array itself in purple and scarlet, and deck itself with gold and precious stones and pearls? Is not this its attire still? We appeal to the facts. Go to the Churches and see. Look at the priests; look at the Cardinals; look at the Popes; look at the purple robes they wear; look at their scarlet; see the encrusted jewels; look at the luxurious palaces in which they live; look at the 11,000 halls and chambers in the Vatican; and the unbounded wealth and glory gathered there; look at the gorgeous spectacles in St Peters at Rome, casting even the magnificence of Royalty into the shade. Go and see these things or read the testimony of those who have seen them. Shamelessly Rome wears the very raiment, the very hues and colours, portrayed on the pages of inspired prophecy. <b>You may know the Harlot by her attire,as certainly as by the name upon her brow'.</b><br />
<br />
JOHN WYCLIF - He identified Romanism as the fulfilment of Daniel's 'Little Horn'. Wyclif then said, 'Why is it necessary in unbelief to look for another Antichrist'?<br />
<br />
MARTIN LUTHER - Luther said that the papacy is, 'Nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and of every Antichrist. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the Church; whilst he yet sits in the Church as if he were God'?<br />
<br />
PHILIP MELANCTHON wrote: 'It is most manifest and true without any doubt, that the Roman Pontiff, with his whole order and kingdom, is very Antichrist'.<br />
<br />
JOHN CALVIN says: 'Rome indeed was once the Mother of all Churches, but since she began to be the seat of Antichrist she ceased to be what she was'. He further says, 'The Roman Pontiff has inpudently transferred to himself the most peculiar properties of God and Christ, there cannot be doubt that he is the leader and standard bearer of an impious and abominable kingdom'.<br />
<br />
JOHN KNOX - He launched the Reformation in Scotland with an exposition of Daniel 7. Of Rome he said, 'For your Roman Church as it is now corrupted I no more doubt that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head thereof called the Pope, to be the man of sin, of whom the Apostle speaketh, than I doubt that Jesus Christ suffered by the procurement of the visible Church of Jerusalem'.<br />
<br />
<b>HUGH LATIMER said, 'Yes, what fellowship hath Christ with Antichrist therefore it is now lawful to bear the yoke with Papists'.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>NICHOLAS RIDLEY - 'The See of Rome is the Sea of Satan, and the Bishop of the same, that maintaineth the abominations thereof, is Antichrist himself indeed'.</b><br />
<br />
THOMAS CRANMER - 'Antichrist of Rome hath extolled himself above his fellow bishops, as God's Vicar, yea, rather as God himself'. As regards the exposition of Daniel 7 and Revelation he said, 'Whereof it followeth Rome to be the seat of Antichrist, and the Pope to be very Antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other Scriptures, old writers and strong reasons'.
Now these men were not simpletons but front rank scholars and spiritual leaders in their day. In these days when faith is held so lightly and error embraced so easily you would do well to give attentive ear to their one voice.<br />
<br />
THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, Chapter 25, Section 6 reads, 'There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, the man of sin, and the son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and all that is called God'.
In the light of today's ecumenical/charismatic climate it is surely significant to read of propositions that this passage be removed from the confessions of faith.<br />
<br />
DR WALTER CRISWELL, Pastor of the great first Baptist Church Dallas Texas expounded Revelation 17 in these words, 'The worship of Mother and Child throughout the whole world, from Babylon to Assyria, to Phoenicia, to Pergamos, and finally to Rome itself. There the Roman Emperor was elected Pontifex Maximus and when the Roman Emperor passed away, that title of the rites and mysteries of the cult Mother and Child, the Babylon Mystery of Idolatry was assumed by the Bishop of Rome'.<br />
<br />
<b>Why then all these quotes? To show you that the application of these prophetic passages to the Church of Rome is no new thing. It is the persistent interpretation of the Protestant Evangelical faith for nearly 1800 years.
</b><b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>To maintain this stand is to be unpopular with ecumenicals, charismatics and so called evangelical Christians many of whom believe that Rome is a Christian Church; nothing could be further from the truth.</b><br />
<br />
<b>To speak of the Papacy in terms of uncompromising condemnation is not an easy thing. However, it would be dishonouring to God if we failed to expound the Scriptures.
Silence is a shame on the believer. All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men remain silent.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>My own note:</b><br />
<b>--the name upon her brow. also means forehead, temple, church, etc </b><br />
<br />
<br />
Inlagt av Leif Berg
GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-4387023589595283782011-06-19T11:34:00.000-07:002011-11-20T04:28:15.621-08:00Havererad frikyrkomodell utan framtid<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI3HQrswJTZrTmShHVbaMglfPhgde5WMOQP3eUXxMlpG0f_aTRFO_bH2W2yS7WYnQiX-a6rRHK3pO561u7f54d2BYSwtmaZ6UIhJ6epPSsQUOvpyEbUQcZZrZ09mpzO4N6S-XvpACfJmZA/s1600/Part+1_html_m36b3f2d1+ecumenical+pope1.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620617345150992258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI3HQrswJTZrTmShHVbaMglfPhgde5WMOQP3eUXxMlpG0f_aTRFO_bH2W2yS7WYnQiX-a6rRHK3pO561u7f54d2BYSwtmaZ6UIhJ6epPSsQUOvpyEbUQcZZrZ09mpzO4N6S-XvpACfJmZA/s400/Part+1_html_m36b3f2d1+ecumenical+pope1.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 270px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdzTkMBydjkIc1fLhpxUKkNZLqfAurm5RhRn8dGmGtW2acLPrsZZQeWlY08agNy-R6XKXCMujBOXQRaa3xyFWeaW4evE3W84-wJuSGsdG8UaD01kES9ZVwTcgm2pENmwk_WcDDPQP6IG14/s1600/Part+1_html_m6efc4226+ecumenical+pope2.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620617058127098530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdzTkMBydjkIc1fLhpxUKkNZLqfAurm5RhRn8dGmGtW2acLPrsZZQeWlY08agNy-R6XKXCMujBOXQRaa3xyFWeaW4evE3W84-wJuSGsdG8UaD01kES9ZVwTcgm2pENmwk_WcDDPQP6IG14/s400/Part+1_html_m6efc4226+ecumenical+pope2.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 191px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTs-_DTp5k9KrFeQsSRbf_kHuYYjfyMGXs5LxnBwRsE-UxqomMwxwfI7zOkKDYcRDXNIDaB6q6OFRVd7hJhBAVibcjRpzJpkrr5Tbj2KtX1TIrUMGQEfEvFxnRJ5Xcy6cpsCSCVLhWOVqi/s1600/bibelstengunnarhedinrelik.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620616811025304674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTs-_DTp5k9KrFeQsSRbf_kHuYYjfyMGXs5LxnBwRsE-UxqomMwxwfI7zOkKDYcRDXNIDaB6q6OFRVd7hJhBAVibcjRpzJpkrr5Tbj2KtX1TIrUMGQEfEvFxnRJ5Xcy6cpsCSCVLhWOVqi/s400/bibelstengunnarhedinrelik.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 253px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 350px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> En havererad frikyrko samling.</span><br />
<br />
<b>Pingst ffs dialog med katoliker</b><br />
<br />
<b>Avfallet inom Pingst en förförelse.</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> Dialogen katoliker - pingst fortsätter.</b><br />
<b><br />Samtal mellan Pingströrelsen och Katolska kyrkan, Stockholms katolska stift har pågått sedan 2003. Efter en inledande fas då gruppens medlemmar lärt känna varandra och sina olika traditioner har frågor tagits upp som relationen mellan bibelsyn och tradition, synen på Jungfru Maria och helgonen, äktenskapet, eskatologi, enheten och ämbetet, den apostoliska successionen och den helige Ande. Den 25 nov träffades samtalsgruppen igen i katolska kyrkan i Järfälla.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Samtalsdelegationen består av:<br /><br />från Pingst: redaktör Olof Djurfeldt, pastor Peter Halldorf, pastor Sten-Gunnar Hedin, pastor Dan Salomonsson, pastor Ingrid Svanell, pastor Uno Solinger och pastor David Sundström; tidigare har Beryl Lindeman funnits med;<br /><br />från Stockholms katolska stift: Biskop Anders Arborelius ocd, överläkare Michael Alvarsson, p. Fredrik Emanuelson omi, universitetslektor Jonas Holmstrand, diakon Erik Kennet Pålsson och Sr. Veronica Tournier op. I inledningen fanns också biskop William Kenney cp och p. Henrik Roelvink ofm med.<br /><br />Efter tisdagens möte offentliggjordes ett gemensamt uttalande. Där kan man bl.a. läsa:<br /><br />"I sorgen över den splittring som alltför ofta råder mellan olika kristna vill vi vara öppna för den enhet och den gemenskap som bara Gud själv kan ge åt sitt folk. Det är en glädje att inse hur mycket vi tillsammans håller för sant och gemensamt kan stå för inför världen.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Läs mer på:</b><br />
http://katolsktfonster.se/forum/blogs/nyheter/archive/2008/11/28/dialogen-katoliker-pingst-forts-228-tter.aspx<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">En frikyrkoförsamling i veckan läggs ner</span><br />
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Undersökning visar att nedläggningstakten för frikyrkor ökar - - men antalet medlemmar minskar inte i samma takt<br />
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Publicerad: 2011-06-17 03:00 | Uppdaterad: 2011-06-17 11:12<br />
http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=265256<br />
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För varje vecka som passerar går också drygt en frikyrkoförsamling i graven. De senaste fem åren har takten för nedläggningar ökat. Det visar den rikstäckande undersökning som Öyvind Tholvsen, har sammanställt.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Havererad frikyrkomodell utan framtid</span><br />
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Artikel från Dagen, <br />
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Publicerad: 2011-06-14 03:00 | Uppdaterad: 2011-06-14 09:32<br />
http://www.dagen.se/dagen/article.aspx?id=264675<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:1 Och Jesus gick därifrån, ut ur helgedomen. Hans lärjungar trädde då fram och bådo honom giva akt på helgedomens byggnader. <br /><br />Mat 24:2 Då svarade han och sade till dem: "Ja, I sen nu allt detta; men sannerligen säger jag eder: Här skall icke lämnas sten på sten; allt skall bliva nedbrutet." <br /><br />Mat 24:3 När han sedan satt på Oljeberget, trädde hans lärjungar fram till honom, medan de voro allena, och sade: "Säg oss när detta skall ske, och vad som bliver tecknet till din tillkommelse och tidens ände."<br /> <br />Mat 24:4 Då svarade Jesus och sade till dem: "Sen till, att ingen förvillar eder. <br />Mat 24:5 Ty många skola komma under mitt namn och säga: 'Jag är Messias' och skola förvilla många. </span><br />
Mat 24:6 Och I skolen få höra krigslarm och rykten om krig; sen då till, att I icke förloren besinningen, ty sådant måste komma, men därmed är ännu icke änden inne. <br />
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Mat 24:7 Ja, folk skall resa sig upp mot folk och rike mot rike, och det skall bliva hungersnöd och jordbävningar på den ena orten efter den andra; <br />
Mat 24:8 men allt detta är allenast begynnelsen till 'födslovåndorna'.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:9 Då skall man prisgiva eder till misshandling, och man skall dräpa eder, och I skolen bliva hatade av alla folk, för mitt namns skull.<br /> <br />Mat 24:10 Och då skola många komma på fall, och den ene skall förråda den andre, och den ene skall hata den andre. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:11 Och många falska profeter skola uppstå och skola förvilla många. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat24:12 Och därigenom att laglösheten förökas, skall kärleken hos de flesta kallna. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:13 Men den som är ståndaktig intill änden, han skall bliva frälst.<br /> <br />Mat 24:14 Och detta evangelium om riket skall bliva predikat i hela världen, till ett vittnesbörd för alla folk. Och sedan skall änden komma.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:15 När I nu fån se 'förödelsens styggelse', om vilken är talat genom profeten Daniel, stå på helig plats - den som läser detta, han give akt därpå - </span><br />
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Mat 24:16 då må de som äro i Judeen fly bort till bergen, <br />
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Mat 24:17 och den som är på taket må icke stiga ned för att hämta vad som finnes i hans hus, <br />
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Mat 24:18 och den som är ute på marken må icke vända tillbaka för att hämta sin mantel. <br />
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Mat 24:19 Och ve dem som äro havande, eller som giva di på den tiden! <br />
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Mat 24:20 Men bedjen att eder flykt icke må ske om vintern eller på sabbaten. <br />
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Mat 24:21 Ty då skall det bliva 'en stor vedermöda, vars like icke har förekommit allt ifrån världens begynnelse intill nu', ej heller någonsin skall förekomma.<br />
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Mat 24:22 Och om den tiden icke bleve förkortad, så skulle intet kött bliva frälst; men för de utvaldas skull skall den tiden bliva förkortad. <br />
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Mat 24:23 Om någon då säger till eder: 'Se här är Messias', eller: 'Där är han', så tron det icke. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:24 Ty människor som falskeligen säga sig vara Messias skola uppstå, så ock falska profeter, och de skola göra stora tecken och under, för att, om möjligt förvilla jämväl de utvalda. </span><br />
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Mat 24:25 Jag har nu sagt eder det förut. <br />
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Mat 24:26 Därför, om man säger till eder: 'Se, han är i öknen', så gån icke ditut, eller: 'Se, han är inne i huset', så tron det icke. <br />
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Mat 24:27 Ty såsom ljungelden, när den går ut från öster, synes ända till väster, så skall Människosonens tillkommelse vara. - <br />
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Mat 24:28 Där åteln är, dit skola rovfåglarna församla sig. <br />
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Mat 24:29 Men strax efter den tidens vedermöda skall solen förmörkas och månen upphöra att giva sitt sken, och stjärnorna skola falla ifrån himmelen, och himmelens makter skola bäva. <br />
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Mat 24:30 Och då skall Människosonens tecken visa sig på himmelen, och alla släkter på jorden skola då jämra sig. Och man skall få se 'Människosonen komma på himmelens skyar' med stor makt och härlighet. <br />
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Mat 24:31 Och han skall sända ut sina änglar med starkt basunljud, och de skola församla hans utvalda från de fyra väderstrecken, från himmelens ena ända till den andra. <br />
Mat 24:32 Ifrån fikonträdet mån I här hämta en liknelse. När dess kvistar begynna att få save och löven spricka ut, då veten I att sommaren är nära. <br />
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Mat 24:33 Likaså, när I sen allt detta, då kunnen I ock veta att han är nära och står för dörren. <br />
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Mat 24:34 Sannerligen säger jag eder: Detta släkte skall icke förgås, förrän allt detta sker. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:35 Himmel och jord skola förgås, men mina ord skola aldrig förgås.</span><br />
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Mat 24:36 Men om den dagen och den stunden vet ingen något, icke ens änglarna i himmelen, ingen utom Fadern allena. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:37 Ty såsom det skedde på Noas tid, så skall det ske vid Människosonens tillkommelse. </span><br />
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Mat 24:38 Såsom människorna levde på den tiden, före floden: de åto och drucko, män togo sig hustrur, och hustrur gåvos åt män, ända till den dag då Noa gick in i arken; <br />
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Mat 24:39 och de visste av intet, förrän floden kom och tog dem allasammans bort - så skall det ske vid Människosonens tillkommelse. <br />
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Mat 24:40 Då skola två män vara tillsammans ute på marken; en skall bliva upptagen, och en skall lämnas kvar. <br />
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Mat 24:41 Två kvinnor skola mala på samma kvarn; en skall bliva upptagen, och en skall lämnas kvar. <br />
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Mat 24:42 Vaken fördenskull; ty I veten icke vilken dag vår Herre kommer. <br />
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Mat 24:43 Men det förstån I väl, att om husbonden visste under vilken nattväkt tjuven skulle komma, så vakade han och tillstadde icke att någon bröt sig in i hans hus. <br />
Mat 24:44 Varen därför ock I redo; ty i en stund då I icke vänten det skall Människosonen komma. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:45 Finnes nu någon trogen och förståndig tjänare, som av sin herre har blivit satt över hans husfolk för att giva dem mat i rätt tid - <br /><br />Mat 24:46 salig är då den tjänaren, om hans herre, när han kommer, finner honom göra så. <br /><br />Mat 24:47 Sannerligen säger jag eder: Han skall sätta honom över allt vad han äger.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mat 24:48 Men om så är, att tjänaren är en ond man, som säger i sitt hjärta: 'Min herre kommer icke så snart', <br /><br />Mat 24:49 och han begynner slå sina medtjänare och äter och dricker med dem som äro druckna, <br /><br />Mat 24:50 då skall den tjänarens herre komma på en dag då han icke väntar det, och i en stund då han icke tänker sig det, <br /><br />Mat 24:51 och han skall låta hugga honom i stycken och låta honom få sin del med skrymtare. Där skall vara gråt och tandagnisslan." </span><br />
