#syro-roman god
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Liturgical Elements: The Embolism
In the liturgical rubrics of the Mass, the "embolism" refers to a short prayer spoken out loud by the priest after the congregation has collectively recited the Lord's Prayer. According to Nicholas Ayo (The Lord's Prayer: A Survey Theological and Literary, page 196), "the embolism functions like a marginal gloss, an explanation of the last line of the Pater, and an unfolding of its many implications."
In reformed liturgy of the Roman Church, the English translation of the embolism is as follows:
Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil; graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of Your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
In the Tridentine form of the Roman Mass, a longer embolism was recited:
Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils past, present, and to come; and by the intercession of the Blessed and glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God, together with Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew, and all the saints, mercifully grant peace in our days, that sustained by help of Thy mercy we may be always free from sin and safe from all disturbance. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
The Ambrosian Rite, being another Latin rite, has an embolism that is unsurprisingly similar to the Tridentine one:
Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils past, present, and to come; and at the intercession for us of Blessed Mary who brought forth our God and Lord, Jesus Christ; and of Thy holy Apostles Peter and Paul and Andrew, and of blessed Ambrose Thy confessor and bishop, together with all Thy saints, favorably give peace in our days, that assisted by the help of Thy mercy we may be both delivered from sin and safe from all turmoil. Fulfill this by Him with whom Thou livest blessed and reignest God, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.
The embolism was not only an element of Roman liturgies, either. Take, for example, this embolism used by the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (notice how the doxology that follows the modern Roman embolism is instead integrated into this one):
Merciful Lord, lover of all mankind, do not let us be overcome by temptation, but deliver us from the rebellious evil one and his perverse and evil ways. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to You and Your Only Son and Your Holy Spirit, now and always and forever.
Here is the embolism of the Syro-Malabar Church, reflecting the Eastern Syriac rather than Western Syriac tradition:
Lord, God Almighty! Fullness of all goodness! Our Merciful Father! We entreat You for Your mercy. Do not lead us into temptation. Deliver us from the evil one and his hosts. For Yours is the kingdom, the might, the power, and the dominion in heaven and earth, now, always, and forever.
In the Greek liturgies, the embolism only survives in the Liturgy of Saint James, which has the following:
Lord, lead us not into temptation, O Lord of hosts! For Thou dost know our frailty; but deliver us from the wicked one, from all his works, from all his assaults and craftiness; through Thy Holy Name, which we call upon to guard us in our loneliness.
On a final note, Fr. Frederick Holweck, the author of the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the embolism, thought that the Mozarabic embolism in particular was "very beautiful." In addition to being said after the Our Father at Mass, the following prayer was also said after the Our Father in the Mozarabic Church's Morning and Evening prayers:
Delivered from all evil, strengthened forever in good, may we be worthy to serve Thee, our God and Lord: and put an end, O Lord, to our sins; grant joy to them that are afflicted; bestow redemption upon the captives, health upon the sick, and repose to the departed. Grant peace and safety in all our days, shatter the audacity of our enemies, and hearken, O God, to all the prayers of Thy servants, all faithful Christians, upon this day and at all times. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, ever through all the ages of ages.
#Mass#Liturgy#Catholicism#Orthodox Christianity#prayers#embolism#Mozarab Catholic#Syro-Malankara Catholic#Syro-Malabar Catholic#Byzantine Catholic
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a messy chart displaying how the many motifs in Deltarune are (potentially) connected to each other.
of course, this isn't everything (missing Ralsei, Noelle, Kris, and the Weird Route's connections) but it does cover a great majority of things related to the biblical and greek mythological themes.
text boxes on the chart below (warning, large blocks of text):
text on the right of the blue God Bubble: "Satan is imprisoned within the Abyss (Revelation 20:2-4)"
text on the right of the purple Chaos Bubble: "God’s separation of Heaven and Earth creates a gap/the Abyss, which is also known as Chaos in Christian theology."
text below the red Satan Bubble: "Susie has crown motifs, which she shares with the Beast (Sea) and the Great Red Dragon"
text to the left of the white Tartarus Bubble: "Gaster’s connection has direct connection to the Beast out of the Earth. The Beast (Earth) puts a mark upon people’s right hands, the number of the beast being 666. The number is also the number of a man. (Revelation 13:17-18)"
text to the right of the white Tartarus Bubble: "??? has symbols related to the DR Titans, and the area resembles Tartarus and Sheol."
text below the teal Godzilla Bubble: "Tartarus, where the Greek Titans are imprisoned, is hidden within Gaia. DR Titans presumably hidden within the Earth too"
text directly right of the teal Godzilla Bubble: "Godzilla is known as “King of the Monsters”, and awakens from the sea."
text directly below the gold Lion Bubble: "Susie’s Roar ACT references lions, and has relation to the mouth. The Beast out of the Sea has a mouth “like that of a lion” (Revelation 13)"
text below the blue Ocean Bubble: "Ocean.ogg plays when entering ???"
text on the right of the pale purple Jevil Bubble: "Jevil’s Devilsknife (a scythe). Susie wields this"
text on the right of the green No Symbol: "Cronus castrated Uranus with the scythe/sickle, separating him from Gaia"
text directly below the green No Symbol: "Cronus tosses his father’s gonads into the Sea"
largest text on the far right side of the chart: "Chaos: In Hesiod’s Theogony, (possibly) out of Chaos came Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros, and certainly “birthed” Nyx and Erebus. Hesiod’s Chaos was also a place, underground and gloomy, and where the Titans resided. In Aristophanes’s comedy, Birds, from Chaos and Eros came the race of birds. (Wings, and things related to birds are a recurring motif in Deltarune) Pherecydes of Syros interpreted Chaos as water, shapeless. (Water appears as the background during Deltarune’s Intro Sequence) And in the Roman poet’s Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Chaos was a formless mass where all the elements were cluttered together. Latin to English translated, from Wiki: “Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all— the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony) "
bonus thing not included on the chart:
Jevil has a couple of connections to Ovid's narrative poem, Metamorphoses. when Jevil transforms into Devilsknife, he says "metamorphoses". Ovid's poem also talks about Chaos, which is Jevil's element and phrase.
God's creation week seems to share aspects of the Greek Titan's mythology. the Prophecy of Delta Rune is very similar to the true Titan mythology, therefore it parallels creation week.
#safeutdr#deltarune#deltarune meta#deltarune susie#deltarune titans#mx24#deltanalysis#undescribed#< ish#[ idk when i'll get to a chart on the alt route but i'm very excited to (i already have the connections made in my head) ]#christianity cw#greek mythology
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"Zeus himself, the central character in Hesiod’s Theogony, bears some of the most easily recognizable Northwest Semitic features, in addition to those of the Indo-European Sky God inherited by the Greeks. It is not necessary, therefore, to discuss them at length. It suffices to recall that the Canaanite Storm God Baal and the homologous Greek god share a similar position in the succession of kings in Heaven, as well as the position of the youngest son. They both reign from a palace on a northern mountain (Olympos, Zapanu/Zaphon), and they wield thunder as their distinctive weapon. As with his Near Eastern counterparts, thunder, lightning, and the thunderbolt were the “missiles/shafts of great Zeus.” The position of his sister and principal consort Hera is like that of Anat, Baal’s sister and partner (though not consort). For some, this coupling “violates the incest taboo” in Greek myth but allows Hera to remain an “equal” partner according to her right of birth, as the daughter of Kronos. In Il. 4.59 she is the oldest daughter, in Il. 16.432,18.352 she is called “sister and wife” and in Hesiod Th. 454 she is the youngest daughter of Kronos, exactly as Zeus is the last son.
