Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics

Constantine is a hero of the Christian faith just because he stopped feeding them to the lions and supposedly converted to being a Christian. His children had a tutor named Lactantius who I often quote in regards to those who would lie or "forge" in the pursuit of power through religion. He should know from first hand experience to be sure. The Council of Nicaea was the site of the greatest achievement of Constantine who many scholars credit as the primary creator or editor of the Bible and what is the basis of Roman Empire to this day.

“The influence of the great Alexandrian Schools had not helped the early Christians in their work of propaganda. While the Church of Rome held up the Jewish Bible as the sole authority upon every subject, the Gnostic Schools of Alexandria and Ephesus had turned out thousands of students who recognized the absurdity of such a claim. The scattered communities of orthodox Christendom, echoing the church in Rome, were teaching that the Jewish Scriptures were the only revelation of God, and therefore not to be compared with the Scriptures of other nations. But three prominent Jewish scholars had already proved the similarity between the Laws of Moses and the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras. Christians claimed that Jesus was a unique character, while the entire pagan world knew that the legends surrounding Jesus' life were identical with those of pagan gods. Students of comparative religion recognized their similarity to the traditions of great spiritual Teachers who had preceded Jesus.

The Church now found herself in conflict not only with the 'religious' ideas of her self-chosen adversaries, but with their 'scientific' views as well. The orthodox Church Fathers declared that God made the world out of nothing. The Gnostic Fathers denied this unphilosophical assertion and held that the universe was the result of a gradual unfoldment from within without. {As Above, So Below} Christianity asserted that the earth was flat, and against this theory was pitted that of Aristarchos of Samos, who had been a member of the Alexandrian School in 280 B.C., and had taught the sphericity of the earth as Pythagoras had taught it before him.

In the fourth century, Science and orthodox Christianity came to a deadlock, the bone of contention being the idea of the sphericity of the earth. Criticizing the ancient theory of the roundness of the earth, Lactantius, one of the most polished rhetoricians among the Christians, indignantly inquired:

‘Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask them how they defend those monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the center, like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies tend from the center to the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those, who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another.’

But this statement, although written by a prominent member of their own faith, was objected to by the Christians themselves. When had they ever claimed that there 'were' people on the other side of the earth? {Indeed their maps often indicate there was no China. This is a corollary to the Flat Earth fiction. It was the reason they touted the Marco Polo discoveries, even though they had Nestorian priests in China when Genghis Khan arrived and we now have Byzantium coins from archaeology in the Chinese digs dated to the 5th century as we have shown, etc.} The Bible stated that the only persons who survived the Flood were the three sons of Noah, and their work was clearly described. Shem had repopulated Asia, Ham had done the same for Africa, and Japhet was the ancestor of the European peoples. Therefore to quote St. Augustine: ‘It is impossible that there should be inhabitants on the other side of the earth, since no such race is recorded in the Scriptures among the descendants of Adam.’ {This is from a man self-confessed as a sexual deviate and who as a Manichean said the Scriptures were only fit for children. When I say he is a deviate I'm being kind. The American Psychoanalytical Association says more in his book "Confessions".)

As if that were not enough of an argument to convince any thinking man, St. Augustine offered another which was certainly irrefutable! It would be impossible, he said, for men to be on the other side of the earth, for in that case ‘in the Day of Judgement, men on the other side of the earth would not be able to see the Lord descending through the air.’

By the sixth century, the flatness of the earth had been definately established by the Christian Church. In his great work, 'Christian Topography', Cosmos Indicopleustas {He was a mariner who traveled to India, and his word would carry some weight as a seafarer. Thus a little thing led to him getting a Nestorian priesthood as a reward for putting the Pope officially on the map, at the center of the Universe.} describes the earth as a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred day's journey east and west and exactly half as much north and south. {No wonder the Khan offered to make all of China Catholic, if Marco Polo could get the Catholic scholars to debate his scholars. This event never happened because the two Catholics who set out with the Polos returned under protection of Templars, almost as soon as they got their first slaves.} This quadrangular plane he said to be enclosed by mountains, upon which the sky rests. As the mountain 'on the north is larger than the others, it intercepts the sun's rays and produces night. The plane of the earth is not exactly horizontal, but inclines slightly from the north. Therefore rivers like the Tigris and Euphrates, which run southward, have a rapid motion, while the Nile, which runs northward, naturally moves more slowly.’

In addition to the pagan and idolatrous religions of the "heathen" and their absurd scientific views concerning the sphericity of the earth, there were the teachings of the great pagan philosophers which had to be refuted also if the Christian Church were to become the ruling force of the day. The orthodox Fathers devoted all their time and energy to this task. But in spite of their best efforts, the Pagans laughed quietly at Christian ignorance. The Church was in a quandary. {Can you imagine this kind of writing being read in a school that taught history, today?} How could she continue to refute the pagan doctrines unless she understood the theories she was trying to combat?