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Mat 24:12 Och eftersom laglösheten tilltar, kommer kärleken att svalna hos de flesta. <br />
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Mat 24:13 Men den som håller ut intill slutet skall bli frälst. <br />
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Mat 24:14 Och detta evangelium om riket skall predikas i hela världen till ett vittnesbörd för alla folk, och sedan skall slutet komma. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">KJV<br />Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.<br /><br />ABP<br />Mat 24:12 And on account of the multiplying the lawlessness, [shall be made cold the love of many]. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">the love of many</span><br />
G4183<br />
polus polos<br />
Including the forms from the alternate “pollos”; (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) many; neuter (singular) as adverb largely; neuter (plural) as adverb or noun often, mostly, largely: - abundant, + altogether, common, + far (passed, spent), (+ be of a) great (age, deal, -ly, while), long, many, much, oft (-en [-times]), plenteous, sore, straitly.<br />
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Compare <br />
G4118, G4119.<br />
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spent - exhausted, tired, used up, useless, depleted, worn-out, washed-out, spend, waste, fritter, squander, splurge, consume, finish, exhaust, run through, throw away, dispose of, get rid of, throw out, discard, dump, leave, abandon, tip, get rid of, abandon, desert, dispose of, leave, chuck, finish with, unattractive place, hole, gap, crack, break, outlet, fissure, perforation, aperture, hollow, cavity, void, chasm, gulf, abyss, flaw, fault, error, defect, fallacy, weakness, den, lair, retreat, burrow, run, fleapit, dump, hovel, cell, pit, mansion, house, quarters, dwelling, abode, domicile, home, residence, farmhouse, terrace, council house, boarding house, back-to-back, pied-à-terre, studio, apartment, loft, family, dynasty, line, stock, household, company, organization, lodge, give shelter to, take in, board, put up, accommodate, have room for, contain, hold, seat, be big enough for, get used to, adapt, become accustomed to, familiarize, acclimatize, be of service, find ways to help, assist, help, oblige, manor, hall, pigsty, dump, throw out, jettison, scrap, ditch, reject, waste, squander, blow, drain, exhaust,<br />
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altogether common, far passed, spent, general, universal, broad, common, broad-spectrum, widespread, collective, total, entire, complete, unanimous, ordinary, widespread, frequent, shared, mutual, joint, public, for all, communal, collective,<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">lost</span> (adj.) <br />
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"defeated" (c.1300), "wasted, spent in vain," c.1500; also "no longer to be found" (1520s), from the pp. of lose (q.v.). Lost Cause in ref. to the Southern U.S. bid for independence is from the title of E.A. Pollard's history of the CSA and the rebellion (1866). Lost Generation in ref. to the period 1914-18 first attested 1926 in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," where he credits it to Gertrude Stein.<br />
defeated - beaten, overcome, overpowered, overwhelmed, conquered, crushed, routed, whitewashed, trounced, vanquished, beaten, bested, worsted, defeated, outdone, subjugated, defeat,<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">lose </span><br />
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O.E. losian "be lost, perish," from los "destruction, loss," from P.Gmc. *lausa (cf. O.N. los "the breaking up of an army"), from PIE base *leu- "to loosen, divide, cut apart, untie, separate" (cf. Skt. lunati "cuts, cuts off," lavitram "sickle;" Gk. lyein "to loosen, untie, slacken," lysus "a loosening;" L. luere "to loose, release, atone for"). <br />
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Replaced related leosan (a class II strong verb whose pp. loren survives in forlorn and love-lorn), from P.Gmc. *leusanan (cf. O.H.G. virliosan, Ger. verlieren, O.Fris. urliasa, Goth. fraliusan "to lose"). Transitive sense of "to part with accidentally" is from c.1200. Meaning "to be defeated" (in a game, etc.) is from 1530s. To lose (one's) mind "become insane" is attested from c.1500. To lose out "fail" is 1858, Amer.Eng.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">forlorn </span><br />
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abandoned, discarded, forsaken, derelict, vacant, dumped, neglected, cast off, used, old, worn, recycled, second hand, hand-me-down, abandon, forsaken, deserted, desolate, lost, lonely, desperate, hopeless, despondent, dejected, sad, pitiful, unhappy,<br />
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mid-12c., forloren "disgraced, depraved," pp. of obsolete forlesan "be deprived of, lose, abandon," from O.E. forleosan "to lose, abandon, let go; destroy, ruin," from for- "completely" + leosan "to lose" (see lose). In the Mercian hymns, L. perditionis is glossed by O.E. forlorenisse. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">disgraced</span> - shamed, mortified, offended, affronted, horrified, sickened, revolted, horrify, petrified, terrified, very frightened, afraid, fearful, frightened, timid, nervous, atrocious, abysmal, mortify, crush, confound, shame, abase, put down, embarrass, degrade, take down, shown up, embarrassed, humiliated, discomfited, dishonored,<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">depraved - immoral, corrupt, evil, wicked, degenerate, decadent, dissolute, wanton,</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">fördärvad - omoraliskt, korrupta, onda, elaka, degenererad, dekadent, utsvävande, lättsinnig, osedlig, tvetydig, oanständig, lättfärdig, lösaktig, slipprig, frivol, slampig, lättfotad, slarvig, ansvarslös, obetänksam, vidlyftig, svepande, äventyrlig,</span><br />
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Sense of "forsaken, abandoned" is 1530s; that of "wretched, miserable" first recorded 1580s. A common Germanic compound (cf. O.S. farilosan, O.Fris. urliasa, M.Du. verliesen, Du. verliezen, O.H.G. virliosan, Ger. verlieren, Goth. fraliusan "to lose"). <br />
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Commonly in forlorn hope (1570s), which is a partial translation of Du. verloren hoop, in which hoop means "troop, band," lit. "heap," and the sense of the whole phrase is of a suicide mission. The phrase is usually used incorrectly in English, and the misuse has colored the sense of forlorn. Related: Forlornly; forlornness.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">forlorn </span><br />
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mid-12c., forloren <span style="font-weight: bold;">"disgraced, depraved,"</span> pp. of obsolete forlesan <span style="font-weight: bold;">"be deprived of, lose, abandon," </span>from O.E. forleosan <span style="font-weight: bold;">"to lose, abandon, let go; destroy, ruin,"</span> from for- <span style="font-weight: bold;">"completely" + leosan "to lose" </span>(<span style="font-weight: bold;">see lose</span>). In the Mercian hymns, L. perditionis is glossed by O.E. forlorenisse. Sense of <span style="font-weight: bold;">"forsaken, abandoned"</span> is 1530s; that of <span style="font-weight: bold;">"wretched, miserable" </span>first recorded 1580s. <br />
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A common Germanic compound (cf. O.S. farilosan, O.Fris. urliasa, M.Du. verliesen, Du. verliezen, O.H.G. virliosan, Ger. verlieren, Goth. fraliusan "to lose"). <br />
Commonly in forlorn hope (1570s), which is a partial translation of Du. verloren hoop, in which hoop means <span style="font-weight: bold;">"troop, band," lit. "heap," </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">and the sense of the whole phrase is of a suicide mission.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">suicide mission</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Suicide, recklessness, perversity, rashness, irresponsibility, madness,</span><br />
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The phrase is usually used incorrectly in English, and the misuse has colored the sense of forlorn. Related: Forlornly; forlornness.<br />
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G4118<br />
pleistos<br />
Irregular superlative of G4183; the largest number or very large: - very great, most.<br />
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G4119<br />
pleiōn pleion pleon<br />
Comparative of G4183; more in quantity, number, or quality; also (in plural) the major portion: - X above, + exceed, more excellent, further, (very) great (-er), long (-er), (very) many, greater (more) part, + yet but.<br />
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Nedläggningarna visar på en degeneration av den första kärleken, - kärleken ska kallna -. Det man velat kallat tillväxt inom frikyrkosamfunden har enbart bestått av sammanslagningar, fusioner, mixer, ofta av ekonomiska skäl (förevändningar), sammansmältningar av trötta samlingar som urartat och förlorat den reformatoriska (återskapande, trosförnyande) glöden. Nu centrerar man på den ekumenisk propagandan, - den falska enhetsrörelsen - på vägen mot Rom. Nu har man bildat en surdegs-religion. Siffror kan tala sitt språk, men vad säger det egentligen, -resultatet har blivit en mass-anhopning av ett annat slags evangelium.<br />
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Isa 44:8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any. <br />
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Isa 44:9 They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">ABP+<br /><br />Behold, all the ones partaking with him shall be ashamed </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">ABP+<br />Isa 44:10 the ones shaping a god, and all the ones carving unprofitable things.</span> <br />
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Isa 44:11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.<br />
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Isa 44:12 The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:13 The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. </span><br />
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Isa 44:14 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:15 Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. </span><br />
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Isa 44:16 He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:17 And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:18 They have not known nor understood: <br />for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. </span><br />
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Isa 44:19 And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?<br />
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Isa 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? <br />
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Isa 44:24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; <br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Isa 44:25 That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; </span><br />
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Leif Berg<br />
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utdrag från http://www.kts.just.nu/<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">VÄRLDSKYRKAN OCH EKUMENIKEN</span><br />
av Thoralf Gilbrant<br />
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Dr Hedegård understryker vidare de evangeliska missionssällskapen befinner sig i en svår situation i denna ekumeniska tidsålder. Allt kommer att göras för att få alla missioner att förena sig med Kyrkornas Världsråds kommission för världsmission och evangelisation. Missionssällskap och grupper som inte kan godtaga detta ekumeniska missionsprogram med sin religionsblandning och kristendomsförfalskning, måste räkna med att ställas inför ständigt ökade svårigheter ute på missionsfälten, speciellt när det gäller inresetillstånd för missionärer och när det gäller att börja arbete på nya fält.<br />
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Vi har här bara ett nytt exempel på det gamla ordet om att <span style="font-weight: bold;">”makt korrumperar”. </span>Tyvärr måste man räkna med att den ekumeniska missionsstrategin utgör den största faran för evangelisk mission i dag. Modernistiska kyrkor som själva bara haft obetydligt framgång i sitt missionsarbete, tränger sig i dag in på andra missionsfält och infiltrerar missionsarbetet. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Man söker att genom Kyrkornas Världsråd skaffa sig inflytande över de unga kyrkorna som vuxit upp genom missionärernas insats. Särskilt söker man påverka utbildningen av predikanter genom att ge dem erbjudande om att studera vid modernistiska skolor. Då världsekumeniken i dag har väldiga ekonomiska resurser, är det mycket svårt för missionärerna och de unga kyrkorna att motstå denna press.</span><br />
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Inte bara ute på missionsfälten utan också inom den etablerade kristenheten, märks denna ekumeniska press mer och mer. Kyrkornas Världsråd är redan <span style="font-weight: bold;">en maktfaktor </span>som man i hög grad måste räkna med. <span style="font-weight: bold;">En centralkommitté </span>på omkring hundra medlemmar styr organisationen, och dess sekretariater i Geneve <span style="font-weight: bold;">har utsträckt myndighet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Kyrkornas Världsråd har faktiskt genom sina underavdelningar redan upprättat en form av verksamhetskontroll på vissa områden.</span> Ett exempel på detta ger Dr James DeForest Murch i sin bok om den kommande världskyrkan. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Han berättar att det i Kalifornien finns en kyrklig kommitté tillsatt, vilken tilldelar de olika kyrkosamfunden anslutna till KV bestämda områden, där de utesluter alla andra.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Innan en ny församling kan bildas måste tillstånd hämtas från detta kyrkoråd. Myndigheter som arbetar på stadsplanering kontaktas av kommittén som påverkas att hindra kyrkor som är utanför rådet så att de får avslag på sina ansökningar om att bygga kyrkor som är utanför nämnda område. Som vi ser leder denna monopoltendens till direkt angrepp på själva religionsfriheten.</span><br />
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Thoralf Gilbrant<br />
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Utdrag från Table Talk, by Martin Luther<br />
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For this cause they were yearly to observe and keep the feasts of Easter, of whitsuntide, ( pentecost) and of the Tabernacles, to the end they might always be mindful of God’s goodnesses towards them; as is written in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Exodus xiii</span>.: “Thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt.<span style="font-weight: bold;">” But the children of Israel, after their wonderful deliverance, gave no great thanks to God for so many and great benefits; for, not long after they erected the golden calf, and danced about it. As also at the waters of strife they murmured against God, angered him, and drew his punishments upon them.</span><br />
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We should also place before our eyes this admonition of the 78th Psalm, and should thoroughly consider the example of the children of Israel, who so soon forgot their deliverance out of Egypt.<br />
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For we may also well rejoice, that now, in our days, we have restored to us again God’s Word gloriously bright and clear; so that we should show this inestimable treasure to our children’s children, and how we are delivered and freed from the kingdom of antichrist, the pope of Rome, and from the traditions of men, which was a right Egyptian captivity, yea, a Babylonian imprisonment; in which our forefathers were worse tormented and plagued than the children of Israel were in Egypt. <br />
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Exo 13:1 Och HERREN talade till Mose och sade: <br />
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Exo 13:2 "Helga åt mig allt förstfött, allt hos Israels barn, som öppnar moderlivet, evad det är människor eller boskap; mig tillhör det. <br />
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Exo 13:3 Och Mose sade till folket: "Kommen ihåg denna dag, på vilken I haven dragit ut ur Egypten, ur träldomshuset; ty med stark hand har HERREN fört eder ut därifrån. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fördenskull må intet syrat ätas. </span><br />
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Exo 13:4 På denna dag i månaden Abib dragen I nu ut. <br />
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Exo 13:5 Och när HERREN låter dig komma in i kananéernas, hetiternas, amoréernas, hivéernas och jebuséernas land, som han med ed har lovat dina fäder att giva dig, ett land som flyter av mjölk och honung, då skall du hålla denna gudstjänst i denna månad: <br />