The list of similarities between Zeus and the different manifestations of the Canaanite god (either Baal or El or Yahweh in the later Hebrew theology) is long and has been the subject of much discussion by classicists, Semitists, and biblical scholars. Perhaps most interesting are the parallels noticeable at the level of their epithets, such as Zeus the “cloud-gatherer” (nephelegereta)or “lightener” (asteropetes), and the frequent characterization of Baal in Ugaritic poetry as the “cloud-rider” (rkb ʿrpt). Other epithets of the Northwest Semitic Storm God Adad (Haddad) are preserved in Akkadian hymns, such as “lord of lightning” or “establisher of clouds.” …
Zeus’ “high-in-the-Sky” position and Sky-nature are reflected in other epithets such as hypatos and hypsistos. At the same time, similar divine epithets meaning “the high one” (eli, elyon, and ram) are very common in Northwest Semitic religious texts, accompanying several principal divinities. For instance, this epithet is used in the Ugaritic epic for Baal, and different forms of the adjective are attested in Aramaic, as well as in the Hebrew Bible accompanying El, Yahweh, and Elohim. … The association of the Storm God in Syro-Palestine with the bull as a symbol of fertility is also present in the various mythological narratives involving Zeus, most clearly in the famous motif of Zeus’ kidnapping the Phoenician princess Europa and carrying her on his back after taking the shape of a bull.
The final fight of Zeus with Typhon (Th. 820-880) has also been compared to the fight between Baal and Yam (the Sea) in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle and to that between Demarous and Pontos (the Sea) in Philon’s Phoenician History (P.E. 1.10.28). As mentioned earlier, the Storm God’s struggle with a monster also (albeit more distantly) resembles the clash between the Hurrian Weather God Teshub and the monsters Ullikummi, Illuyanka, and Hedammu. The figure of Typhon in Hesiod can in fact be seen as a Greek version of a “cosmic rebel” repeatedly reimagined with different characteristics in the specific versions, who endangers the Weather God’s power and generally has both marine and chthonic features. The Levantine and Greek adversaries probably have more than a merely thematic resonance, as the very name of Typhon might have a Semitic origin. It has hypothetically but quite convincingly been associated with the Semitic name Zaphon. Mount Zaphon (Ugaritic Zapunu or Zapanu) is a central point of reference in the geography and the religion of Ugarit. Known by Greeks and Romans as Kasion oros/ mons Casius (today Jebel al-Aqra), this peak on the north coast of Syria (south of the Orontes River) was also mentioned in Hurrian-Hittite myths. The mountain occupies a central spot in both the fight between Ullikummi and Teshub (as Mount Hazzi) and in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. In the Ugaritic epic, the fight against Yam (the Sea) is not described as taking place on the mountain, but the celebration of Baal’s victory is, as it is the god’s abode overlooking the Mediterranean: “With sweet voice the hero sings / over Baalu on the summit / of Sapan (= Zaphon).” Much later, Apollodoros locates the cosmic fight with Typhon on Mons Casius precisely, which indicates that the link between Typhon and Zaphon had persisted, even though the name known to Hellenistic authors was the Greek, not the Semitic one."
- When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East by Carolina López-Ruiz
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The point of the Christian life is not to distinguish oneself from the ungodly, but to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation—symbolized by its finality in the cross, which is God’s great act of solidarity instead of judgment. Without a doubt, Jesus perfectly exemplified this seeing, and thus passed it on to the rest of history. This is how we are to imitate Christ, the good Jewish man who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician woman and the Roman centurions who followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who collaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all stripes; in eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those “outside the law.” Jesus had no trouble whatsoever with otherness. In fact, these “lost sheep” found out they were not lost to him at all, and tended to become his best followers.
Richard Rohr
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Fr. Troy Beecham
Sermon, Proper 16 A, 2023
Matthew 16:13-20
“When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. “
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus continues his ministry in Gentile territory. As we saw in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus extended his ministry beyond the Jewish people, and beyond Jewish ideas of who was loved by God and was acceptable as a companion (literally, one with whom you share bread). Jesus was willing to face rejection from his own people in order to teach them, and to teach the Gentiles, that the love of God is not constrained by our ethnic, socio-economic, linguistic filters, or any other filter that we might use to decide who God loves. Jesus later summarizes this by saying, “Do not judge others, for the measure that you use will be used against you”, referring to the Day of Judgment, when God, the only true judge, will call each of us before his throne to account for our lives. St. Paul extends the idea later by saying that we should not even judge ourselves, because our systems of judgment are all irreparably flawed, mostly by self-interest.
This does not translate into a loose interpretation of Jesus saying that all beliefs and behaviors are “ok” with God simply because God loves us where we are when we find him. The opposite is true; Jesus always said to a sinner who had either been rescued by him or who became his disciple “Go and sin no more”. Conversion of life is not a requirement of salvation. Not at all. Salvation is the free gift of God to all who place their trust in him. Conversion of life is, however, the sure sign that we have indeed become vessels of the Holy Spirit of God, who produces in us the “fruits of repentance”, which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The teaching of Jesus that God loved all people was difficult for the Jewish religious leaders of the day, and for most Jewish folks, including his disciples, who were only interested in the salvation of the Jewish people. That Jesus regularly required his disciples to travel with him outside of Jewish territory and to become companions of unclean Gentiles was a tremendous strain upon their fidelity to him, even as much as they were in awe of him and the power of God at work in him. But Jesus is unrelenting in his requirement that all who would be his disciples must grow to love as greatly as he loves, and so in this Gospel reading, Jesus takes his disciples to a true ‘den of iniquity’, to the pagan Roman city of Caesarea Philippi.
Caesarea Philippi was a regional Roman trading hub, located along major trade routes that connected sea trade from Caesarea Maritima to the inland cities across the region. One of the distinguishing physical features of the city was a massive grotto and cave system, which every ancient culture considered to be the gateway to the underworld, literally called the Gates of Hades (Hell). In earlier eras, when that region was occupied by the Canaanites and the Syro-Phoenicians, there was a shrine dedicated to Baal, a deity who demanded human sacrifice, especially the ritual murder of infants and children. After the conquest of Alexander the Great, the shrine was rededicated to the Greco-Roman fertility deity Pan (literally, ‘the one who is all’). The religion of Pan was primarily a religion of fertility, a religion that exalted sex, power, and wealth, and that included ritual orgies as worship of the deity. For faithful Jews, the association of the Gates of Hell with pagan, Gentile religion was an easy one.
In much the same way, it is easy for any of us to judge other peoples as being unclean, unworthy of God’s love, and worthy of destruction. Every people, every nation, every political party, every religion thrives, on some level, on the judgment of others ‘not like us’ and ‘dangerous to our way of life’. Human history is replete with examples of human wickedness perpetrated ‘for the good’ because of our human systems judgment. It is for this reason that Jesus is so clear that we must not judge each other because only God can judge. And the Day of Judgment is still on its way.