{By bafflegab and co-opting, great steps were taken and the Council of Carthage in 397 AD had made woman slave to man, so it was just a matter of making salvation easy to get. Then men could sin and pay no heed as they confessed each Sunday if they went to church at all.}

In self-defence, the Church decided to adopt new tactics. She would establish a School of her own in Alexandria, the city of Schools. {They also struck a deal with the Celtic Church which never accepted the reduction of women, but thought it would be able to make more inroads working from within rather than without. Bangor in Ireland became a leading university for Catholic scholars like Columbanus.} This School would serve two purposes: first, it would enable her to introduce Christianity into this hotbed of heresy; {Where they later succeeded in whipping up a frenzy against the smartest woman of her time. Hypatia of Alexandria was killed by tearing her arms and legs out of their sockets and her body was displayed all over the city of light and spirit.} second, it would give the Church Fathers an opportunity to study the pagan doctrines, and thus give a greater appearance of authority to their Refutations. As the Reverend Father Stebbing points out, this School

...aimed at using philosophy, especially the speculations of Plato, to serve the cause of the Church, and to answer the objections of pagan philosophers on their own grounds, {But it is well to remember Plato had to answer to religious bigots or face the same fate as Socrates. This made him couch his 'speculations' in ways that could be interpreted in favour of theologians or power-mongering and hateful priests.} demonstrating that true philosophy led the way to Christianity and not to Paganism. {They may also have co-opted the hermetic Gnostics by calling their scholars Hermeneuts at this time. It may have been through Aquinas too, I am not sure about the rip-off of the title but I am sure they became gifted at creating confusion.}

Early in the second century, then, a Christian School was established in Alexandria. At first it was a school for children only, located almost at the door of the Old Museum, from which the majority of Christians, owing to their ignorance of science, art, and philosophy, had hitherto been debarred. Out of this grew the famous Catechetical School. Its first director was Pantaeus, a converted Stoic, who was deposed and sent to India as a missionary in the year 191. He was followed by Clement of Alexandria, whose study of Greek and Egyptian philosophy had convinced him that truth could be found even in the heathen systems. But Clement's eclecticism met with no enthusiasm from his superiors, and in the year 203 he was deposed and replaced by his pupil Origen, who was only eighteen years old at the time.

Origen's work for Christianity commenced with a deep and profound study of the Hebrew Scriptures. Dissatisfied with the translations which were then extant, Origen determined to make his own translation. {So we have an eighteen year old 'Divinely Inspired' Scripture writer to join Jerome who was making the Vulgate for his Roman bosses who had replaced wiser men who would not do as requested.} He brought out what is known as the Hexapala, or six-fold edition of the Old Testament, in which he set forth, in separate columns, the various versions of the Scriptures, including his own. In addition to this, he brought out three Greek versions of the Psalms. Some notion of the magnitude of Origen's work (which occupied twenty-eight years of his life) is gained by an examination of some recently discovered manuscripts. One may be found in the Abrosian {Is this Ambrosian?} Library in Milan, and another in the collection of palimpsests discovered in Cairo. {Da Vinci's bicycle that shows time viewing is fastidiously avoided by academics.}

Origen's knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures convinced him that the orthodox Church was making a fatal mistake by denying the authenticity of certain documents. He openly rebuked the Church for rejecting the Book of Enoch, {Hurray!} which contained the history of the early races of mankind and completely destroyed the Jewish chronology. {Even more, it explains the nature of psychic things the soul of any man can do. Thus people would think less of their saintly magicians and prophets if they too understood.} He also called attention to the 'esoteric' doctrines of Moses which the Church had failed to notice. {But the Masons call him their Master Mason because they know this important reality.} He discovered that Moses, in addition to the teachings of the Covenant, {The Ten Commandments were in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetan one before that.} had communicated some very important secrets to the seventy elders, enjoining them to disclose these facts only to the worthy. {HMMM-mm!}

Origen's fearless attitude toward the accepted Scriptures of the Christians, as well as his openly-professed interest in Neoplatonism, aroused the wrath of the Patriarch of Alexandria. Origen was banished from the city in the year 232. But his thirty years of study had convinced him of the truth of Neoplatonism, and in the School which he subsequently founded in Caesarea, Origen openly taught the doctrines that he had learned from Ammonius Saccas.

Ammonius, who later became the teacher of both Clement and Origen, received his early education in the children's school which preceded the Catechetical School. He was born in Alexandria about the middle of the second century. His parents were very poor, and the boy was obliged to add his share to the family earnings by working as a porter on the docks located in the Egyptian, or Rhakotis portion of the city. There he saw ships from far-off lands, he heard queer dialects and met many strange people. Perhaps he gained his first acquaintance with the philosophies of the East from some Hindu sailor. The Song of Krishna is always on the lips of the son of Hindustan.

The parents of Ammonius were devout Christians, and Ammonius was sent to the Christian School, where he learned about the Christian Christ. He must have heard that Krishna, too, had been immaculately conceived, was persecuted by a wicked King, and had finally died upon a cross. Why were the stories of the two Christs so similar? Could it be possible that both were legends? If that was the case, there must be other legends of Christ in other lands. The priest told him there was only 'one' Christ. All the others were imposters. The priest told him to 'believe' but he wanted to 'know'. So he left the Christian School, and started out upon his journey of honest investigation.

When he grew older he attended some of the lectures in the pagan schools and eventually became acquainted with the basic ideas underlying all the great philosophies. {He would have been a couple of centuries too late to study with Cleopatra at the feet of a man real scholars think taught Jesus.} He pondered over the profound statements that he heard, and often in the night their meaning, it is said, was revealed to him in dreams and visions. In the course of time people began to speak of him as 'theodidaktos', the "god-taught". But Ammonius was a modest man, and called himself merely a 'Philalethian', or lover of truth. He started the Neoplatonic School in Alexandria in the year 193 A.D." (1)