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Exo 13:6 I sju dagar skall du äta osyrat bröd, och på sjunde dagen skall hållas en HERRENS högtid. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Exo 13:7 Under de sju dagarna skall man äta osyrat bröd; intet syrat skall man se hos dig, ej heller skall man se någon surdeg hos dig, i hela ditt land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Exo 13:8 Och du skall på den dagen berätta för din son och säga: 'Sådant gör jag av tacksamhet för vad HERREN gjorde med mig, när jag drog ut ur Egypten.'<br /> <br />Exo 13:9 Och det skall vara för dig såsom ett tecken på din hand och såsom ett påminnelsemärke på din panna, för att HERRENS lag må vara i din mun; ty med stark hand har HERREN fört dig ut ur Egypten. <br /><br />Exo 13:10 Och denna stadga skall du hålla på bestämd tid, år efter år. </span><br />
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Exo 13:11 Och när HERREN låter dig komma in i kananéernas land, såsom han med ed har lovat dig och dina fäder, och giver det åt dig, <br />
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Exo 13:12 då skall du överlämna åt HERREN allt det som öppnar moderlivet. Allt som öppnar moderlivet av det som födes bland din boskap skall, om det är hankön, höra HERREN till. <br />
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Exo 13:13 Men allt bland åsnor som öppnar moderlivet skall du lösa med ett får, och om du icke vill lösa det, skall du krossa nacken på det. Och allt förstfött av människa bland dina söner skall du lösa. <br />
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Exo 13:14 Och när din son i framtiden frågar dig: 'Vad betyder detta?', skall du svara honom så: 'Med stark hand har HERREN fört oss ut ur Egypten, ur träldomshuset;<br />
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Exo 13:15 ty då Farao i sin hårdnackenhet icke ville släppa oss, dräpte HERREN allt förstfött i Egyptens land, det förstfödda såväl ibland människor som ibland boskap. Därför offrar jag åt HERREN allt som öppnar moderlivet och är hankön, och allt förstfött bland mina söner löser jag.'<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Exo 13:16 Och det skall vara såsom ett tecken på din hand och såsom ett märke på din panna; ty med stark hand har HERREN fört oss ut ur Egypten." </span><br />
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Exo 13:17 När Farao nu hade släppt folket, förde Gud dem icke på den väg som gick igenom filistéernas land, fastän denna var den genaste; ty Gud tänkte att folket, när det fick se krig hota, kunde ångra sig och vända tillbaka till Egypten; <br />
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Exo 13:18 därför lät Gud folket taga en omväg genom öknen åt Röda havet till. Och Israels barn drogo väpnade upp ur Egyptens land. <br />
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Exo 13:19 Och Mose tog med sig Josefs ben; ty denne hade tagit en ed av Israels barn och sagt: "När Gud ser till eder, fören då mina ben härifrån med eder."<br />
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Exo 13:20 Så bröto de upp från Suckot och lägrade sig i Etam, där öknen begynte. <br />
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Exo 13:21 Och HERREN gick framför dem, om dagen i en molnstod, för att leda dem på vägen, och om natten i en eldstod, för att lysa dem; så kunde de tåga både dag och natt. <br />
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Exo 13:22 Molnstoden upphörde icke om dagen att gå framför folket, ej heller eldstoden om natten. <br />
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Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-50639052342949224302011-05-07T15:06:00.000-07:002011-05-08T07:14:42.949-07:00Mysticism och New Age på smygvägar i kristenheten.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdoSCjDG6d-4nieDUCusLzSU47-enWZtpoS5U39HvpGNmCfJcj5zg3rMcCXIeEt1v4dmpMVWErzsdJEX_EJsH69N_RbUtRqpy-shNgnmWSd2or3tlv4uSwB5BcTtVr52S7zK0SC2DcwZhM/s1600/lucifer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdoSCjDG6d-4nieDUCusLzSU47-enWZtpoS5U39HvpGNmCfJcj5zg3rMcCXIeEt1v4dmpMVWErzsdJEX_EJsH69N_RbUtRqpy-shNgnmWSd2or3tlv4uSwB5BcTtVr52S7zK0SC2DcwZhM/s400/lucifer.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604096620852583266" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Väckande budskap till ljumma kristna!</span><br /><br />Gå till länk. Evy Junesved.<br /><br />http://bambuser.com/v/1605769<br /><br />Mer från Evy Junesved. <br /><br />http://www.bibelfokus.se/mystik<br /><br />Stig Andreasson: femtekollonare i Svensk kristenhet.<br /><br />Femtekolonnare inom svensk kristenhet<br /><br />Vi är glada över att här få publicera en tänkvärd artikel av Stig Andreasson. Stig arbetade i mer än femtio år i det katolska Frankrike som evangelisk missionär. Där fick han nåden att leda många katoliker till befrielse från sakramentsträldom till ett liv efter det enkla och sanna evengeliet. Idag ser han hur de som tidigare ivrade för sådan mission nu sviker sitt uppdrag. Stig säger i sin artikel:<br /><br /> ”I min ungdom mötte jag flera brinnande pingstvittnen som reste till katolska länder med evangelium. Idag verkar det som om pingstledare snarare reser till Rom i sällskap med katolska prelater för att ”studera” hur katolska kyrkan fungerar. Andra samfund visar lika liten glöd för mission i katolska länder. Femtekolonnarna har verkligen orsakat ett jordskred inom svensk kristenhet.”<br /><br />Läs och begrunda Stigs angelägna budskap till oss.<br /><br />(artikeln infördes först i Midnattsropet, nr 2, 2011) <br /><br />Den andliga striden<br /><br />Vår olyckliga värld har alltid varit och är alltjämt en krigsskådeplats där ljus och mörker, sanning och villfarelse kämpar om makten. Den kristna tron och den kristna församlingen har under alla tider utsatts för fientliga angrepp. Ibland genom regelrätt förföljelse från den gudlösa världen, men lika ofta genom den omgivande hedniska kulturen, som utövat en sådan press på församlingen att den inte kunnat stå emot och därför blivit påverkad. Men fiendens allra farligaste vapen i striden mot den kristna församlingens tro och liv sker genom infiltration av falska förkunnare och främmande läror bland Guds folk. När så dessa läror och åsikter får aktiva anhängare bland de ledande i församlingen, då blir resultatet en korrumperad kristendom.<br /><br />Det är denna fara som Paulus varnade för då han tog avsked av de äldste i Efesus - församlingen:<br /><br /> Apg: 20:29-30: ”Jag vet att när jag har lämnat er, skall rovlystna vargar komma in bland er, och de skall inte skona hjorden. Ja, ur er egen krets skall män träda fram och förvränga sanningen.”<br /><br />Vid andra till fällen talar han om ”falska bröder, som nästlat sig in” bland de kristna för att föra dem till lagträldom. Ja, han omtalar också ”falska apostlar, som uppträder som Kristi apostlar.” Samtidigt understryker han att ingenting av detta egentligen borde överraska oss. Satan själv förskapar ju sig till en ljusets ängel. Han uppträder vanligen inte alls som en skräckinjagande figur med horn i pannan och eldgaffel i handen.<br /><br />Försåtliga angrepp inifrån<br /><br />Idag verkar det som om de mest försåtliga angreppen på den kristna tron faktiskt kommer inifrån den officiella och bekännande kristenheten själv. Det ser ut att finnas ”en femte kolonn” innanför de evangeliska och reformatoriska kyrkosamfunden. Uttrycket ”femte kolonn” eller ”femte kolonnare” är kanske inte bekant för alla läsare. Det har sitt ursprung i spanska inbördeskriget som rasade mellan 1936 och 1939. General Franco marscherade då mot Madrid med fyra kolonner av soldater. Men inne i Madrid fanns en ”femte kolonn”, som på olika sätt skulle sabotera den lagliga regeringens verksamhet och på så sätt medverka till General Francos seger, vilket tyvärr också skedde. Sedan dess har uttrycket ”femte kolonn” blivit en beteckning på dem som inifrån försöker sabotera en regerings eller rörelses grundprinciper. Finns det då ”femtekolonnare” i kristenheten? Ja, utan tvekan. Här följer några exempel.<br /><br />Den liberala teologin och dess vapendragare<br /><br />På de flesta av vår tids teologiska fakulteter har man antagit den historisk-kritiska bibeltolkningen Den utgör normen för utbildningen av präster och pastorer, som sedan för samma budskap vidare. Vad handlar det hela egentligen om? Jo, man anser att Bibeln måste tolkas efter den moderna vetenskapens principer för att passa vår tids människor. Och vilka är då naturvetenskapens principer? Helt enkelt att allt som sker i denna världen måste ha sin orsak i denna världen. Det finns inga utomvärldsliga, övernaturliga makter som kan gripa in i vår tillvaro. Ett mirakel kan inte ske. Därmed måste man förneka och omtolka både jungfrufödelsen och Jesu uppståndelse samt alla andra tecken och under som är omtalade i Bibeln. Därmed bryts de sanna evangeliska tron ned inom många kyrkosamfund och det sker inifrån. Det liknar verkligen en femte kolonnverksamhet. Så kommer vi till en annan företeelse.<br /><br />Den breda ekumenikens talesmän<br /><br />Kommuniteten i Taizé är vida känd och berömd i vår tid. Den bildades ursprungligen av två pastorer från den reformerta kyrkan. Men båda hade så starka sympatier för den katolska kyrkan att en av dem en gång fick frågan: ”Varför går du inte över till den katolska kyrkan?” Svaret var nog så avslöjande: ”Går jag nu, går jag ensam. Väntar jag en tid får jag många med mig.” Därmed var syftet med Taizé ganska klart, vilket gjorde att evangeliska ledare nere på kontinenten omtalade Taizé som en femte kolonn, vars mål var att påverka protestanter till att bli katoliker. Senare gick båda grundarna av Taizé över till den katolska kyrkan, men det gjorde de i hemlighet. Taizés nuvarande ledare är en tysk katolik. Den kände schweiziske teologen René Pache omtalade på sin tid Taizé under rubriken ”Katoliserande tendenser inom protestantismen.”<br /><br />Förbundet för kristen enhet bildades i Sverige år 1965. Målet var helt från början att på sikt skapa en synlig enhet mellan Svenska Kyrkan och den Romersk-katolska kyrkan. På deras hemsida kan man få fram en utläggning som heter ”Katolsk tro i Svenska Kyrkan”. Den överensstämmer nästan ordagrant med en katolsk katekes. Den svenska kyrkan vilar officiellt på luthersk och reformatorisk grund. Om den skall förbli på den grunden kan den inte öppna för katolsk tro. Vad skall man då säga om personer som tillhör en sådan reformatorisk kyrka och som därmed skriver under på dess trosbekännelse, men som samtidigt arbetar för att få den att ändra trosbekännelse och bli katolsk? Vore det inte ärligare att gå ut av den lutherska kyrkan och över till katolicismen och sen därifrån påverka lutheranerna? Men nej, man tror tydligen mer på ”den femte kolonnens princip”, att bryta ned den reformatoriska kyrkan inifrån.<br /><br />Enhetens kyrka är ett ännu färskare exempel. Den har byggts upp av lutherska och anglikanska teologer och kyrkomän samt representanter från andra protestantiska samfund som är beredda att ställa sig bakom en deklaration med innehållet:<br /><br /> ”Rätten och motiven till separat existens för de samfund som skildes från den romerska kyrkan vid 1500-talets reformation finns inte längre.”<br /><br />Har man hört på maken! Att somliga ekumener inte kan finna något motiv eller någon orsak till att stå utanför den katolska kyrkan, är ju inte något nytt. Men att förvägra evangeliska kristna rätten till separat existens i förhållande till Påvekyrkan låter rent av hotfullt! Dessa kyrkoledare talar som om de inte kände till religionsfrihetens princip. Påven är givetvis enig i dessa uttalanden, men i detta fall är det inte han själv som talar, <span style="font-weight:bold;">utan ledare för de reformatoriska kyrkorna och därmed går de påvens ärende. De är verkligen vår tids religiösa ”femtekolonnare”.<br /></span><br />Men fortsättningen av deklarationen från Enhetens Kyrka är ännu mer chockerande. Läs och tänk efter! <br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;"> ”Vi uppfattar påven Benedikt XVI som talesman för den klassiska kristna tron och etiken i mötet med såväl den sekulariserade kulturen i Väst som med de andra världsreligionerna i Öst i långt större utsträckning än de som har makten i de kyrkosamfund vi tillhör. Och här förgrenar sig nätverket långt utöver de kretsar som betecknas som högkyrkliga eller katoliserande. Påtagligt är att den världsomspännande med böneveckan för enheten jämnåriga pingstväckelsen, som på 60-70-talen trängde in som karismatisk förnyelse i de traditionella kyrkorna och samfunden, också sluter upp och nu kommer med i denna samling genom framträdande representanter, så som samlingen i uppropet för Enhetens Kyrka just manifesterar.”</span><br /><br />Detta uttalande borde göra varje medlem av något reformatoriskt, evangeliskt och frikyrkligt trossamfund totalt mållös. Bland de som aktivt stöder denna Enhetens kyrka finner vi naturligtvis katoliker, men som ovanstående deklaration säger, även framträdande representanter från en rad samfund, som hittills har ansetts som klart frikyrkliga, evangeliska och bibelförankrade med rötter i gångna tiders väckelserörelser. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Deras namn kan vem som helst läsa på det offentliga dokument som Enhetens Kyrka publicerat. Här kan vi bara nämna att de kommer från Pingstväckelsen, Trosrörelsen, Lutherska kyrkan, Evangeliska Frikyrkan, Missionsförbundet m.fl.</span><br /><br />Menar verkligen dessa representanter att Påven är den bäste talesmannen för klassisk kristen tro? Vad menar man förresten med det uttrycket? Hör exempelvis tron på Maria som Himlens Drottning och Kyrkans Mor till klassisk kristen tro? <span style="font-weight:bold;">Och menar dessa representanter att deras egna samfund varken har rättighet eller något giltigt motiv till att stå utanför den katolska kyrkan? I så fall jobbar de aktivt på de fria väckelserörelsernas undergång och det jobbet utför de medan de själva ännu står med i dessa rörelser. Vad skall man kalla en sådan verksamhet? Är det inte en typisk femtekolonn-aktivitet?<br /></span><br /> Keryx är en relativt ny kristen tidskrift som vill vara på hög akademisk nivå. Tillsammans med vissa alster från kristna bokförlag och en del evangeliska tidningar återspeglar denna tidskrift den besynnerliga situation vi nu befinner oss i. Keryx står emellertid i särklass. Den ges ut av Livets Ord i Uppsala. Jag skall vara rättvis och medge att vissa artiklar i denna tidskrift är goda och läsvärda, beroende på vilket ämne som behandlas. Men Keryx vimlar framför allt av negativa påståenden om de fria väckelserörelsernas folk. De är offer för otroliga fördomar. <span style="font-weight:bold;">De kännetecknas av en otrolig okunskap. De begriper ingenting av den levande traditionens viktiga funktion.</span> De saknar förståelse för värdet av en hierarkisk organisation. De är totalt okunniga om kyrkofäderna m.m. Eftersom utgivarna av Keryx av allt att döma betraktar sin egen rörelse som framsprungen ur en väckelse skulle dessa skriverier kunna uppfattas som sträng självkritik och därmed som tecken på ovanlig ödmjukhet. Problemet är att i bakgrunden skymtar hela tiden bilden av en kyrka som har en rätt förståelse av sakramenten, av ett hierarkiskt ämbete, av Jungfru Marias verkliga betydelse och som har tagit vara på den levande traditionen. Detta verkar nästan som en sorts propaganda för en sakramental ämbetskyrka, som för tankarna till Rom. Om författarna till artiklarna i Keryx menar att de skriver något nytt, tar de gruvligt fel. Personligen kan jag intyga att jag har läst samma argument många gånger förr. Men då var det katolska teologer som höll i pennan. Det kunde säkert varit behövligt att ge några konkreta exempel på detta. Men det får bli vid ett senare tillfälle.<br /><br />Innehållet i Keryx är gåtfullt. Tidskriften ges ut av en församling som trots allt anses höra hemma i den evangeliska kristenheten. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Varför då denna svartmålning av väckelserörelserna, inklusive pietismen och denna skönmålning av den sakramentala och hierarkiska ämbetskyrkan, som just i Påvekyrkan får sin starkaste utformning? </span>Från evangelisk-kristen synpunkt kan sådant bara ha en negativ effekt. Därför ser vi också här en form av femtekolonn-verksamhet.<br /><br />Den nakna sanningen<br /><br />Journalisten Tomas Dixon – som själv tidigare var katolik – känner mycket väl den katolska kyrkans lära och historia. Han är inte lika hänförd över vurmen för enhet med Påven som vissa frikyrkoledare tycks vara. Han skriver bl. a. följande:<br /><br /> ”Så enhetlig som många just nu inbillar sig är inte katolska kyrkan. De andliga och teologiska skillnaderna inom den är knappast mindre än mellan protestantismens olika samfund. Det finns katoliker längs hela skalan från kyrkligt konservativa (som vill återinföra latinet) till totala modernister och liberalteologer av alla slag.” <br /><br />Med anledning av att somliga också betraktar påveämbetet som enhetens symbol skriver han:<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;"> ”Hur skulle det mänskliga ämbete, som under historien initierat folkmord, inkvisition och antisemitism – och som dessutom förklarat sig ofelbart så att det i princip inte kan be om och få förlåtelse – hur skulle det ämbetet kunna symbolisera och förverkliga den enhet, som Jesus talar och ber om i Johannes 17?”</span><br /><br />Hela saken har också en annan sida. Tomas Dixon påminner oss om något som femtekolonnarna totalt överser:<br /><br /> ”Det finns många katoliker som inte tror på Gud alls. Det finns också katoliker som bekänner sig till Gud och katolska Kyrkan med sina läppar men som inte bryr sig om varken Guds moral eller påvens bud.“<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Han nämner också de många s.k. ”Marianisterna” som praktiserar en ytterliggående Mariadyrkan. Till detta kan vi tillägga att massor av människor i de katolska länderna aldrig har öppnat en Bibel! Vilken andlig nöd och vilket missionsbehov! Men vem tänker på det idag?