The entire history of the Jewish people as recorded in the Old Testament is the story of the faithfulness of God and of the Jewish people struggling to live as the covenant people of God, living according to the Torah rather than falling into living according to the beliefs and practices of the Gentile nations around them. The Prophets declared that the conquest of Israel and Judea some 600 years before the time of Jesus was because the Jewish people had repeatedly turned away from God to the worship of pagan deities and living lives that did not give witness to the covenant of God. The fact that Rome had conquered the Jews again brought up for them painful memories and even more painful questions about why had God seemed to abandoned them, again, and what would it take from them for God to save them from their oppressors. The summation of those questions had crystalized into expectations for the coming of the Messiah, the divinely anointed king and military leader who would drive out their enemies, restore their people’s freedom, and leave them unencumbered in their worship of God. As people living under occupation, it had become intensely important that the Jewish people lived visibly different lives from the Gentiles. Faithfulness to the Law and the Prophets had taken on an urgent intensity for the Jewish people.
With such an urgent, intense desire for redemption, the most important question for Jews during the time of Jesus was how to identify the Messiah. Jesus had recently warned his disciples about religious leaders who can foretell the weather but “cannot interpret the signs of the times”, and how they influence others with their flawed systems of judgment, leading them astray. This is the pressure cooker context of Jesus asking his disciples who the people, and who they, said he was. The Greek text shows that when Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?", the verb is in the imperfect, noting a repeated action. Jesus continually asks and continues to this day to ask: “Who do you say that I am?” The answers provided by the disciples are interesting. The people, which seems to mean Jew and Gentile alike, are unclear, but they are certain that at the least he is a prophet, a miracle worker. And so many people today, even many who call themselves Christians, are happy to consider Jesus a prophet, a miracle worker, a great teacher. But Jesus is clear that such simple ‘belief’ is not enough because it falls utterly short of the staggering Truth: Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.
The implications for calling Jesus the Messiah are deep, and conflicted. In the Old Testament, kings and prophets, and even the High Priest, were all anointed when they assumed their office. The Hebrew word for ‘anointed’ is mashiach - messiah. Each of these offices were in their own small way individual parts of a whole that was expected of the true Messiah who would come at the end of time and usher in the Day of Judgment. So when Simon declares that Jesus is that very Messiah, and the Son of God, he is both giving words to the revelation of God and to the complicated hopes of his people. Such a revelation must surely be shouted from the rooftops! People have often wondered why Jesus then says, “Tell no one that I am the Messiah, the Son of God.” This was the greatest revelation in human history! This was the news that the Jewish people so desperately wanted to hear! Why keep it quiet?!?
Jesus commands them to tell no one because of their complicated ideas and hopes about who the Messiah is and who God is. Right up until the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were all excited about Jesus being the Messiah, a military leader who would defeat their enemies and restore national sovereignty. Their hearts and minds were filled with generations of hope that inevitably required the deaths of their enemies and ended in their investiture with power and authority. How many times did Jesus rebuke his disciples for arguing who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God? For them, and, if we’re honest, for we ourselves, to say that God was on their side meant that God was going to destroy all the people who they hated, for certainly God shares all of our judgments against our enemies! Surely God justifies all of our violence because we are on the side of justice!, says our sinful hears.
The Jewish people of the 1st century AD, as equally as we today, had very earthly hopes: they all wanted an end to the crushing oppression of the Roman Empire. Each internal group understood this happening in different ways, but ultimately they agreed that it was for the same reason. The long-expected Messiah was destined to overthrow Rome and put them on the top of the smoking pile of rubble, because rubble is always the only thing left when humans make war against each other. As N.T. Wright puts it, no first century Jew would have said: "I want the Messiah to come, die in a humiliating fashion, be resurrected and then promise us that if we follow him, we will die and then enter into a non-earthly eternity with God that will include lots of non-Jews.", and "Everyone knew that a crucified Messiah was a failed Messiah." The Messiah was to bring about the new reign of God on earth, not die as a victim of the intersection of empire and temple.
But that is the Messiah that God had intended all along, as Jesus so patiently tried to teach them. And the disciples were left with crushed hopes and dreams at his crucifixion, and their trust in God was broken. How often do we experience the same desolation when God fails to act in ways that we expect? And even knowing this, Jesus says to the disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” I want to avoid the dispute about papal authority as much as I can do. The Greek text “I will give you” is in the plural, meaning that Jesus gives to all of the disciples, not just the 12 apostles, but to all who believe that he is the Son of God, the authority to bind and loose, not just Peter alone. So, what may we make of this contentious statement of Jesus?
In rabbinic traditions, the use of the terms “bind” and “loose”, or “oblige” and “permit”, have to do with the authority of the leader of the community to declare what is permissible or not in the believing community. Jesus confers authority to all the disciples to modify the still primarily Jewish Christian community's stance toward the Law, thus opening the way for Gentiles to be considered full members of the Church. At the time when Jesus commands them to “Tell no one”, such inclusion was still not accepted or understood by the disciples. That would only come later, after the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Matthew is here writing in retrospect to support the disciples authority to declare that eating with Gentiles, and by extension other non-observances of the Law, is acceptable where it is in accordance with the teaching, example, and commandments of Jesus to love as greatly as he loved. Even then, the matter was not settled for the Jewish disciples of Jesus for decades.
This came to the fore in the dispute over Peter's decision to visit to the Gentile Cornelius and to eat non-kosher, unclean food, and then to baptize him and his entire family without requiring first that they become Jewish. The report in Acts 11:2b-3: “the circumcised believers criticized [Peter], saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’” Peter's initial response is predicated on the authority given by Jesus to his true disciples to determine that the Law was no longer binding on either Jewish or Gentile Christians. The matter was clearly not settled, as we see from the convening of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15, c. 45 CE). In the Acts account, Peter continues to speak from the position of the authority conferred by Jesus, even though he was once rebuked by Paul for temporarily giving in to the pressure of those who still believed that the Mosaic Law was binding. Although the ultimate decision of the Council still required abstention from blood, from strangled animals, and from food sacrificed to idols, within a few generations all requirements from the Mosaic Law were abandoned.
What are we to make of these things in our own times, my friends? What are the new laws that we have created in our own image to determine who is acceptable and who is deplorable, who has privilege and who’s privilege must be burned down? How are our modern equivalents: critical theory, intersectional theory, the profound evil of Marxist/socialist/fascist philosophy that is becoming increasingly accepted in our nation, corporate/crony capitalism, the great evil of abortion, the profound confusion of sexuality and the mutilation of our bodies - even parents doing it to their children!, to try to change the perception of our God given biological sex, our government increasingly becoming tyrannical, and so many others? Who has the authority to say which of these are obliged and permitted, to bind or to loose? Any true disciple, and any true Church, has that authority, based on the Scriptures. And we are called to bind these great evils in the name of Jesus!