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I min ungdom mötte jag flera brinnande pingstvittnen som reste till katolska länder med evangelium. Idag verkar det som om pingstledare snarare reser till Rom i sällskap med katolska prelater för att ”studera” hur katolska kyrkan fungerar. Andra samfund visar lika liten glöd för mission i katolska länder. Femtekolonnarna har verkligen orsakat ett jordskred inom svensk kristenhet. Kontrasten mellan de ledare som stod i spetsen för väckelserörelsernas folk för 50 år sedan och deras nutida efterföljare är så stor att de verkar ha lite eller ingenting gemensamt. Kyrkopolitiken tycks tyvärr ha ersatt själavinnarglöden…</span><br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;">/Stig Andreasson</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">”Snart är smekmånaden slut”</span><br /><br />David Wilkerson: Ur boken SYNEN - Den kommande världskyrkan. <br /> <br />Här följer stycket ur Synen från 1972:<br /><br />En av de mest erkända profeterna i vår tid såg vad som nu håller på att ske och redan 1972 i boken SYNEN skriver Wilkerson på sid 66 -68<br /><br />En världsomspännande superkyrka bildas genom en union mellan liberala ekumeniska protestanter och den Romersk Katolska Kyrkan. De gör även gemensam sak politiskt, På detta sätt blir denna kyrka en av de mäktigaste religiösa faktorerna i världen.<br />Denna Superkyrka kommer att bli andlig bara till namnet, man använder fritt Jesu Kristi namn, Men är själva verket antikristlig och politisk i sin verksamhet. Denna mäktiga kyrkounion kommer att engagera sig djupt i socialt arbete, Väldiga välgörenhetsprogram och filantropisk verksamhet. Dess ledare gör storordiga uttalanden om vikten att fylla alla mänskans behov och man kallar folk till ett förnyat intresse för sociala problem, politisk intervention och vidgat inflytande i världsfinanserna.<br /><br />Just när det ser ut som om den ekumeniska rörelsen skulle dö får vi se en underlig kedja av händelser som åstadkommer ramen för denna ekumeniska union. Rom kommer att insistera på vissa eftergifter från de protestantiska ledarna och får sin vilja igenom.<br /><br />Denna union kommer att betrakta Påven mer som en politisk ledare än som en andlig sådan. Även de protestantiska ledarna utövar påtryckningar på Rom som i sin tur gör eftergifter.<br /><br />Man begär inte att dessa skall betrakta den helige fadern som kyrkans ofelbara huvud, utan protestanterna kommer istället att acceptera hans politiska ledarskap, men ej hans roll som Petri efterträdare. Jag menar inte att Påven eller någon annan kyrklig ledare i denna Superkyrka gör sig skyldig till antikristliga handlingar. Bibeln har mycket att säga oss i det ämnet men nu är inte tid att spekulera i det. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Jag ser nämligen något annat som skrämmer mig. Jag ser en Arme´ av karriärmänskor inta de mest inflytelserika posterna i denna Superkyrka.</span><br /><br />Många av dessa kommer att vara ogudaktiga, antikristliga och besatta av tanken att denna Superkyrka måste bli en Politisk maktfaktor som är stark nog att utöva påtryckningar mot de som opponerar sig mot den. Medan de som innehar de högsta posterna talar om underverk kärlek och försoning så kommer mutkolvarna under dem att plåga förfölja de religiösa organisationer som motsätter sig deras ledarskap.<br />I början går man försiktigt tillväga då man bildar denna kyrka. Det börjar med gemensamma studie och forskningsprogram. Sedan följer gemensamma företag utan förpliktelser från något håll. Men liberala protestantiska ledare från England och USA förenar sig med liberala Katolska teologer från Europa i ett försök att pressa fram ett Ekumeniskt mirakel. Den legala politiska sammanslagningen befinner sig fortfarande rätt långt borta. Men det informella samarbetet för unionen är redan igångsatt.<br /><br />slut citat<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>På smygvägar ska de införa fördärvliga partimeningar.</strong><br /><br />krokvägar, slingervägar, omvägar, avvikelser, knep, lister, trick, påhitt, konstgrepp, finter, hyss, krigslister, list, trick, påhitt, konstgrepp, fint, fuffens, hyss, krigslist, värkte, gjorde ont, lade beslag på, grep, fick tag i, skaffade sig, vann, fick,<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1Co_11:29 Ty den som äter och dricker, utan att göra åtskillnad mellan Herrens lekamen och annan spis, han äter och dricker en dom över sig.</span><br /> <br />2Pe_2:1 Men också falska profeter uppstodo bland folket, likasom jämväl bland eder falska lärare skola komma att finnas, vilka på smygvägar skola införa fördärvliga partimeningar och draga över sig själva plötsligt fördärv, i det att de till och med förneka den Herre som har köpt dem. <br />2Pe 2:2 De skola få många efterföljare i sin lösaktighet, och för deras skull skall sanningens väg bliva smädad. <br />2Pe 2:3 I sin girighet skola de ock med bedrägliga ord bereda sig vinning av eder. Men sedan länge är deras dom i annalkande, den dröjer icke, och deras fördärv sover icke. <br />2Pe 2:4 Ty Gud skonade ju icke de änglar som syndade, utan störtade dem ned i avgrunden och överlämnade dem åt mörkrets hålor, för att där förvaras till domen. <br />2Pe 2:5 Ej heller skonade han den forntida världen, om han ock, när han lät floden komma över de ogudaktigas värld, bevarade Noa såsom rättfärdighetens förkunnare, jämte sju andra. <br />2Pe 2:6 Och städerna Sodom och Gomorra lade han i aska och dömde dem till att omstörtas; han gjorde dem så till ett varnande exempel för kommande tiders ogudaktiga människor. <br />2Pe 2:7 Men han frälste den rättfärdige Lot, som svårt pinades av de gudlösa människornas lösaktiga vandel. <br />2Pe 2:8 Ty genom de ogärningar som han, den rättfärdige mannen, måste se och höra, där han bodde ibland dem, plågades han dag efter dag i sin rättfärdiga själ. <br />2Pe 2:9 Så förstår Herren att frälsa de gudfruktiga ur prövningen, men ock att under straff förvara de orättfärdiga till domens dag. <br />2Pe 2:10 Och detta gör han först och främst med dem som i oren begärelse stå efter köttslig lust och förakta andevärldens herrar. I sitt trots och sin självgodhet bäva dessa människor icke för att smäda andevärldens härlige, <br />2Pe 2:11 under det att änglar som stå ännu högre i starkhet och makt icke om dem uttala någon smädande dom inför Herren. <br />2Pe 2:12 Men på samma sätt som oskäliga djur förgås, varelser som av naturen äro födda till att fångas och förgås, på samma sätt skola ock dessa förgås, eftersom de smäda vad de icke känna till; <br />2Pe 2:13 och de skola så bliva bedragna på den lön som de vilja vinna genom orättfärdighet. De hava sin lust i kräsligt leverne mitt på ljusa dagen. De äro skamfläckar och styggelser, där de vid gästabuden, som de få hålla med eder, frossa i sina njutningar. <br />2Pe 2:14 Deras ögon äro fulla av otuktigt begär och kunna icke få nog av synd. De locka till sig obefästa själar. De hava hjärtan övade i girighet. Förbannade äro de. <br />2Pe 2:15 De hava övergivit den raka vägen och kommit vilse genom att efterfölja Balaam, Beors son, på hans väg. Denne åtrådde ju att vinna lön genom orättfärdighet; <br />2Pe 2:16 men han blev tillrättavisad för sin överträdelse: en stum arbetsåsninna begynte tala med människoröst och hindrade profeten i hans galenskap. <br />2Pe 2:17 Dessa människor äro källor utan vatten, skyar som drivas av stormvinden, och det svarta mörkret är förvarat åt dem. <br />2Pe 2:18 Ty de tala stora ord som äro idel fåfänglighet; och då de nu själva leva i köttsliga begärelser, locka de genom sin lösaktighet till sig människor som med knapp nöd rädda sig undan sådana som vandra i villfarelse. <br />2Pe 2:19 De lova dem frihet, fastän de själva äro förgängelsens trälar; ty den som har låtit sig övervinnas av någon, han har blivit dennes träl. <br />2Pe 2:20 Och då de genom kunskapen om Herren och Frälsaren, Jesus Kristus, hava undkommit världens besmittelser, men sedan åter låta sig insnärjas och övervinnas av dem, så har det sista för dem blivit värre än det första. <br />2Pe 2:21 Ty det hade varit bättre för dem att icke hava lärt känna rättfärdighetens väg, än att nu, sedan de hava lärt känna den, vända tillbaka, bort ifrån det heliga bud som har blivit dem meddelat. <br />2Pe 2:22 Det har gått med dem såsom det riktigt heter i ordspråket: "En hund vänder åter till sina spyor", och: "Ett tvaget svin vältrar sig åter i smutsen."GospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-56987104275262677322011-01-21T02:01:00.000-08:002011-01-21T02:14:57.487-08:00Teologisk grund för GF-kyrkan en Herrelös samling!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgO2Th3zYcsDwnOf8P3w14ysTVQxudpWAQR1CV8vW2DnhIDYjYhKqHcNKlKMfDieE9RGylxnOsR5hLLGyjsWRDPQ_6XmdNDO2V2ghNPrFI7vRTnVDi3A1OIxOl1kHAgSg4JTbhcXyUx4oL/s1600/images.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgO2Th3zYcsDwnOf8P3w14ysTVQxudpWAQR1CV8vW2DnhIDYjYhKqHcNKlKMfDieE9RGylxnOsR5hLLGyjsWRDPQ_6XmdNDO2V2ghNPrFI7vRTnVDi3A1OIxOl1kHAgSg4JTbhcXyUx4oL/s400/images.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564579080239297842" /></a><br /><br />I Kommentarer till Teologisk grund för GF-kyrkan framgår tydligt hur det ekumeniska samarbetet ska utvecklas, en konstitution som i sin tur är tydligt influerad av det ekumeniska dokumentet.<br /><br />Läs här:http://gemensamframtid.se/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Gemensam_Framtid_teologisk_grund_110103.pdf<br /><br /><br />Det är genom <span style="font-weight:bold;">kyrkornas Världsråd</span> man upprättar handlingar, akter av utlåtanden som ska vara styrande medel i dessa samkväm av världs-kyrkor.<br /><br />Här frångår man de Bibliska grunderna och sammanblandar bibliska uttryck med konstruktioner, planer, påhitt, fantasiprodukter, ordfogningar, satsbyggnader, fraser, och diplomatisk taktik av ekumeniska råds församlingar, <span style="font-weight:bold;">allt för att främja den ekumeniska världs-kyrkan. <br /></span><br />Här ser man hur gjort sig ett program (handlingsscheman handlingsplaner, plattformar, manifest) som ska syfta till att övertaga kyrkornas egendomar och tillgångar!<br /><br />Det visar tydligt hur man skapar ett Biskops-välde eller ”ordinerade” (reglerade, dikterade, anbefallde, beordrade) präster nyttjas med benhård styrning till att fogas under det ekumeniska programmet, <span style="font-weight:bold;">- den som ej låter sig fogas blir ”avsatt”!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Förändringar i dopsyn och Herrens nattvard blir förvandlat till mystikläran (magi) inom katolsk vidskepelse-tro, ockultism!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Fler samfund går samman!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Att pingst-ffs och Efk går samma väg till mötes bekräftas av deras underskrift av det ekumeniska dokumentet, Charta Oecumenica.</span><br /><br />Tiden visar att vi behöver på allvar stå på vakt emot dessa avfalls-tendenser och värna om det ursprungliga evangeliet, så att vi inte förlorar eller mister vår krona! <br /><br />Tyvärr vill de flesta gå en ” förgylld medelväg” eller anpassa sig till den breda (allmänna, generella, allomfattande, universella) vägen vilken för till fördärv förödelse, undergång, ofärd, fall, moralisk upplösning, gudlöshet,förskämning, depravation, profanation, vantro, materialism, dekadans, bli ogiltig, upphör att gälla, förfall, urartningar, vanhävder, sönderfall, misskötsel, vanvård, vanhävd!!<br /><br />Fly från ekumeniken!<br /><br />Nu som aldrig förr är tid att vakna upp ur sömnen och göra sig redo för vår Herres återkomst, <span style="font-weight:bold;">den Herre vilken Gf påstår att Ordet Herre har inte längre den funktion det en gång hade.??<br /></span><br /><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-19456508938003208432010-12-19T22:16:00.000-08:002010-12-20T00:53:19.345-08:00Ulf Ekman Maria dyrkare!<span style="font-weight:bold;">Ulf Ekman exposed!</span><br /><br />This is the mixed up charismatics, visiting the Vatican and the pagan religion, worshiping the Maria cult, and consulting the pope!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">For we must not forget that, according to the explicit teaching of Scripture, paganism is really demonism. <br /><br />”The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God” (i Cor. x. 20), says the apostle.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">THE ADVENT OF ANTICHRIST.</span><br /><br />OUT OF the apostasy comes the Antichrist To look for him without the Church in latter-clay Judaism, or against the Church in latter-day infidelity, is equally to miss the clear marks of identification which have been set for our warning in "the sure word of prophecy."<br /><br />Exhorting the Thessalonian Christians "by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him," the Apostle admonishes them not to be deceived : " For it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God "<br /><br />(2 Thess. ii. 3, R. v.). <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Here is the great Pauline prediction of Antichrist;</span> and how rigidly does its language bind us to the conception of a dreadful enemy of God, springing up within the Christian Church! <span style="font-weight:bold;">"Except the apostasy come first"</span> the words read exactly. <br /><br /><br />A.J. Gordon</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lögnpredikanters skrymteri!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; <br /><br />1Ti 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;<br /> <br />G5573<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">pseudologos</span><br /><br />From G5571 and G3004; mendacious, that is, promulgating erroneous Christian doctrine: - speaking lies.<br /><br />G5571<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">pseudēs</span><br /><br />From G5574; untrue, that is, erroneous, deceitful, wicked: - false, liar.<br /><br />G5574<br />pseudomai<br /><br />Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood: - falsely, lie.<br /><br />G3004<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">lego</span><br /><br />A primary verb; properly to “lay” forth, that is, (figuratively) relate (in words [usually of systematic or set discourse; whereas G2036 and G5346 generally refer to an individual expression or speech respectively; while G4483 is properly to break silence merely, <span style="font-weight:bold;">and G2980 means an extended or random harangue]); by implication to mean: - ask, bid, boast, call, describe, give out, name, put forth, say (-ing, on), shew, speak, tell, utter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">in hypocrisy</span><br />G5272<br />hupokrisis<br /><br />From G5271; <span style="font-weight:bold;">acting under a feigned part; that is, (figuratively) deceit (“hypocrisy”): - condemnation, dissimulation, hypocrisy.</span><br /><br />G5271<br />hupokrinomai<br /><br />Middle voice from G5259 and G2919; <span style="font-weight:bold;">to decide (speak or act) under a false part, that is, (figuratively) dissemble (pretend): - feign.</span><br /><br />having their<br /><br />G2398<br />idios<br /><br />Of uncertain affinity; pertaining to self, that is, one's own; by implication private or separate: - X his acquaintance, when they were alone, apart, aside, due, <span style="font-weight:bold;">his (own, proper, several), home, (her, our, thine, your) own (business), private (-ly), proper, severally, their (own).</span><br /><br />conscience<br /><br />G4893<br />suneidēsis<br /><br />From a prolonged form of G4894; <span style="font-weight:bold;">co-perception, that is, moral consciousness: - conscience.</span><br /><br />G4894<br />suneidō<br /><br />From G4862 and G1492; <span style="font-weight:bold;">to see completely; used (like its primary) only in two past tenses, respectively meaning to understand or become aware, and to be conscious or (clandestinely) informed of: - consider, know, be privy, be ware of.</span><br /><br />VWS<br /><br />1Ti 4:2 <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Speaking lies in hypocrisy </span><br /><br />Wrong. Rend., through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies. Ὑποκρίσις hypocrisy once in Paul, Gal_2:13, see note. See also on Mat_23:13. The phrase ἐν ὑποκρίσει only here. Ψευδολόγος speaking lies, N.T.o. olxx. Rare in Class.<br /><br />Having their conscience seared with a hot iron <br /><br />Better, branded in their own conscience. With a hot iron is superfluous. The verb N.T.o. olxx, oClass. The metaphor is from the practice of branding slaves or criminals, the latter on the brow. These deceivers are not acting under delusion, but deliberately, and against their conscience. <span style="font-weight:bold;">They wear the form of godliness, and contradict their profession by their crooked conduct (2Ti_3:5). The brand is not on their brow, but on their conscience. Comp. Tit_1:15; Tit_3:11.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Deliberately - by design</span>, knowingly, with intent, consciously, calculatingly, on purpose, intentionally, purposely, slowly, methodically, ponderously, warily, circumspectly, cagily, guardedly, suspiciously, shadily, shiftily, deviously, deceitfully, sneakily, cunningly, artfully, subtly, cleverly,<br /><br />2Ti 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. </span><br /><br />G93<br />adikia<br /><br />From G94; (legal) injustice (properly the quality, by implication the act); moral wrongfulness (of charater, life or act): - iniquity, unjust, unrighteousness, wrong.<br /><br />G94<br />adikos<br /><br />From G1 (as a negative particle) and G1349; <span style="font-weight:bold;">unjust; by extension wicked; by implication treacherous; specifically heathen: - unjust, unrighteous.<br /></span><br /><br />G1<br />A<br />Of Hebrew origin; the first letter of the alphabet: figuratively only (from its use as a numeral) the first. Often used (usually “an”, before a vowel) also in composition (as a contraction from G427) in the sense of privation; so in many words beginning with this letter; occasionally in the sense of union (as a contraction of G260): - Alpha.<br /><br />G1349<br />Probably from G1166; right (as self evident), that is, justice (the principle, a decision, or its execution): - judgment, punish, vengeance.<br /><br />G1166<br />A prolonged form of an obsolete primary of the same meaning; to show (literally or figuratively): - shew.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1Ti 4:1 Men Anden säger uttryckligen, att i kommande tider somliga skola avfalla från tron och hålla sig till villoandar och till onda andars läror.<br /> <br />1Ti 4:2 Så skall ske genom lögnpredikanters skrymteri, människors som i sina egna samveten äro brännmärkta såsom brottslingar, </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2Ti 2:19 Dock, Guds fasta grundval förbliver beståndande och har ett insegel med dessa ord: "Herren känner de sina", och: "Var och en som åkallar Herrens namn, han vände sig bort ifrån orättfärdighet." <br /></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Check the you tube video, Ulf Ekman exposed! Here besides!</span><br /><br />Or go to:<span style="font-weight:bold;">https://missionoc.wordpress.com/</span><br /><br />Ulf Ekmans intresse och involvering i den katolska mystikläran parat med hans agitationer för den ekumeniska världs kyrkan, går hand i hand!<br /><br />En märklig brygd av karismatisk förvirring och ekumenisk villfarelse! <br /> <br />Här nedan kan du läsa mer om Ulf Ekmans intresse före den "vakande" maria ikonen!<br /><br />Leif<br /><br />Jungfru Maria, alias Lady of all Nations vakar sedan en tid tillbaka över Sten och Maj Nilssons gamla villa i Storvreta som numera tillhör Ulf och Birgitta Ekman, grundare för den före detta evangelikala församlingen Livets Ord, Uppsala.<br /><br />Gå till: http://aletheia.se/2010/11/01/ulf-birgitta-ekmans-nya-beskydd-jungfru-maria/#comment-179193<br /><br /> <br /><br />Från en ung katolik:<br /><br /><br />”Vi står nära Livets ord och en del pingstförsamlingar i mycket, eller rättare sagt har de kommit allt närmare oss. Detta är en källa till glädje. Men det innebär inte att de plötsligt som samfund betraktade skulle börja anses som fullvärdiga medlemmar i Kyrkan. Livets ord har en bra ledare. Tänk vad han skulle kunna åstadkomma i Kyrkans fulla gemenskap…””Där tror jag Ekman skulle kunna vara till mycket stor nytta inom Kyrkan. Hans gamla församling får hemskt gärna fortsätta på den väg Ekman börjat leda dem in på. De kommer komma till Kyrkan, förr eller senare. Gärna förr – ju fler eldsjälar desto bättre.”<br /><br />Med Kyrkan menas den katolska kyrkan, men det var kanske onödigt att nämna till er som läser detta… Det finnes bara en kyrka enligt katolikerna, och det är den katolska. De andra är heretiska kyrkor, sekter osv som bör omvändas , för att om möjligt inlämmas i den katolska kyrkan. Det är detta den katolska enheten går ut på, och den inkluderar all världens religioner.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />Gå till: http://my.opera.com/Andy%20Glandy/blog/i-till-en-stad-jag-ar-pa-vandring-i<br /><br /> <br /><br />Roman Catholic Charismatics<br /><br />My Testimony of Working with Charismatic Catholics<br /><br />By Bill Scudder Dayton, Ohio, USA.<br /><br />Mary becomes the focus and Universalism<br /><br />http://www.ovrlnd.com/Charismatics/Catholic_Charismatics.html<br /><br />Hednisk mystik-religion karismatisk/ekumenisk villfarelse, förvirring!<br /><br />http://www.tidenstecken.se/kk0.htm<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br />The Reformation View of Roman Catholicism<br /><br /><br />From the works of Martin Luther (1483-1546) <br /><br /><br />What is the whole papacy but a beautiful false front and a deceptively glittering holiness under which the wretched devil lies in hiding? The devil always desires to imitate God in this way. He cannot bear to observe God speaking. If he cannot prevent it or hinder God’s Word by force, he opposes it with a semblance of piety, takes the very words God had spoken and so twist them as to peddle his lies and poison under their name. (What Luther Says, II: 10007)<br /><br />Since the papal church not only neglects the command of Christ but even compels the people to ignore it and to act against it, it is certain that it is not Christ’s church but the synagogue of Satan which prescribes sin and prohibits righteousness. It clearly and indisputably follows that it must be the abomination of Antichrist and the furious harlot of the devil. (What Luther Says, II: 1019)<br /><br />The negotiation about doctrinal agreement displeases me altogether, for this is utterly impossible unless the pope has his papacy abolished. Therefore avoid and flee those who seek the middle of the road. Think of me after I am dead and such middle-of-the-road men arise, for nothing good will come of it. There can be no compromise. (What Luther Says, II: 1019)<br /><br />Let him who does not want to be lost and go to the devil be on his guard with all diligence and earnestness against the papacy and its doctrine, and let him never again accept even the most insignificant and smallest part of the papacy’s teaching, no matter what it may cost him. Let him flee from the papacy and its following as from the devil incarnate himself, and let him by no means be silenced by the sweet, slippery words of hypocrites or be persuaded that yielding and conceding something for the sake of peace is a matter of little consequence and that the bond of love should not be disrupted for the sake of something trifling (as they represent and rationalize this to be). Come now, there is assuredly no joking in this matter; eternal salvation and eternal damnation are involved. (What Luther Says, II:1019-1020)<br /><br />Can anything more horrible be said than that the kingdom of the papists is the kingdom of those who spit at Christ, the Son of God, and crucify Him anew? For they do crucify Christ…in themselves, in the church…and in the hearts of the faithful…Therefore let everyone who is honestly given to piety flee out of this Babylon as quickly as possible…. For so great are its impurity and its abomination that no one can express them in words; they can be discerned only by eyes that are spiritual. (What Luther Says, II: 1020)<br /><br />My dear pope, I will kiss your feet and acknowledge you as supreme bishop if you will worship my Christ and grant that through His death and resurrection, not through keeping your traditions, we have forgiveness of sins and life eternal. If you will yield on this point, I shall not take away your crown and power; if not, I shall constantly cry out that you are the Antichrist, and I shall testify that your whole cult and religion are only a denial of God, but also the height of blasphemy against God and idolatry. (What Luther Says, II: 1069)<br /><br />Ah, my dear brother in Christ, bear with me if here or elsewhere I use such coarse language when speaking of the wretched, confronted, atrocious monster at Rome! He who knows my thoughts must say that I am much, much, much too lenient and have neither words nor thought adequately to describe the shameful, abominable blasphemy to which he subjects the Word and name of Christ, our dear Lord and Savior. There are some Christians, wicked Christians indeed, who now would gloss things over to make the pope appear against in a good light and who, after he does so and has been dragged out of the mud, would like to reinstate him on the altar. But they are wicked people, whoever they may be, who defend the pope and want me to be quiet about the means whereby he has done harm. Truly, I cannot do this. All true, pious Christians, who love Christ and His Word, should, as said, be sincerely hostile to the pope. They should persecute him and injure him…. All should do this in their several calling, to the best of their ability, with all faithfulness and diligence. (What Luther Says, II: 1072)<br /><br />What kind of a church is the pope’s church? It is an uncertain, vacillating and tottering church. Indeed, it is a deceitful, lying church, doubting and unbelieving, without God’s Word. For the pope with his wrong keys teaches his church to doubt and to be uncertain. If it is a vacillating church, then it is not the church of faith, for the latter is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt.16:18). If it is not the church of faith, then it is not the Christian church, but it must be an unchristian, anti-Christian, and faithless church which destroys and ruins the real, holy, Christian church. (Luther’s Works, vol. 40, Church and Ministry II, The Keys, p.348)<br /><br />All this is to be noted carefully, so that we can treat with contempt the filthy, foolish twaddle that the popes present in their decrees about their Roman church, that is, about their devil’s synagogue (Rev.2:9), which separates itself from common Christendom and the spiritual edifice built up on this stone, and instead invents for itself a fleshly worldly, worthless, lying, blasphemous, idolatrous authority over all of Christendom. One of these two things must be true: if the Roman church is not built on this rock along with the other churches, then it is the devil’s church; but if it is built, along with all the other churches, on this rock, then it cannot be lord or head over the other churches. For Christ the cornerstone knows nothing of two unequal churches, but only of one church alone, just as the Children’s Faith, that is, the faith of all of Christendom, says, ”I believe in one holy, Christian church,” and does not say, ”I believe in one holy Roman church.” The Roman church is and should be one portion or member of the holy Christian church, not the head, which befits solely Christ the cornerstone. If not, it is not a Christian but an UN-Christian and anti-Christian church, that is, a papal school of scoundrels. (Luther’s Works, Volume 41, Church and Ministry III, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil, p.311)<br /><br />These arrogant and unlearned papists can’t govern the church because they write nothing, they read nothing, but, firmly saddled in the pride of possession, they cry out that the decrees of the fathers are not to be questioned and decisions made are not to be disputed, otherwise one would have to dance to the tune of every little brother.<br />For this reason the pope, possessed by demons, defends his tyranny with the canon ”Si papa.” This canon states clearly: if the pope should lead the whole world into the control of hell, he is nevertheless not to be contradicted. It’s a terrible thing that on account of the authority of this man we must lose our souls, which Christ redeemed with his precious blood. Christ says, ”I will not cast out anybody who comes to me” (John 6:37). On the other hand, the pope says, ”As I will it, so I command it; you must perish rather than resist me.” Therefore the pope, whom our princes adore, is full of devils. He must be exterminated by the Word and by prayer.(Luther’s Works, vol.54, Table Talk, No.441, p.330)<br /><br />I believe the pope is the masked and incarnate devil because he is the Antichrist. As Christ is God incarnate, so the Antichrist is the devil incarnate. The words are really spoken of the pope when it’s said that he’s a mixed god, an earthly god, that is, a god of the earth. Here god is understood as god of this world. Why does he call himself an earthly god, as if the one, almighty God weren’t also on the earth? The kingdom of the pope really signifies the terrible wrath of God, namely, the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. (Luther’s Works, vol.54, Table Talks, No.4487, p.346)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Gå till:https://missionoc.wordpress.com/</span><br /><br /><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-62587606264492142272010-11-30T23:05:00.000-08:002010-12-03T04:55:26.411-08:00Hear you Pharisee who says "God, I thank thee, I am not as other men are." !<span style="font-weight:bold;">Hear you Pharisee who says "God, I thank thee, I am not as other men are."<br /><br />The self righteous Pharisee praising himself before God.<br /><br />These pretended righteous men</span><br /><br />Luk 18:11 <span style="font-weight:bold;">The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself</span>, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men [are], extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.<br /><br />Mat 16:6 Then Jesus said unto them, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.</span><br /><br />Mat 16:11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake [it] not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Mat 16:12 Then understood they how that he bade [them] not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.<br /></span><br />Mar 8:15 <span style="font-weight:bold;">And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of</span> the leaven of the Pharisees, and [of] the leaven of Herod.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Luk 12:1</span> In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, <span style="font-weight:bold;">insomuch that they trode one upon another,</span> <span style="font-weight:bold;">he began to say</span> unto his disciples <span style="font-weight:bold;">first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">They love to have the preeminence<br /></span><br />Dominance, supremacy, primacy, superiority, domination, incomparability, ascendancy,<br /><br />Old Testament (Hebrew) for "preeminence" <br /><br />H4195 mowthar mō•thar' profit, plenteousness, preeminence <br /><br />New Testament (Greek) for "preeminence" <br /><br />G4409 prōteuō prō-tyü'-ō have the preeminence <br /><br />G5383 philoprōteuō fē-lo-prō-tyü'-ō love to have the preeminence<br /><br />Ecc 3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all [is] vanity. <br /><br />Kol 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: <br /><br />Kol 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: <br /><br />Kol 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: <br /><br />Kol 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: <br /><br />Kol 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all [things] he might have the preeminence.<br /><br />Kol 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; <br /></span><br />Kol 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. <br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3Jo 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Zec 11:17 Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword [shall be] upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened .</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1Cr 5:6 Your glorying [is] not good.</span> Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? <br /><br />1Cr 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: <br /><br />1Cr 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth. <br /><br />Gal 5:9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Here some quotes from John Bunyan:<br /></span><br /><br /> “Why Pharisee, God hath appointed, that by the righteousness of his Son, and by that righteousness only, men shall be justified in his sight from the curse of the law. Wherefore, take heed, and at thy peril, whatever thy righteousness is, confront not the righteousness of Christ therewith. <br /><br />I say, bring it not in, let it not plead for thee at the bar of God, nor do thou plead for that in his court of justice; for thou canst not do that and be innocent. If he trusts to his righteousness, he hath sinned, says Ezekiel. Mark the text, "When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered: but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it." (Chron 33:13)”<br /><br />“What shall I say, It also seeketh to rob God of the honour of the salvation of man. It seeketh to take the crown from the head of Christ, and to set it upon the hypocrite's head; therefore, no marvel, that this one sin be of that weight, virtue and power, as to sink that man and his righteousness into hell, that leaneth thereon, or that trusteth unto it.”<br /><br />"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10) Be confounded then, be confounded.”<br />“Nay Pharisee, suppose thine own righteousness should be as long, as broad, as high, as deep, as perfect, as good, even every way as good, as the righteousness of Christ. Yet since God has chosen by Christ, to reconcile us to himself, canst thou attempt to seek by thine own righteousness to reconcile thyself to God, and not be guilty of attempting, at least, to confront this righteousness of Christ before God. Yea, to dare with it, yea, to challenge by it, acceptance of thy person contrary to God's design.”<br /><br />“Second, This carriage of the Pharisee before God informs us, that moral virtues, and the ground of them, which is the law, if trusted to, blinds the mind of man, that he cannot for them perceive the way to happiness. While Moses is read, and his law, and the righteousness thereof trusted to, the vail is upon their heart. "For until this day, [said Paul] remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament, which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart." (2 Cor 3:14, 15) And this is the reason that so many moral men, that are adorned with civil and moral righteousness, are yet so ignorant of themselves, and the way of life by Christ.”<br /><br />From<br />A Discourse Upon T H E Pharisee A N D - T H E Publican<br /><br />Wherein is also shewed, the equally deplorable condition of the Pharisee, or hypocritical and self-righteous man; and of the Publican, or sinner that lives in sin, and in open violation of the Divine laws. Together with the way and method of God's F R E E - G R A C E in pardoning penitent sinners; proving that He justifies them by imputing Christ's righteousness to them.