Even so, we still have to examine ourselves, and ask God to reveal to us if we any different from the disciples as they were in this morning’s Gospel reading. Is Jesus telling me or you to not tell anyone that he is the Messiah? Are we still so filled with our ideas of justice, who has the right to exercise power over others, who should be excluded, and who is a human worthy of protection and love. What parts of our lives have still to be sanctified before our claims to be disciples of Jesus are credible? How much does the Church have to repent, and what must we reject as being non-Biblical in our ecclesiastical life and return to Jesus as he is revealed in the Holy Scriptures? How much does our proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God still reflect our cultural prejudices and false beliefs? Who, looking at the Church, looking at me or you, can see anything of the Resurrected Savior who loves us all without judgment in us? These are weighty and essential questions for us to ask of ourselves and the Church. May God enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we might see the Truth and be transformed by the Holy Spirit that we might be bearers of that Truth, the Truth who is Jesus.
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
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Finding More about Elagabalus/Illah Al-Jabal 1
So Elagabalus or Illah Al-Jabal is a God I am very interested in so I figured I would share what I find on here. (I usually call him Illah Al-Jabal, which is the Arabic translation of the name, cuz I know more Arabic than I do Greek so I find that more easier personally) This is also my first type of this kind of post, so please forgive me if it’s all over the place
Molefi Kete Asante and Shaza Ismail, Interrogating the African Roman Emperor Caracalla: Claiming and Reclaiming an African Leader:
“Severus's wife, Julia Domna, came from a famous city in the ancient world called Emesa. She was well regarded when married to Septimius Severus due to the temples from her home which were dedicated to the God Elagabalus (the Sun God), represented by a black stone which is said to have fallen from the sky as a meteorite (Haynes, 1993). When Septimius Severus died in 211 a.d. while on campaign in Britain, he left the Roman treasury with a secure surplus and the military at a height of loyalty to the emperor that it had not seen in many years. Unlike his father, unfortunately, Caracalla was just not likable (Boatwright et al., 2004).”
This was interesting mainly in that it was said that Illah Al-Jabal was represented by a black stone that was a meteorite. I am sure for everyone a certain black stone came to mind, which was also said to be dedicated to a different God in the area. But with this I wanted to look up what this source was so I decided to find this Haynes source. And well....... it wasn’t exacty what I was looking for but it was still a great treasure.
Haynes, The Romanisation of Religion in the 'Auxilia' of the Roman Imperial Army from Augustus to Septimus Severus
“Emesa was famous in the ancient world for its magnificent temple to the god Elah-Gebel (Elagabalus). The city was ruled by the Sohemais family of priest-kings for many generations and it was the daughter of one of these, Julia Domna, that the ambitious Septimius Severus married. It was not until the reign of the emperor Heliogabalus (June A.D. 218-March A.D. 222) that the city's god became widely known in the Roman empire. Dedications from Intercisa indicate that the god was venerated by the Hemeseni based in the fort. A number can be dated reasonably accurately. The most interesting is a unit dedication datable to the 23 August A.D. 214.71 Even if it is accepted that the regiment could have been receiving Semitic recruits as late as A.D. 183, as Kennedy argues, such soldiers would have retired at least six years before this inscription was erected. The inscription cannot be explained as the result of imperial dictates as Domaszewski argued, because Heliogabalus was still four years away from ascending the throne. Its date shows that even after the ethnic composition of the regiment may have changed the cult was sufficiently popular to attract such dedications. The naming of Elagabalus on two other datable inscriptions, both recording work on a temple,73 reinforces the impression of strong links between the regiment and the god. Indeed, it is quite likely that cohors I Hemesenorum was responsible for the initial construction of the temple at Gorsium and that later soldiers simply followed the practices of their predecessors. Three further undated inscriptions from the area attest to the worship of the god, but, with the exception of one which records a Semitic soldier from an unknown unit, they are of little interest. The veneration of other gods was less common among the followers of Elagabalus than those of other deities. It is not therefore surprising that Dea Syria, for example, does not receive the attention at Intercisa that she does elsewhere. The area around Intercisa has produced a number of altars and dedications to gods other than Elagabalus. Significantly almost all of these are to gods of the Roman pantheon or the Imperial cult. The only possible exceptions to this are dedications by an eques (AE 1956, 16) and a veteranus (Alba Regia ii (1970), No. 463) to a probably localised form of Jupiter, IOM Culminari. The inscriptions left by cohors I Hemesenorum indicate that where a wide range of datable epigraphic material is available it is possible to show that beliefs originating in regimental homelands could survive even after a unit's ethnic composition had changed.”
While I was unable to find any information about the black stone mentioned, I found a lot more information, maybe even more interesting! Even when this auxiliary unit that it is mentioning no longer has Syrian or Semitic recruits, the worship of Illah Al-Jabal stayed with the auxiliaries, even to the exception of other Gods. While I am certainly just starting with my research with this, this definitely tells me that there is more to Illah Al-Jabal than can be seen at first glance
Sources
Asante, Molefi Kete, and Shaza Ismail. "Interrogating the African Roman Emperor Caracalla: Claiming and Reclaiming an African Leader." Journal of Black Studies 47, no. 1 (2016): 41-52. Accessed December 29, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24572958.
Haynes, I. P. "The Romanisation of Religion in the 'Auxilia' of the Roman Imperial Army from Augustus to Septimus Severus." Britannia 24 (1993): 141-57. Accessed December 29, 2020. doi:10.2307/526726.
#gods#Religio Romana#roman polytheism#roman polytheist#bad Roman#roman pagan#roman reconstructionism#hellenic reconstructionism#syrian reconstructionism#syro-roman#syro-roman god#ayas research#illah aljabal#illahaljabal#illah al-jabal#elagabalus#elah gebel
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Who is Baal, anyway?
As I mentioned in my previous article, the instigator of the recent attacks on museums in Berlin believes some of the artifacts held in them to be part of a nefarious, bloodthirsty cult, prominent on the “global satanism scene” and devoted to “Baal (Satan),” as he put it himself according to articles covering this incident. In the following article I'll discuss the origin of this esoteric claim, as well as the actual nature of Baal, myths associated with him, other similar deities and their role in the ancient Middle East (and beyond).
I'll start with the matters I am not particularly enthusiastic about: Baal is the star of many conspiracy theories, mostly these which arise in christian fundamentalist circles, and which cast him as the deity venerated by nefarious groups, ranging from insufficiently conservative political parties and ethnic minorities to vampiric aliens, blamed for all of the world's evils.
He owes this status to being one of the most frequently mentioned “false gods” or “idols” in the Bible. In fringe pseudohistory context it's basically a given that Baal is equated with the nebulous figure of Moloch, the child sacrifice boogeyman. They are not actually analogous, though - Baal is brought up in relation to idol worship, depicted as powerless, and generally associated with people from coastal cities like Sidon and Tyre – the groups Greeks collectively called „Phoenicians.”
Moloch meanwhile is associated with the Ammonites, whose kingdom lied further inland – it is possible that he is therefore a biblical corruption of the Ammonite god Milkom. Some researchers propose instead that “Moloch” was a type of sacrifice involving the burning of victims in honor of a deity – this theory matches both the accounts of biblical Moloch, as well as some Greek and especially Roman accounts meant to prove the debased, barbaric nature of Phoenicians, especially these from Carthage.