<br /><br />By J O H N.B U N Y A N, Author of "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Got to this link for the full text of John Bunyan: http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/Sermons.Allegories/Discourse.Pharisee.Publican/4.html<br /></span><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-19729295933085351982010-11-24T23:59:00.000-08:002010-11-25T00:15:38.897-08:00Of the causes of the ruin of Antichrist. By John Bunyan.<span style="font-weight:bold;">As there are many intruders of the church of God making themselves manufacturers of an antichristian worldly religion, even called the synagogues of Satan, we have to know what the Bible is saying about the Antichrist and his ruin.<br /><br />Here by John Bunyan you will find many good books for education. Helping you to understand the time as it is evil, and this generation going astray into many errors, sinning, without repentance and destitute of a holy living, making corbans instead of a way of righteous life. <br /></span><br />A quoting<br /><br />“First, Either she rejoiceth in outward and carnal glory, or else in the ruin of the church of God. This last, to wit, the supposed ruin of the church of God, is that which will be now the cause of her glorying. And this is the joy that God complaineth of, and for the which he said that he would punish Babylon: 'Chaldea shall be a spoil: All that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord. Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage,' &c. (Jer 50:10, 11). The joy therefore of Babylon, Antichrist; the joy that she shall conceive in her heart upon the slaughter of the witnesses, is a sure sign of her unavoidable ruin and destruction.”<br /><br />“And there are five things that are usually made use of to keep up wicked joy.<br /> <br />1. There is the merriment of music (Luke 15:25, 32). <br /><br />2. The merriment of feasting (Judg 19:6, 9). <br /><br />3. The merriment of laughter (Eccl 10:19). <br /><br />4. The merriment of fleshly solace (Jer 31:4). <br /><br />5. Revenge upon a supposed enemy (2 Sam 13:28).“<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">There are many intruders, burglar, interloper, impostor, charlatan, fake, plant, prowler, trespasser, of the church of God, and especially among the charismatic movement and ecumenical whoredom.</span><br /><br />End of my comment<br /><br />O F Antichrist AND H I S R U I N: AND Of the Slaying the Witnesses.<br /><br />I. Of Antichrist.<br />II. Of the ruin of Antichrist.<br />III. Of the manner of the ruin of Antichrist.<br />IV. Of the signs of the approach of the downfall of Antichrist.<br />V. Of the instruments that God will use to bring Antichrist to his ruin.<br />VI. Of the causes of the ruin of Antichrist. By J O H N B U N Y A N.<br />1692.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">For the full reading of John Bunyan`s books go to:<br /><br />http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/Sermons.Allegories/Antichrist.Ruin/index.html<br /><br />OF THE CAUSES OF THE RUIN OF ANTICHRIST.</span><br /><br />l though the causes of the ruin of Antichrist be to some conspicuous enough, yet to some they may be otherwise; yea, and will to all kings and people whose eyes shall be held, that they may not see the judgment, in the reasonableness and equitableness thereof; and these shall wail when they see 'the smoke of her torment'; and these shall cry, Alas! Alas! (Rev 18:10). Wherefore, for further edification, as I have treated of the man of sin already; so will I now, of the causes of his downfall. And,<br /><br />FIRST CAUSE.<br /><br />First, He must down, for that he hath usurped, and taken the name and attributes of God upon himself: He hath said, 'I am God': He hath set in the temple of God, 'shewing himself that he is God'; yea, and that in contempt and scorn of any other, 'exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped' (2 Thess 2); yea, hath cried down all gods but himself. Wherefore it must needs be, that he be brought to judgment, that the truth of his saying may be proved. And for this cause he is threatened, under the name of the prince of Tyrus: 'Because thine heart is lifted up (saith the Lord) and thou hast said, I am a god, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am god? but thou shalt be a man, and no god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee' (Eze 28:2,7-9).<br /><br />If God will not give his name or glory to another, be sure he will not be under another; but this to have, and thus to do, Antichrist has attempted. But how? In that he has been so bold as to prescribe and impose a worship besides, and without reverence of that which God has prescribed and imposed: For to do this, is, to make one's self a God. 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them': For he that thus doth, is an idolater; and he that these things doth impose, is one that shews himself a God. But this doth Antichrist do: And 'tis worth the noting, That God forbids not only images, but the likeness of any thing ; books, altars, fancies, imaginations, or any thing in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, to bow down to, or to make them a means to worship or come to God by, if he has not commanded nor tolerated them in his holy word.<br /><br />Thus saith the Lord : And, I am the Lord , is the stamp , the seal , and sign of all true rules of worship; and therefore it is so often repeated both in Moses, and in the prophets, where God commandeth worship to be performed, and imposeth the means and methods of it. Now this, Thus saith the Lord , Antichrist has rejected; and I am the Lord , he hath assumed to himself: and therefore without the law, the word and commandment, hath framed and imposed a worship, exalting himself in the temple of God, although he is but the man of sin, above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.<br /><br />Nor is he in this his so foul a fact, without them that adore, worship his image, and wonder after him; yea, he hath got by this means almost the whole world to himself, who say, 'Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?' (Rev 13:4). And that they might shew their resolvedness to stand by him, they receive his mark in their forehead, or in their hand; His mark ; that is, they either openly or seriously become his disciples, and worship him according to the rules, methods, and ways that he hath prescribed. Wherefore, these with him, are also to drink of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God: 'If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb' (Rev 14:9,10).<br /><br />But, I say, for that Antichrist hath thus taken the place of God , prescribed and imposed a worship as a God , got the world to worship and wonder after him as after a God . Therefore shall he die the death of the uncircumcised, both in the soul, spirit, body, or flesh of Antichrist; therefore will God enlighten, and gather, and set the kings and nations against him, that both he and his may be buried, and have their dolesome withdrawing-rooms from the world in the sides of the pit's mouth.<br /><br />SECOND CAUSE.<br /><br />Secondly , Antichrist must be destroyed, because he hath set himself against the Son of God; against the Father, and against the Son. He had a spite against the Son betimes, even then when he came forth but in little bits , when he attempted to deny that he was come in the flesh (1 John 4:1-4). But seeing he could make no earnings of that, he hath changed his methods, and seeks to run him out and down by other means and ways: because therefore he hath set himself against the Son of God, the king, therefore he must die. That he hath set himself against the Son of God, is also evident; for he hath his name from thence: He is therefore called Antichrist. That he hath set himself against him, is yet further evident; for that he hath endeavoured to take from him his headship over, and his offices for and in the church, which is his body. He hath plainly endeavoured to be head, for that he hath striven to take his wife from him, and to cause that she should be called HIS: Yea, he hath endeavoured by all inventions to prostrate her to his lusts, to deflower her, and to maker her an adulteress. He has been worse than Pharaoh, who took Abraham's wife (Gen 12); and worse than Abimelech, who lusted after Isaac's (Gen 26): Yea, worse than Phalti, who run away with David's (1 Sam 25:44); forasmuch as she is higher, beloved better, and cost more than did any of these. Would it not be counted an high affront, for a base inferior fellow, to call himself the head of the queen? Yet thus has Antichrist done, and worse; he has called himself the head of the universal church of God.<br /><br />And as he has attempted to be head in his stead, so to be king, priest, and prophet.<br /><br />[1.] He has attempted to wrest his sceptre and kingdom from him, in that he hath endeavoured to thrust himself into his throne, which is the heart and conscience of his people. The heart and conscience is that which Christ claimeth for his own proper and peculiar seat: 'My son, give me thy heart.' 'That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith' (Eph 3:17). In this therefore the church is not to be for another man, so will he be for her; but this throne Antichrist has lusted for, attempted to take, and made war with Christ and his church, because they would not yield up to him this glorious throne of his, and therefore he must die.<br /><br />[2.] He hath intruded upon the priestly office of Christ, hath called himself high-priest ; though the Lord hath said, 'Because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children' (Hosea 4:6). But he will make himself a priest; he hath invented sacrifices for the quick and the dead : he hath put, as he presumes, merit and worth into these sacrifices; he hath commanded that those that worship, should have faith in, and expect benefit by these sacrifices, although he offereth to his God nought else but the flesh of the hog , and of the mouse , with the broth of his abominable things (Isa 66:17). Many and sundry ways he hath set himself up to be high-priest, though God knows no high-priest but one, though the church ought to know no high-priest but one; yea, though no high-priest but one can approach God's mercy-seat, to do for us the necessary and desired work.<br /><br />[3.] He hath intruded upon the prophetical office of Jesus Christ. What else means his pretences to infallibility?[16] And that too when he imposes unwritten verities, abominable traditions, blasphemous rites and ceremonies; and forbids or dispenseth with the holy commands of God: Yea, when he enforceth these his Omrian statutes, and doth impose the works of the house of Ahab (Micah 6:16), he doth all in the name of the Lord Christ, when himself hath set himself in his place, and in his room. This is mystery Babylon, the mystery of iniquity : This is Antichrist's soul and body, and as such, must be destroyed. But,<br /><br />THIRD CAUSE.<br /><br />Thirdly, Antichrist must be destroyed, because he hath blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, and so set himself above the Father, the Son, the Spirit; against ALL that is called God. The Holy Ghost is that Spirit of truth that Christ has promised to give unto his church, to help her in the understanding of his holy word, and to enable her to believe, and walk humbly and holily before God and man. The spirit of Antichrist is that spirit of error that hath puffed up the false church into a conceit of herself, and unscriptural worship; and that hath made this false church, which is his body, to ascribe all the horrible things and acts thereof, to the wisdom, guidance, directions or operations of the Holy Ghost: As,<br /><br />1. In all her unscriptural councils, assemblies and convocations, they blasphemously father what they do upon the Holy Ghost, and make him the inventor and approver thereof.<br /><br />2. She also blasphemeth the Holy Ghost, in accusing and condemning the holy scriptures of insufficiency, for that she saith, though it is a rule, yet but an imperfect one; one deficient, one that is not able to make the man of God perfect in all things, without the traditions, inventions, and blasphemous helps of antichristian wisdom.<br /><br />3. She hath also blasphemed the Holy Ghost, in that she hath set up her own church-government, offices, officers and discipline: None of all which is the church of Christ directed to by the wisdom of the Spirit of God in his testament.<br /><br />4. She hath also sinned against the Holy Ghost, in that she hath, as it were, turned the Holy Ghost out of doors, in concluding that he, without the works of the flesh, is not sufficient to govern the hearts of worshippers, in the service and worship of God.<br /><br />5. She hath also thus sinned, in that she hath wrought many lying miracles in the face of the world, and imposed them upon her disciples for the confirming of her errors and blasphemous opinions, to the confronting of the true miracles wrought by the Holy Ghost; and also to the concluding, that there was an insufficiency in those that were true, to confirm the truth, without the addition of hers; which she has wrought by the power of Satan, and the spirit of delusion, only to confirm her lies.<br /><br />6. She hath sinned against the Holy Ghost, in that she hath, with Jeroboam the son of Nebat, striven against the judgments wherewith God hath punished her; to call her back from her wicked way; and persisted therein, to the effectual proving of herself to be the lewd woman (2 Kings 13:4-7,23,24).<br /><br />7. She hath sinned, by labouring to hide all her wickedness, by lies, dissimulations, and filthy equivocations of her priests, friars, Jesuits, &c. I say, her labouring to hide the wickedness that she hath committed against kings, countries, nations, kingdoms and people. She hath hid these things by the means or persons made mention of before; as by the tail; for they indeed are the tail of the beast, that cover his most filthy parts: The prophet that speaketh lies, he is the tail (Isa 9:15). But,<br /><br />FOURTH CAUSE.<br /><br />Fourthly, Antichrist must be destroyed, for the horrid outrage, and villainous murders that she hath committed upon the bodies of the saints. For there is none, as to these things, for cruelty, to be compared with the church of Antichrist, and her followers: For upon whom hath not her cruelty been shewed; have they never so little stood in her way, though never so innocently and honestly by so doing, stood to the truth and verity of God? Yea, the promoting of her own superstition, idolatry, and blasphemous rites and ceremonies, have been so pursued by her, that she has waded through a sea of innocent blood for the accomplishment thereof.<br /><br />The poor church of God is a sensible bleeding witness of this, and so has been for hundreds of years together; witness the chronicles of all nations where she hath had to do; yea, and the sackcloth and ashes, and tears, and widows, and fatherless children, and their cries, of all which the holy word of God is a sufficient confirmation; 'And in her,' when God shall come to make inquisition for blood, 'will be found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth' (Rev 18:24). And yet has she such a whore's forehead, such a blindness in her judgment, and such an hard and obdurate heart, that it is not possible she should ever repent. Murders have been so natural to her, and in them her hand has been so exercised, that it is now become a custom, a trade, a pastime to her, to be either in the act, or laying some foundation for murders: Witness those plots, designs conspiracies, and frequent attempts that are, one or other of them, continually on foot in the world for the commission of murders.<br /><br />Nay, the text last mentioned seems to import, that blood is so natural to her, that she sticketh not at any condition, sex, age, or degree, so she may imbrue her hands in blood. In her was found the blood of saints and prophets, and of all other carnal, natural, ignorant, graceless men that have been slain upon the earth. It is she that sets kings and kingdoms at variance: It is she that sets parents and children at variance, by her abuse of the word of our Lord and Christ. And besides, is it not easy, if we do but consider those bloody massacres that have been committed by her hand, both in France, Ireland, Piedmont, and in several places besides, without wronging of her, to conclude, that the blood of thousands, that have not known their right hand from their left in religion, hath been shed, to quench, if it might have been, her insatiate thirst after blood. Therefore, for these things shall she be judged, as women that shed blood are judged; because she is an adulteress, and blood is in her hands (Eze 23:45). She hath been as a beast of prey: Nay, worse; for they do but kill and tear for the hunger of themselves, and of their whelps: but she, to satisfy her wanton and beastly lusts. 'They have cast lots for my people; [saith God] and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink' (Joel 3:3): and therefore must Antichrist be destroyed. Forbearance is no payment, God's patience is not a sign that he forgetteth to take vengeance; but rather, that he waiteth till his own are come out of her, and until her iniquity is filled up: For then he will execute the judgment written, and will remember, as has been said, the Babylonians, and all their ways. [17]<br /><br />FIFTH CAUSE.