In later writing, all of the idols and false gods mentioned in the Bible were equated with the devil - in reality their inclusion in biblical text likely reflects struggle between various faiths and their cult centers in ancient Canaan, and later increasingly more fragmentary memories of it. In Christian demonology and in occultism, in addition to their names being considered synonyms of the devil, new demonic identities were assigned to them, which is where the popculture idea of Beelzebub, Bael and other similarly named figures has its origin.
As almost every type of pseudohistory eventually connects to blood libel (or an equivalent of it), the exaggerated assumptions about biblical Moloch inspired Gilbert K. Chesteron to propose that blood libel was based on real events, specifically on possible outbreaks of “idolatry” in Jewish communities leading to bloody sacrifices. Needless to say, this is an outlandish, baseless claim rooted in prejudice.
The scarce textual sources left behind by the Phoenicians themselves do not discuss any rites which match biblical and roman claims particularly commonly – occasional mentions paint an image similar to the sacrifice of Iphigenia in Greek myth, which would imply that human sacrifice was either the domain of myth, or a rarely performed act which only occurred as an irrational response in times of great peril. Romans claimed the epicenter of such practices was Carthage, their early rival to the title of the preeminent power of the Mediterranean, and its recipient was its tutelary god, Baal Hammon – a figure not directly relate to the biblical Baal(s), who I will discuss later, but for centuries commonly assumed to be one and the same as him due to the lack of primary sources.
Excavations from Carthage do show the existence of funerary sites with a high concentration of child burials, but it's a matter of heated scholarly debate if they represent a proof of Roman propaganda being rooted in truth, or if it's simply the result of the well known fact that infant mortality prior to modern times was widespread. The debate is ongoing and I do not follow it closely.
There is however precisely zero evidence of human sacrifice being performed in Ugarit, the most significant site associated with the most famous, and arguably original, Baal. The extensive cult literature recovered from its ruins discusses the sacrifice of cattle, sheep, rams, birds (but only uncommonly), donkeys (only for a specific reconciliation rite), oil, wine, and precious stones and metals - but not humans (researchers also often point out that dogs and pigs were never offered to gods too, which is a pretty clear proof that some taboos present in abrahamic faiths predate them).
The Ugaritic texts do mention that sacrificial meat was at least sometimes shared by the devotees (in the case of sacrifices which did not involve a pyre, obviously – which essentially means such sacrifices were feasts or holiday meals ritually shared with the deity), which I assume where the false idea that both Phoenicians of classical antiquity and their bronze age Canaanite forerunners were cannibals might come from.
This specific claim seems to be currently spreading as “trivia” online, alongside a false etymology of the word cannibal (a term only attested since the beginning of Spanish colonization of the Americas). It should be noted that even the researchers who do believe that human sacrifice might have sometimes occurred in Carthage do not suggest that it was followed by cannibal feasts, and even in Roman propaganda texts from the Punic wars period no such claims show up, despite their obvious bias and need to demonize the recently vanquished rival nascent power.
In art of ancient Levant, worshipers are sometimes depicted as tiny compared to gods – many “scandalous” conspiracy posts claim as a result that the minuscule figures raising their hands on ancient artifacts represent infants sacrifices to the gods depicted. However, accompanying inscriptions identify them as kings or priests – this is the case, for example, with the famous Baal stele from Ugarit, depicting a king praying to the tutelary god of the city.
With the unpleasant matters out of the way, it's time to finally ask - who is Baal?
Baal refers both to a specific figure, and to the general concept of a head god of a city's pantheon in certain parts of the Levant and Mesopotamia. “Baal” simply means “lord” and can be found in both titles and names of not only gods, but also royals – including some biblical examples.
As I said, the Baal most famous today is Baal Hadad of Ugarit, a city in present day Syria which was among the victims of bronze age collapse. This Baal was derived from an earlier god, Adad, who seemingly first became a major figure near present day Aleppo, emerging as the head of the local variation of Syro-Hurro-Mesopotamian pantheon. Eventually, the title of Baal started to be regarded as his true name, with Hadad relegated to the rank of a title. His other titles include “Rider of Clouds” and “Aliyan” (“Victorious”). His cult survived the destruction of Ugarit, and flourished well into Ptolemaic times.
In Ugarit, he served not only as a god of rain and thunder, but also agriculture and fertility, and, as expected from the lead god, a source of royal power. He was depicted as an impulsive and boastful figure in myths, but was also a firm ally of humans, subduing monsters, the forces of nature, and even promising to protect his followers from wrath of other gods in myths. His symbolic animal was the bull, and he was usually depicted in horned headwear. The associations between bull horns and divinity is well attested in the religious art of Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Levant, and to a degree Egypt too. Bulls are prominently featured in the art of Minoan Crete as well. This is also why the biblical golden calf is, well, a calf.
Baal Hadad's family tree is rather confusing, with two separate gods being called his fathers in the Baal Cycle and other texts. The interpretation can potentially be complicated by the fact that Ugarit's (and other bronze age kingdoms’) kings seemingly often called monarchs they viewed as more powerful as „fathers” and these of similar perceived prestige as „brothers” in diplomatic correspondence. For example, one can operate undeer the assumption the god Dagon was Baal's actual father (he's only ever brought up in such a context, and shared many of Baal's roles, and like him was a prominent god deeper inland as well) while El, the elderly king of the gods, was only Baal's „father” in the diplomatic sense of the term. Some scholars instead propose that Dagon and El were partially or fully syncretised in Ugarit, that mention of Dagan was a nod to foreign tradition, or even that Baal having two fathers might be the echo of the myth of Baal's Hittite counterpart.
Our main source of information about Baal is the Baal cycle, a heroic epic recovered from Ugarit in the 1920s and a subject of much scholarly analysis ever since. While not perfectly preserved, it is nonetheless a very valuable source of information, and arguably it's what allowed Baal to metaphorically speak in his own voice to modern researchers. It details his struggle with various enemies seeking to ruin his dream of becoming the king of the gods.
While it's hard to tell if that was the intent of the ancient writers, Baal appears as somewhat of an underdog in this myth – his posdible father doesn't seem to be a god of particular importance, he has to rely on his allies to accomplish most of his heroic deeds, he whines about having no house of his own, and his actions are often impulsie. However, this shouldn't overshadow the fact he was for the most part the most popular god of Ugarit.
Figures associated with the Ugaritic Baal include:
Anat - a war goddess who shares Baal's impulsive nature, and in myths frequently acts as his main ally or enforcer, slaying various sea monsters and the personification of death, Mot (however, there are a few instances showing Baal siding with humans rather than with Anat). She's often referred to as Baal's sister, and sometimes argued to also be his consort, though this view is challenged nowadays by some researchers. It should be noted that while Baal is firmly established as Dagon's son, Anat is never presented as related to the latter – she is pretty firmly only a daughter of El and, implicitly, his wife Asherah.
Ashtart - the Ugaritic forerunner of the famous Phoenician Astarte. She was equated with Babylonian Ishtar, and while she's not as prominent as Anat in Ugaritic texts, they emphasize her roles as a warrior and hunter; she is however also renowned for her beauty. In the Baal Cycle she berates Baal for his insufficient determination during the battle with his first opponent, and later announces his victory to the world. In many texts, both in Ugarit and beyond, her epithet is “face of Baal,” implying a particularly close bond between these two figures – it is plausible that she was viewed as Baal's consort in Ugarit. Ashtart/Astarte is NOT the same figure as Asherah (technically Athirat), the Canaanite mother goddess, and both of them appear in the Baal cycle in different roles.
Kothar-wa-Khasis – a craftsman god, indirectly equated with and possibly in part derived from Egyptian Ptah – myths state outright that he lives in Memphis, where Ptah's main temple was located. He acts as a reliable ally to Baal, providing him with weapons and precious objects and eventually also building his palace. In one scene, an argument occurs between him and Baal over whether the palace needs windows:
Yam – the god of the sea, also serving as Baal's rival to the throne. Various passage of the myth and other texts portray him as violent, tyrannical and otherwise unpleasant, and his overthrow by Baal as a positive development. He's aided by a number of sea monsters, the most notable of which is the serpent Lotan. It has been argued that that the later Babylonian Tiamat was in part based on him or his counterparts, as she doesn't appear in any Babylonian sources earlier than Enuma Elish, which is a work younger by a few centuries than the Baal cycle.
Mot – a personification of death and desolation. While even Yam received some reverence and offerings, Mot did not – he only existed as an antagonist for heroic figures. Mot's main trait is his insatiable hunger.
While the Baal from Ugarit is, due to possessing his own heroic epic, the most famous and probably best researched today, he was by no means the only deity of this sort – most cities in the Levant (and beyond, in other areas settled by the Phoenicians) had their own tutelary gods, often referred to as Baals.
Among these, notable examples include:
The Baal of Tyre – Melqart served as the lead deity of the city of Tyre, seemingly the most prominent of the Phoenician centers. His name seems to simply mean “lord of the city”. He was a god of many things, most notably being viewed as a culture hero who discovered the secret of producing the purple dye which made Phoenician city-states rich and prosperous. He was also an underworld deity, and as a result an association with Babylonian Nergal has been proposed. It's quite likely that the Tyrian Baal was the one mentioned in some Biblical accounts – for example, Jezebel was said to be a princess of Tyre, therefore it's plausible that the god she revered was the Tyrian Baal. Greeks regarded him as analogous to Heracles, sadly I am unable to find the explanation for this.
The Baal of Sidon – Eshmun, a healing deity. He was seemingly viewed as analogous to the Mesopotamian Tammuz, Ishtar's lover condemned to torment in the underworld in her place. The origin of his name is unclear. His myth is somewhat similar to that of Phrygian Attis – the goddess Astronoë (possibly a variant of Astarte/Ishtar) was madly in love with him, but he was, to put it lightly, not interested (unlike Attis), and eventually castrated himself to show that, which lead to his death. He was restored to life (also unlike Attis) and made into a god of healing. Melqart and Eshmun were the two Phoenician gods invoked in a treaty meant to guarantee peace between the coastal regions and Assyria, which shows the high status of their cities in antiquity.
The Baalat of Gebal (Byblos) – Baalat was the feminine form of Baal, and a title sometimes simply applied to any prominent goddess. However, the Baalat of Gebal was seemingly a separate deity, associated with this epithet in the same way as Ugarit's Hadad became inseparable from his title of Baal. Some researchers instead propose she was simply Ashtart/Astarte, though Anat, Asherah, and Egyptian Isis and Hathor (while Ugarit was a Hittite or Mittani vassal, Gebal was under Egyptian control) were also proposed as her true identity based on instances of historical syncretism. However, due to very few surviving documents, her exact nature remains puzzling.
Baal Shamin - revered not only by Phoenicians and their ancestors, but also by Nabateans. He was likely initially simply an epithet of Baal Hadad, but developed into a distinct deity in later times. As a separate figure he was the lead god of Palmyra, though he was eventually upstaged by Bel (Marduk) there.
The Baal of Carthage, Hammon - unlike the generally youthful other Baals, he was depicted as an old man. He was also regarded as the father of Melqart, with the latter viewed as a more important deity – Carthage in fact paid tribute to his Tyrian temple. Most of what we know about him comes from Roman sources, and as a result it's hard to tell what was his true nature – it has been proposed he was a sun god at first. He was equated by Greeks with Cronus.
In a way, Babylonian Marduk can be considered to be a Baal – among the titles used to refer to him was “Bel,” the equivalent of “Baal,” and like the coastal Baals he was originally simply the protective deity of a specific city. However, occasional attempts to identify Marduk as originally having roughly the same nature as Adad/Hadad – that of a weather and agriculture god – are generally not considered to be credible by modern researchers. As I already noted, it is however quite likely that Marduk's battle with Tiamat – a figure invented for the Enuma Elish – was at least in part based on Baal's fight with Yam in the Baal cycle.
Sadly, the dubious claims that Tiamat represents a deposed matriarchal order seem to be much more known to the general public – as I already said on my blog before, these are nonsensical and their spread relies on limited understanding of Mesopotamian history. Enuma Elish was not a primordial text, but a myth devised relatively late to further help with increasing Marduk's status by having him perform the same acts as many other popular gods, there is also no evidence of the existence of an earlier matriarchal religion in Sumerian and Akkadian sources.
Curiously, it's also possible the myth of Baal and its analogs and derivatives inspired Zeus' battle with Typhon – it is sometimes said that it took place near mount Saphon, associated with the cult of Baal Hadad and specifically with his battle against Yam.
Egyptians regarded Baal as analogous to Seth – this conflation occurred before Seth's dominant role became that of an opponent of Osiris of his family, and relied on Seth being a god of the borderlands and foreigners inhabiting them, as well as on his chaotic, impulsive nature. Possibly depictions of Seth as the opponents of the serpent Apep were a factor, too. In an Egyptian adaptation of the Ugaritic Baal cycle, the so-called Astarte papyrus, Seth battles Yam, though no outright conflation of the Ugaritic and Egyptian mythical evildoers ever occurred to my knowledge. Baal's supporting cast of Anat and Astarte was likewise associated with Seth in Egypt, and both are referred to as his consorts in Egyptian texts.
Outside of this specific example of syncretism, “Seth” was also sometimes used as a generic title for foreign gods, almost the same was as Baal functioned as a title in the Levant – it was applied to various Canaanite gods, but also to the gods of the Hittites. For example the peace treaty between Ramses II and Hattusili XI mentions “Seth of the city of Zipalanda” and “Seth of the city of Arinna” - corresponding Hittite text reveals that these are simply Teshub, the Hurrian an Hittite monster-slaying thunder god (and close analog of Ugaritic Baal Hadad – as Ugarit was seemingly at least for some time a Hittite dependency, it is more than likely their myths influenced each other), and the sun goddess of Arinna. Egyptians referred to the Libyan god Ash as a Seth, too. Curiously, at least one Ugaritic text identifies the city's Baal with Amun, rather than Seth – it doesn't seem like this idea caught on in Egypt, though.