<br /><br />Fifthly, Antichrist must be destroyed, because she hath put out of order, and confounded the rule and government that God has set up in the world. I say, she has put it out of order, and confounded it in all places where she rules; so that it cannot accomplish the design of him that ordained it, To wit, To be a terror to evil works, and a praise to them that do well. Wherefore we read, That those horns or kings where Mystery Babylon sitteth, are upon the heads of that beast that carrieth her, which beast is her protector. Magistracy is God's ordinance, appointed for the good of society, and for the peace and safety of those that are good. But this Antichrist has, where she rules, put all out of order; and no wonder, for she has bepuddled the word of God; no wonder, then, I say, if the foundations of the world be out of course. 'Tis she that hath turned the sword of the magistrate against those that keep God's law: 'Tis she that has made it the ruin of the good and virtuous, and a protection to the vile and base. Wherefore, when the Holy Ghost tells us, that the time is coming in which God will count with the bloody-minded, for the murders that they have committed; he in a manner doth quite excuse the magistrate, saying, 'Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not: The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword, and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is no end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses' (Nahum 3:1-3). But what is the cause of all this slaying, and the reason of this abundance of corpses? Why, it is because of the unsatiable thirst of the bloody city after blood: and, 'Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts' (verse 4). But doth this bloody city spill this blood by herself simply, as she is the adulterated whore? No, this church has found out a trick; that is to say, to quarrel with Christ in his members; and to persuade the powers where she rules to set ensnaring laws to catch them, and to execute the same upon them.<br /><br />Thus when the synagogue of Satan, of old, had taken Christ, and accused him, they made Pontius Pilate to condemn and hang him. But God has begun to shew to some of the kings this wickedness, and has prevailed with them to PROTEST against her. And in the mean time, for those that are yet in the bed of love with her, the Holy Ghost doth, in the text last mentioned, and in Revelation 18:24 much excuse them for the blood that they have shed, and for the injuries that they have done to his people; because they have not done it of their mere inclinations, nor in the prosecution of their office, but through the whoredoms and witchcrafts of this well-favoured harlot, who hath with false doctrines, false promises, and causeless curses, prevailed on them to do it. And they have done it, rather of fear than favour . Some indeed have more doted upon her beauty, and have more thoroughly been devoted to her service: But they also had not that aptness to do so of themselves, but have been forced to it by the power of her enchantments: Therefore, I say, the main guilt shall be laid at her door, for that she in chief has deserved it. 'Son of man [says God] take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel.' Why? Because their mother, the church, was at that time adulterated, and become a lioness, had lain down with the heathen, and so brought forth young lions, that is, rulers: 'And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men' (Eze 19:1-3). It learnt, It learnt: But of who but of its dam, or of the lioness to whom she had put it to learn to do such things? Therefore they are to be lamented and pitied, rather than condemned, and their mother made to bear the blame. Wherefore it follows, 'She was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. And now she is planted in the wilderness, (in the provinces of Babylon,) in a dry and thirsty ground. And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that he hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation' (Eze 19:12-14).<br /><br />SIXTH CAUSE.<br /><br />Sixthly, Antichrist must be destroyed, because of her exceeding covetousness. Religion, such as it is, is the thing pretended to: But the great things of this world, are the things really intended by her in all her seeming self-denials and devotions. And for this covetousness also it is that this destruction is to fall upon her: 'Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, (to his church) that he may set his nest on high' (Hab 2:9); (for he could not do the one, before he had obtained the other:) for then indeed they began to be high, when they had so inveigled Constantine, that he bestowed upon them much riches and honour; and then it was cried by an angel, and the cry was heard in the city, Constantinople! 'Woe! woe! woe! this day is venom poured into the church of God!' (as both my Lord Cobham and Mr. Fox witness in the book of Acts and Monuments).[18]<br /><br />Nor has any generation since the world began, been so insatiably greedy of gain, as these poor people have been: They have got kingdoms, they have got crowns, they have got, What have they not got? They have got everything but grace and pardon. Did I say before, that religion is their pretence? <br />Doth not the whole course of their way declare it to their face? Every one of them, from the least even to the greatest, is given to covetousness, from the prophet even to the priest, every one dealeth falsely (Jer 6:13, 8:10): Money, money , as the peddlar cries,[19] broken or whole, is the sinews of their religion: And it is for that they set kingdoms, crowns, principalities, places, preferments, sacraments, pardons, prayers, indulgences, liberty; yea, and souls and bodies of men, women and children, to sale. Yea, it is for this that they have invented so many places, offices, names, titles, orders, vows, &c. It is to get money, to rob countries, that they may make their nests on high. And indeed they have done it, to the amazement of all the world. <br />They are clambered up above kings and princes, and emperors:[20] They wear the triple-crown : They have made kings bow at their feet , and emperors , stand barefoot at their gates : They have kicked the crowns of princes from their heads, and set them on again with their toes .[21] Thus their covetousness has set them high, even above the suns, moons and stars of this world: but to what end? That they may be cast down to hell.<br /><br />SEVENTH CAUSE.<br /><br />Seventhly , Antichrist must be destroyed, because he standeth in the way of the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the world . Many princes were in Edom before there was a king in Israel; and Christ has suffered Antichrist to set up before him. And he standeth in his way, and has so overspread the world in all places, with that which is directly contrary to him, that he cannot set up his kingdom, until that which is Antichrist's is tumbled down to the ground; even as a man whose ground is full of thorns, and briars, and weeds, cannot sow in expectation of a crop, until he hath removed them. <br /><br />And these seeds has Antichrist sown where the kingdom of Christ should stand: 'Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, [this is to happen to the church of God,] Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest' (Isa 32:13-15). And the antichristian synagogue be turned into a wilderness.<br /><br />When God came from Egypt with his people, to set up his kingdom in Canaan, he cast out the heathen before them in order thereunto; 'Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it' (Psa 80:8). Wherefore, Antichrist must be removed and destroyed for this: For Antichrist is in flat opposition to Christ, as Tibni was to Omri (1 Kings 16:21,22): Wherefore Antichrist must die. The reason is, because Christ's kingdom shall be peaceable, without molestation; and glorious, without the fumes and fogs of antichristian darkness: Because also, as the world hath seen the manner of the reign of Antichrist, and how tyrannical and outrageous a kingdom his is: so they shall see the reign of Christ, by his word and spirit in his people, how peaceable, how fruitful in blessedness and prosperity his kingdom is. And hence it is that God purposeth to bury Antichrist, before he sets 'glory in the land of the living' (Eze 26:20, 21). As also you read in the book of Revelations; for there you find the kingdom of Antichrist was destroyed before the new Jerusalem was set up. When men intend to build a new house, if in the place where the old one stood, they first pull down the old one, raze the foundation, and then they begin their new. Now God, as I said, will have his primitive church-state set up in this world, (even where Antichrist has set up his;) wherefore, in order to this, Antichrist must be pulled down, down stick and stone; and then they that live to see it, will behold the new Jerusalem come down from heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband.<br /><br />New wine is not put into old bottles, nor a new piece into an old garment; nor shall any of the old anti-scriptural ordinances, ceremonies, rites, or vessels of the man of sin, be made use of, or accounted anything worth, in this day of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And thus I have shewed you something of Antichrist, of his ruin, and of the manner and signs of the approach thereof; together with the means and causes of his ruin. All which I leave to the judgment of the godly, and beg their instruction where they see me to be out; and shall conclude, after a short word of application.<br /><br />First, Must Antichrist be destroyed? Then this informs us, that a time is coming wherein there shall be no Antichrist to afflict God's church any more. 'Tis Antichrist, antichristians, and antichristianism, that is the cause of the troubles of Christians, for being Christians. And therefore 'tis from the consideration of this that it is said, men 'shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,' and that they 'shall learn war no more' (Isa 2:4): Yea it is from the consideration of this, that it is said the child shall play with venomous and destroying beasts, and that a little child shall lead the wolf , the leopard , and the young lion , and that the weaned child shall put his hand into the cockatrice's den, and catch no hurt thereby (Isa 11:6-9). For as was said before, 'tis through the instigation of this spirit of error, that the governors of the world have heretofore done hurt to Zion, and I say now again, all things shall turn to their right course, and occupy their places, as do the bodies in the higher orbs.<br /><br />Secondly, Is Antichrist to be destroyed, and must she have an end? Then this gives us to understand, that a day is coming when Antichrist shall be unknown, not seen, nor felt by the church of God. There are men to be born who shall not know Antichrist, but as they read in the word that such a thing has been. These shall talk of her, as Israel's childrens' children were to talk of Pharaoh, of his cruelty; of his tasks, of his pride, of the Red Sea, and how he was drowned there: They shall talk of them, as of those that have been long dead; as of those who for their horrible wickedness, are laid in the pit's mouth. This will be some of that sweet chat that the saints shall, at their spare hours, have in time to come. When God has pulled this dragon out of the sea, this leviathan out of his river, and cast his dead carcase upon the open field, then shall those whose ancestors have been put into terrors by him, come flocking to see the monster; and shall rejoice for all the mercy. In that day, the church of God shall say, 'O Lord I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. In that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people,' &c. (Isa 12:1,4). O how sweetly did David, and the church in his day, sing of the ruins of the Egyptians, and the deliverances of their fathers, which had been in times of old! (Psa 68). to wit, what God did in Egypt, what he did at the Red Sea; what he did to Sihon, to Og, and to the remnant of the giants: How he divided the waters of Jordan, and gave the land of Canaan in its fruitfulness among his people (Psa 105): How that though Pharaoh and his horsemen and chariots were terrible then , yet now there is nothing left but their souls, their feet, and the palms of their hands; nothing but that which can do no hurt; nothing but what may minister an occasion of joyful remembrance of them (Psa 106; 132).<br /><br />Thirdly, Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then this calls aloud to God's people to make haste to come out of her. 'Ho, ho,' says the prophet: He cries out as if the people were asleep: 'Come forth , and flee from the land of the north' (Zech 2:6). The people of God in the latter days will want a heart to come out of her, with that fear of her plagues as they should: Wherefore another says, 'Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues' (Rev 18:4). <br /><br />When Israel was carried into Babylon, 'twas not that they should dwell there for ever: Though they were bid to build them houses, and beget them children there. But when they had built, planted vineyards, and got wives and children there, 'twas hard getting them from thence again: For now they were as it were naturalized to the country, and to the manners of it (Jer 29:4-7). But God will have them out, (but they must not think to carry thence their houses and vineyards on their backs,) or he will destroy them with those destructions wherewith he hath threatened to destroy Babylon itself. Flesh will hang behind, because it favoureth the things of the flesh, plenty of which there is in that country: But they that will live after the flesh must die. 'Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty' (2 Cor 6:17,18). <br /><br />But why (some may say) must we come out ? I answer, because God has temple-work to do, temple-worship to do, temple-sacrifices to offer, and none of these things can by any means be done, but at Jerusalem. But if you still object and say, 'The Lord has raised us up prophets in Babylon,' and we will not come out; you must not murmur if you feel what is to follow. And that such may know upon what bottom they stand, let them read the 29th chapter of Jeremiah 15-19.<br /><br />Fourthly, Must Antichrist be destroyed? Then what mean they, who were to appearance once come out, but now are going thither again? If it cost Lot's wife dear for but looking back, shall not it cost them much dearer, that are going back, that are gone back again? and that, AFTER the angel had fled through the midst of heaven, preaching the gospel to those that dwell on the earth? (Rev 14:6-10). They that received the mark of the beast at first, before this angel came forth, are when compared with these, excusable (Rev 13:16,17): Wherefore, they are not threatened with that smoking wrath, as are these which are here under consideration. <br /><br />You dread, that which is like to become of them that will be so mad to run into an house, when fire is putting to the gunpowder barrel, in order to its blowing up: Why thus do they, let their pretended cause be what it will, that are returning again to Babel. Are her plagues pleasant or easy to be borne? <br />Or dost thou think that God is at play with thee, and that he threateneth but in jest? <br /><br />Her plagues are death, and mourning, and famine, and fire (Rev 18:8); are these things to be overlooked? And they that, as before is hinted, shall receive the mark of the beast in their forehead, or in their hand, and shall worship him, they, 'the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God' (Rev 14:10): And will this be a delightsome draught? Remember how ill God took it, that his people of old, in their hearts, though but in their hearts, went back again into Egypt. You may say, but I have friends, relations, and concerns in Babylon. And, I answer, so had Lot in Sodom (Gen 19:14-16); but for all that, he must either quickly come out, or run the hazard of being burned there with them. But methinks, a people that belong to God, should be willing to leave all to follow him: Besides, his presence is promised at Jerusalem, there also will he accept thy offerings.<br /><br />Fifthly, Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then let them that love God, his Son, and his Zion, cry to God, that it may be hastened in its time. One of the songs of Zion is, that Babylon shall be destroyed. The cries of the souls of them that were slain for the witness of Jesus is, that Babylon may be counted with, and that their blood may be revenged upon her. The promise is, that Babylon shall be destroyed: And do we hold our tongues? The church of God will not flourish as it should, until Babylon is destroyed: The world will never be in its right wits, until Babylon is destroyed: The kingdom of Christ will never be set up, in and by his church, as it ought, and shall, until Antichrist is destroyed: There will never be peace upon earth till Antichrist is destroyed: And God has promised that there shall be peace and truth, and glory, when Babylon is destroyed: And do we hold our peace? Besides, your innocency in suffering; your honesty towards God, in your testimony for his truth; the substantial ground which you have for the bottom of your faith, as to things controverted betwixt Antichrist and you, will never be manifested as it will then; and so consequently, you never so brought out to the light, and your enemies never so put to shame as then. 'Then shame shall cover her that said unto thee, Where is the Lord thy God?' Wherefore, as I said, cry unto the Lord, keep not silence, give him no rest, let him not alone, until he has delivered his miserable people out of the mouth of this lion, and from the paw of this bear.<br /><br />Sixthly, Is Antichrist to be destroyed? Then let us live in the expectation of it; and let this be one of our songs in the house of our pilgrimage. God bids his people, while in Babylon, to let Jerusalem come into their mind (Jer 51:50), and writes to them that then were in her, to acquaint them that he remembered them still, and would assuredly deliver them from that place and state . And wherefore doth he thus, but to beget an expectation in them of their salvation and deliverance? (Jer 29:13, 14). The Lord is so pleased with the faith and expectation of his people, as to this, that they seldom are herein concerned as they should, but he steps in with them, and warms their hearts. The reason is, because the faith of God's people, as to the downfall of Babylon, stands upon as sure a foundation as doth the salvation of their souls; and that next to that, God is as much delighted in what he has purposed to do against Babylon, as in anything else in the earth: And therefore, if you consider it well, the great and glorious promises that are to be fulfilled on earth, are to be fulfilled when Antichrist is dead and buried: These bits are too good even for his children to have, so long as this dog is by, lest he should snatch at the crumbs thereof; wherefore they are reserved until he is gone: For thus saith the Lord, 'That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word towards you, in causing you to return to this place: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord; thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.' This is in Jeremiah the 29th chapter, verses 10, 11 and in the 31st chapter he adds, 'Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and of the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the Lord' (verse 12-14). Again, in the 32nd chapter, still speaking of the same thing, he saith, 'Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul' (verse 41).<br /><br />I conclude this with that which I find in the 33rd chapter: 'And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble, for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it' (verse 8, 9).<br /><br />Seventhly, Must Antichrist be destroyed? Then this should make us glad, when we see the signs of his fall presenting themselves to our view. Indeed, the signs of his fall, or those that forerun it, are terrible, and amazing to behold. But what of that, since the wrinkles that are in their faces threaten not us but them? A man is angry, and will punish; yea, and whets his sword, makes his rod, and he speaks not a word, but blood, blood, is in it. Indeed, this should make them that are concerned in this anger, be afraid; (but the judgment is, they are fast asleep,) but what is in all this of terror to them, for the pleading whose cause he is so angry with the other? Nothing whereat the innocent should be afraid. Cold blasts in November are not received with that gentleness as are colder in March and April; for that these last cold ones are but the farewell notes of a piercing winter; they also bring with them the signs and tokens of a comfortable summer. Why, the church is now at the rising of the year; let then the blasts at present, or to come, be what they will, Antichrist is assuredly drawing towards his downfall: And though the devil, knowing what is to be done to him, and to his kingdom, shall so blind his disciples, and fright the godly, do something like it upon the church of Christ; yet we should look through these paper-winkers ,[22] and espy in all this, that fear, yea, certain terrible judgments are following of him at the heels, by which not only the soul, spirit, and life of Antichrist, but the body thereof; yea, body, and soul, and head, are quickly to go down thither; from whence they, as such, shall not arise again.<br /><br /> Amen.<br /><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-28107459706396962102010-11-13T02:03:00.000-08:002012-12-08T00:02:17.606-08:00JOEL OSTEEN EXPOSED A man made religion without Christ!<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">JOEL OSTEEN EXPOSED </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">A man made religion without Christ!</span><br /> “I don’t get deep and theological.”</span><br />
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Expect Gods Favor Interview with Joel Osteen<br />
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http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Christian-Inspiration/2004/12/Expect-Gods-Favor-Interview-With-Joel-Osteen.aspx<br />
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-- He spoke with Beliefnet recently about his first book, "Your Best Life Now." <br />
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Your book speaks about living at your full potential and getting the most out of life, which is what you say God wants for us. How does God want us to live our lives?<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">It almost seems like cognitive therapy: Think your way happy, be optimistic, and expect the best. </span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">I think a lot of it is. A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine. I’ve read many articles on how a positive attitude, laughing every day and being happy, does help people to recover and live longer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">What are the biggest problems people come to you with? </span><br />
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I would say it’s relationships. People are discouraged, beaten down. Relationships, finances, health [are] probably the big categories.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The book’s title and subhead--Your Best Life Now: Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential--don’t include specific Christian terms. To whom are you marketing the book? </span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">You’re exactly right. I don’t want to just preach to the church and I just feel like I have a broader message. </span>I’d like to think that I can help everyday people who don’t necessarily go to church. I bet half the letters I get, the first line is "I’ve never been to church. I don’t watch a preacher on TV, but..." <br />
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When I first started, I played basketball down at the YMCA with a bunch of guys—I don’t know if they’re Christian, but they’re not living a Christian life. I always thought, when I speak, if they can’t understand what I’m saying, then I’m not doing the right thing. So I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical. ---<br />
Practical – neat, multipurpose, smart, tidy, stylish, well-dressed, elegant, brainy, sting, burn, hurt, nearby, close,<br />
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--- <span style="font-weight: bold;">What moral values are important to focus on now? </span><br />
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I think most of it has to do with the family and the marriage situation and all that.<br />
What's the most important thing to do to overcome guilt and shame?<br />
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We've got to forgive ourselves for mistakes we've made. A lot of people tell me, "I don't feel like God wants to bless me." <br />
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If we don't forgive ourselves for mistakes we've made-and everybody's made their choices, some worse than others--we'll never experience the good life God has in store. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">It's just changing your attitude and knowing</span> that God gives you your value. Even though somebody's tried to devalue you, you've just got to say, "I've gotta let that go and know who I am, who God made me to be." ---<br />
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Attitude – outlook, manner, thoughts, mind-set, way of thinking, opinion, point of view, viewpoint, view, standpoint, line, way of behaving, posture, pose, stance, posture, pose, position, bearing,<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Here you find on the link of Holistic living! A Joel O. way of behaving? </span><br />
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Go to: http://www.beliefnet.com/Holistic-Living/index.aspx<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Holistic –general, universal, all-inclusive, broad, wide, large, big, open, far-reaching,</span> sketchy, hazy, imprecise, marked, all-embracing, <span style="font-weight: bold;">catholic,</span> across-the-board, varied, all-encompassing, wide-ranging, comprehensive, rounded, curved, <span style="font-weight: bold;">smoothed, charming, silver-tongued, slick, easy, trouble-free,</span> undemanding, unproblematic, comfortable, relaxed, laid-back, cool, calm, at ease, composed, collected, self-possessed, self-confident, suspended, perched, dignified, dignify, pride, arrogance, conceit, self-importance, satisfaction, pleasure, delight, gratification, self-esteem, honor, poised, tranquil, make comfortable, ease, compose, happy, effortless, efficient,<br />
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Holistic spirituality is an acceptance of others beliefs!<br />
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Quote:<br />
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it: Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. <br />
-Goethe<br />
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-- Each individual seeks their own truth.<br />
There is NO certain way of doing anything. <br />
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If you choose to attend church and read ancient texts, do that. <br />
If you choose to meditate and/or attend church or not attend church, do that. ---<br />
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--- Many spiritually grounded people have set up a little alter in their homes with candles, pictures or anything that has deep meaning for YOU. ---<br />
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A morally, ethically, credo, philosophy, ideas, principles, beliefs, thinking, doctrine!<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">A man made religion without Christ!</span><br />
JOEL OSTEEN EXPOSED<br />
“I don’t get deep and theological.”<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Go to: http://www.safeguardyoursoul.com/html/joel_osteen_exposed.html</span><br />
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<b>http://www.av1611.org/osteen.html</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Rick warren Joel osteen exposed!!</b></span></div>
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Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-34406173047648265152010-11-11T03:03:00.000-08:002010-11-11T03:07:50.210-08:00Is Benny Hinn adding one lie to another?<span style="font-weight:bold;">Is Benny Hinn adding one lie to another?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">“The Vatican did invite me a few days ago. They made me a Patron of the Arts in the Vatican two weeks ago. And that’s a fact! A Patron of the Arts means you support the Vatican so they can maintain all the work of Michelangelo. I’m one of the guys now that supports what they do. And that is a fact. I was there, and we were taken around by a man named Wilhelm Kramer [or Cramer]. And they asked me, literally they said, “Do you know people that can help us financially?” I said, “Alright.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Now here’s where I made my mistake: I let her [Paula Wh</span>ite] come with me to Rome, so she can donate money. That was stupid on my part.”</span><br /><br />“Christian Research Services queried Fr. Mark Haydu,<br />International Coordinator/Director of The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">His response:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">To my knowledge, Paula White or Benny Hinn were not invited to the Vatican Museums in any official context, nor did we find anyone on our donors database of Patrons under those names. [Original on file with CRS]”</span><br /><br />“I publicly profess and forcefully renounce assertions that the recent trip to Italy to meet with Vatican officials suggests that the friendship is in any way improper or morally impure. We traveled independently to the region for respective ministry duties…<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Since Hinn and White were ‘being made’ Patrons, they would have had to give the Vatican Museums money.</span><br /><br />Donating would require real names or the name of their US ministries (donor money) and not the name David Solomon that Hinn supposedly used to check into the Rome hotel. It’s possible Hinn and White gave the Vatican a cash donation and phony names to become Patrons, anything is possible. But not probable.<br /><br />If anything changes in this “I said/The Vatican said” discrepancy, I’ll post.<br />Update: Fr. Federico Lombardi of the Holy See Press Office says Benny Hinn met with the Pope in 1989 and visited the Vatican in 2008. DagenMaganinet July 31/10:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Some visitors will sit on the top row at a papal audience. They considered donating money to a major restoration of an organ. Hinn was one of them. If he gave money or not is unknown, Lombardi said.”</span><br /><br />From: http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2010/08/14/vatican-says-benny-hinn-and-paula-white-not-patrons-of-the-arts/<br /><br />DagenMaganinet July 31/10:http://www.dagenmagazinet.no/Kristenliv/tabid/256/Default.aspx?ModuleId=67966&articleView=true<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The full story you can read here:</span> http://www.christianresearchservice.com/BHinn44.htm<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Benny Hinn a pure lie?:</span> http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2010/08/05/benny-hinn-national-enquirer-article-pure-lie/<br /><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2014357357777504442.post-15735721353952840142010-11-07T04:03:00.000-08:002010-11-07T04:08:18.232-08:00Stanley Sjöberg på korståg!<span style="font-weight:bold;">Stanley Sjöberg på korståg!<br /><br />Stanley vill uppmana till en ny taktik, härförarkonst, krigföring, det handlar om överfyllda kyrkor och tätt packade samlingar på nattklubbar och i restaurangmiljöer.?<br /></span><br />”<span style="font-weight:bold;">De vill inte kalla sig "kristna" men gärna Kristi efterföljare. Men istället för att påverka, väljer de att påverkas.<br /></span><br />I Sverige har vi Pingströrelsen, EFK, Trosrörelsen och Oasrörelsen utöver tio, femton andra etablerade kyrkor och samfund. Dessutom finns i vår tid en mångfald olikheter utifrån musikaliska stilar och andliga företeelser. <br /><br />I Sverige finns mer lågmälda olikheter, allt från "Hillsongs" högljudda musikaliska lovsång, till kontemplativ andakt med förebilder från Taizé. Det finns en evangelikal linje som gärna dämpar det som kan beskrivas som karismatiskt.<br /> <br />Högkyrklig liturgi tillämpas med inspiration av katolska, ortodoxa förebilder. Ikoner, rökelse, ljuständning och tystnad ingår i former av retreater och andakt. Traditionella frikyrkor vill vara konservativa och utmärker sig främst med att ha äldre medlemmar. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Vårt behov är inte en ny inomkyrklig trend, utan en period av strategisk evangelisation.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">När jag planerar inför 2011</span> har jag en förhoppning om att bli inbjuden till platser och församlingar som vill ordna möten med yrkesgrupper och olika kategorier av vanliga människor som vanligtvis inte besöker en kyrka. Då är jag beredd att beskriva kristen tro utifrån spännande ämnesrubriker som anknyter till "new age", muslimska föreställningar och ateismens alla fördomar.”<br /><br />Från: http://www.hemmetsvan.se/nyhetstexter.jsp?oid=3466&coid=3<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Min kommentar:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Här går Stanley Sjöberg i organiserings funderingar!</span><br /><br />Med samlingar på nattklubbar parat med de till hedendom förfallna rörelserna såsom pingst ffs, Efk, Oasrörelsen, Taize`, (mysticism) vilka alla är anslutna till den ekumeniska uppgörelsen med den katolska hedendomen, kyrkornas världsråd, och uppgår i samarbetet med den antikristliga påvekyrkan, nu ska Stanley Sjöberg gå på ett förnyat härförartåg, det handlar inte om en väckelse inom de ”etablerade” kyrkorna, utan hur han vill fånga intresset bland new age kulten etc.<br /><br />Ja Stanley Sjöberg tycks ständigt komma med nya infall och uppfinningar, och samtidigt står han kvar med rötterna i den karismatiska förvirringen, kaos!<br />Nu när hedendomens mörker lägrat sig i de etablerade kyrkorna, med mystik, ljuständningar, ikoner, prästvälde, new age, katolsk villolära, främlingskap för Bibeln som ersatts med offer gång, kulter etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Någon återgång till Bibeln lär väl vänta på sig, om den alls kommer!?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Job 17:11 Mina dagar äro förlidna, sönderslitna äro mina planer, vad som var mitt hjärtas begär. <br /><br />Psa 140:4 (140:5) Bevara mig, HERRE, för de ogudaktigas händer, beskydda mig för våldets män, som uttänka planer för att bringa mig på fall. <br /><br />Ord 19:21 Många planer har en man i sitt hjärta, men HERRENS råd, det bliver beståndande. <br /><br />Ord 22:12 HERRENS ögon bevara den förståndige; därför omstörtar han den trolöses planer. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Hes 38:10 Så säger Herren, HERREN: På den tiden skola planer uppstå i ditt hjärta, och du skall tänka ut onda anslag. <br /><br />Dan 11:28 Han skall vända tillbaka till sitt land med stora förråd, och han skall lägga planer mot det heliga förbundet; och när han har fullbordat dem, skall han vända tillbaka till sitt land. <br /></span><br />Inlagt av Leif BergGospelofChristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14650575711050601598noreply@blogger.com0