Teshub was possibly the deity closest to Baal Hadad both in terms of myths and depictions – compare the one above with the Ugaritic Baal stele from much earlier in this article – but as a little known figure he (and his most notable allies and enemies) deserves his separate post, so I will not discuss him there, beyond letting you know that while Baal simply clobbered Yam with some encouragement from friends, Teshub only managed to best the serpent monster Illuyanka by having his son seduce Illuyanka's daughter in order to recover his internal organs stolen by the snake. Even functionally similar deities can have wildly different stories behind them!
Further reading (most articles available on academia edu, jstor or persee):
A Moratorium on God Mergers? The Case of El and Milkom in the Ammonite Onomasticon by Collin Cornell
Animal sacrifice at Ugarit by Dennis Perdee
The Lady of the Titles: The Lady of Byblos and the Search for her "True Name” by Anna Elise Zernecke
Ugaritic monsters I: The ˁatūku “Bound One” and its Sumerian parallels by Madadh Richey
‛Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts by Mark S. Smith
ʿAthtartu’s Incantations and the Use of Divine Names as Weapons by Theodore J. Lewis
Baal, Son of Dagan: In Search of Baal’s Double Paternity by Noga Ayali-Darshan
The Role of Aštabi in the Song of Ullikummi and the Eastern Mediterranean “Failed God” Stories by Noga Ayali-Darshan
The Death of Mot and his Resurrection in the Light of Egyptian Sources by Noga Ayali-Darshan
The Other Version of the Story of the Storm-god’s Combat with the Sea in the Light of Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Hurro-Hittite Texts by Noga Ayali-Darshan
The storm-gods of ancient Near East: summary, synthesis, recent studies, parts 1 and 2 by Daniel Schwemer
Politics and Time in the Baal Cycle by Aaron Tugendhaft
Echoes of the Baal Cycle in a Safaito-Hismaic Inscription by Ahmad Al-Jallad
My neighbor's god: Assur in Babylonia and Marduk in Assyria by Grant Frame
Gods in translation. Dynamics of transculturality between Egypt and Byblos in the III millennium BC by Angelo Colonna
Zeus Kasios or the Interpretatio Graeca of Baal Saphon in Ptolemaic Egypt by Alexandra Diez de Oliveira
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ZEUS - First Design for the collection “Greek God/Goddesses”
In Greek mythology, Zeus is the god of sky, thunder, winds, clouds and many more, whom from his throne on Mount Olympus, ruled over god and man alike, maintaining order and justice in the universe as the king of the gods. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Indra and Þórr.
Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.
He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus' symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" (Greek: Νεφεληγερέτα, Nephelēgereta) also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.
Etymology
The god's name in the nominative is Ζεύς (Zeús). It is inflected as follows: vocative: Ζεῦ (Zeû); accusative: Δία (Día); genitive: Διός (Diós); dative: Διί (Dií). Diogenes Laërtius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς.
Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph2tēr ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda (Vedic Sanskrit Dyaus/Dyaus Pita), Latin (compare Jupiter, from Iuppiter, deriving from the Proto-Indo-European vocative *dyeu-ph2tēr), deriving from the root *dyeu- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.
The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek, di-we and, di-wo, written in the Linear B syllabic script.
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HOMILY for 6th Sun after Pentecost (Dominican rite)
Rom 6:3-11; Mark 8:1-9
“In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat”. This is how today’s Gospel passage begins. That word in the Greek text of St Mark’s Gospel, palin, meaning ‘again’ reminds us that this is not the first time that Christ and his disciples have been in this situation. For only a couple of chapters before this eighth chapter of St Mark’s Gospel, Christ has been in a deserted place, an uninhabited place in a Jewish region, and five thousand people had gathered around him, and we’re told that, having sat them down on the green grass, he fed them all with five loaves and two fish, and there were twelve baskets leftover (cf Mk 6:30-44). Now, Christ is again in a desolate place, but in a Gentile region, and here four thousand have gathered around him, and, having sat them down on the ground, he feeds them with seven loaves “and a few small fish”, and when all had eaten their fill there were seven large sacks leftover.
Notice in both accounts Christ takes the bread, gives thanks or blesses them, and then gives them to the people. The pattern established here by our Lord, therefore, is the same pattern we find in the Holy Mass: First Christ gathers people around him, taking us away from our busy lives, taking us to a holy place where we can be with him. There, he teaches us as he still does through the Scripture readings and Homily of the Mass. And then, Christ, working in the person of his priest, takes the bread in the Offertory, blesses the bread in the Eucharistic Prayer, and then distributes it to us in Holy Communion. The miraculous feedings that we read of in St Mark’s Gospel thus becomes a reality in our own lives today, through the miracle of the Mass. For it is here that the Lord fills the deepest hungers of the human person, which is for truth, for goodness, for communion with God and one another, for Love.
Through these two miraculous feedings in the Gospel, Christ also reveals that he has come to bring salvation to all nations, all peoples, and gather all humanity into one; into communion with the one God.
In the first instance, the fact that the miraculous feeding of the five thousand takes place in a Jewish region, and the fact that twelve baskets are leftover are signs that Christ has come first to save the people of Israel and to call them to himself. For Christ is the Messiah promised to the Jews, God’s chosen people, and the number twelve reminds us of the twelve tribes of Israel. However, although Christ states that “he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (cf Mt 15:24), nevertheless, in the episode immediately before the Gospel passage we’ve just read today, Christ encounters a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Gentile. She begs for salvation from the Lord, for the crumbs that fall from the table of the Jews, and she even refers to herself (and thus to all us Gentiles) as mere house dogs, puppies, who can yet still benefit from the overflow of salvation, as it were, that flows from Israel. For as the Lord declares in St John’s Gospel: “salvation comes from the Jews” (cf Jn 4:22) and God’s election of Israel, and his call for them to come to salvation has never been revoked (cf Rom 11:28).
However, the salvation of Israel, the fulfilment of the Old Covenant, is now linked to the New Covenant, to the salvation of the Gentiles. For Christ has come to teach, and feed, and to save all peoples, Jew and Gentile alike. St Paul, writing to the Romans, put it like this: “I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25f). He does not mean, I think, that all the Jewish people will be saved, but rather that the new Israel according to the Spirit, the new chosen People of God, is to encompass both Jews and Gentiles, who together shall come to faith in Christ and be saved. What is being stressed here is the extent of salvation in Christ, now extended beyond the borders of Israel to embrace all nations, all peoples, indeed, the whole of the created world.
Hence in the Gospel Christ feeds the four thousand, who come from the four corners of the known world. All peoples now flock to Christ, and they come to listen to him; to be taught by him; to receive divine Wisdom, the revelation of the way to salvation. They have been listening to the Lord for three days, which points to the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity which he imparts to humanity for these are necessary for salvation. The seven loaves with which he feeds us stand for the seven Sacraments of the Church, for these are the means of salvation for all peoples. And finally, the seven baskets indicate the seven days of creation, which is to say that just as the twelve baskets earlier in the Gospels indicated that Christ’s saving words and actions were for the twelve tribes of Israel, so now Christ’s salvation is for all peoples and creatures who were made by God in seven days.
All those who are seated on the ground and fed by Christ are now an ecclesia. This is the Greek term for those who have been called out and gathered together into a worshipping community. So, Christ has called the people out of the cities, out of their frenzied lives, out of the noisy norm into a quiet place, a holy place, where he can form them, and make them in the new Israel, into the community of the redeemed. This is why we come together as a church for divine worship, leaving behind our homes and our busy-ness and distracted and fragmented lives, and allowing God to gather us together to himself here in the Mass. Here he shall teach us, form us, and make us one Church in union with him. All who shall have salvation in Christ are thus called the Catholica, the many who pertain to the universal but who are now united as one ecclesia. For as St Paul says in today’s epistle, “all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus… have been united with him in a death like his.” (Cf Rom 6:3, 5)
Thus, having died to sin, we have been raised to new life, and Christ’s one holy Church is our Mother. Indeed, she is a Mother to all peoples, and her boundaries extend to the ends of the earth because Christ is the one universal King, and his salvation is universal in its application. So the diversity and expanse of the Church is being expressed in today’s Gospel by the four thousand Gentiles, and the seven baskets leftover, but the unity of the Church is expressed by the one miraculous feeding in which they have shared. For we are united as one holy Catholic and apostolic Church in the Mass, for here, in the Church and as a worshipping community, we are nourished by God’s Truth; here we confess one common Faith; and here we are fed on Christ’s own body and blood, which is the Sacrament of unity and of charity.
Hence St Maximus the Confessor said concerning the power of the Catholic Church to unite all in charity that “men, women, children, profoundly divided in nationality, race, language, walk of life, work, knowledge, rank or means… all these she re-creates in the Spirit. On all in the same measure she imprints a divine character. All receive of her a single nature which cannot be divided and by reason of which their many and deep differences can no longer be held in account. By it all are brought up and united in a truly Catholic manner… Christ is also all in all, for he encloses all in himself by his sole power, infinite and all-wise in its goodness, like the centre to which all lines converge, so that all the creatures of the one God should not be strangers or enemies to each other without common ground whereon to show their friendship and the peace between them.”
Therefore, today, on the feast of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, let me end with his wise words: “Each of you knows that the foundation of our faith is charity. Without it, our religion would crumble. We will never be truly Catholic unless we conform our entire lives to the two commandments that are the essence of the Catholic faith: to love the Lord, our God, with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves… With charity, we sow the seeds of that true peace which only our faith in Jesus Christ can give us by making us all brothers and sisters.”
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11th February >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Mark 7:24-30 for Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Now the woman was a pagan’.
Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel (Except USA)
Mark 7:24-30
The astuteness of the Syro-Phoenician woman
Jesus left Gennesaret and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there, but he could not pass unrecognised. A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him straightaway and came and fell at his feet. Now the woman was a pagan, by birth a Syrophoenician, and she begged him to cast the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ But she spoke up: ‘Ah yes, sir,’ she replied ‘but the house-dogs under the table can eat the children’s scraps.’ And he said to her, ‘For saying this, you may go home happy: the devil has gone out of your daughter.’ So she went off to her home and found the child lying on the bed and the devil gone.
Gospel (USA)
Mark 7:24-30
The dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.
Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
Reflections (3)
(i) Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
In the gospels, Jesus normally responds immediately to requests for help, especially to parents who come to him to heal their sick children. The gospel story is unique in showing Jesus very reluctant to respond to the request of a pagan woman on behalf of her daughter. Jesus is in the region of Tyre, which was a predominantly pagan city, although having a strong Jewish presence. Jesus’ words to the woman suggests that he sees his mission as predominantly to his own Jewish people initially, ‘the children should be fed first’. It is only after his death and resurrection that he will engage in a mission to pagans, through those Jews who have come to believe in him. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, the gospel ‘is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek’. However, this Gentile woman is not prepared to wait. She is absolutely determined to change Jesus’ timetable. Like others before her in the Scriptures, Abraham, Moses, Job, she argues with the Lord. She acknowledges that in the eyes of many Jews she may be a Gentile ‘dog’, but she observes that some dogs are almost members of the family and eat at the same time as the children, making the most of the children’s untidying eating habits, as their crumbs fall to the ground. In the end, Jesus grants her request; he changes his plan and responds to her human need. According to the Book of Genesis, Jacob wrestled with God. The story of the pagan woman confirms that sometimes our relationship with the Lord can take the form of a wrestling match or an argument, and the Lord seems to be at ease with that.
And/Or
(ii) Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
The woman in today’s gospel reading is one of the most striking characters in the gospel of Mark. Jesus is in pagan territory, in the region of Tyre, and is approached by a pagan woman. Jesus shows a marked reluctance to engage with her, ‘it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house dogs’. The children, the people of Israel, should be fed first. Jesus seems to have seen his mission as initially a mission to the Jews and only later, after his death and resurrection, as a mission that also embraced the pagans. However, this particular pagan woman was not prepared to wait. She cleverly retorted that the house dogs can be quite happy with the crumbs that fall from the children’s table. In other words, there is no reason why the children and the house dogs, the Jews and the pagans, cannot eat at the same time. In response to her insight and perseverance, Jesus promptly ministers to her. There is a story in the Jewish Scriptures of Jacob wrestling with God. The pagan woman could be understood as wrestling with Jesus, at least verbally. Sometimes we might find ourselves wrestling with the Lord. We don’t take at face value what the Lord appears to be saying to us; we come back at him, as it were. This morning’s gospel reading suggests that such a way of relating to the Lord is not lacking in reverence. The Lord relates to us out of the fullness of his heart and he wants us to relate to him out of the fullness of our hearts, without censoring what is to be found there.
And/Or
(iii) Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
This morning’s gospel reading gives us an insight into a mother’s instinct to leave no stone unturned when the well-being of her child is at stake. Jesus was in Tyre, a predominantly pagan city on the Mediterranean coast. Why had he moved so far beyond his usual area of ministry? The reference to Jesus going into a house and not wanting anyone to know he was there suggests that he may have been seeking some time away on his own. Yet, not for the only time in the gospels, his desire for solitude was frustrated. A pagan woman burst into the house and threw herself at Jesus’ feet, begging him to heal her daughter. The reputation of this Jewish prophet had reached the ears of this pagan woman. Having somehow come to hear that Jesus was in Tyre, she wasn’t going to miss her opportunity. Jesus appeared to give her short shrift, ‘the children should be fed first’ (the people of Israel), certainly before the house dogs (the pagans). Yet, the woman’s determination that Jesus should heal her daughter was in no way deflected. With both humility and humour she retorted that the house dogs and the children can eat quite happily together. Jesus was disarmed. He recognized her tenacious faith and declared there and then that her daughter was healed. There is a story in the Jewish Scriptures of Jacob wrestling with God. This woman was, in a sense, wrestling with Jesus. There can be an element of wrestling with God in our own faith. Our faith can be put to the test when the Lord does not appear to hear our prayer. At such times we need to be as tenacious in our faith as the Syrophoenician woman was.
Fr. Martin Hogan.
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Saints&Reading: Sun. Sept., 27, 2020
Commemorated on September 14_”Old” Julian calendar
The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord
The Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord: The pagan Roman emperors tried to completely eradicate from human memory the holy places where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and was resurrected for mankind. The Emperor Adrian (117-138) gave orders to cover over the ground of Golgotha and the Sepulchre of the Lord, and upon the hill fashioned there to set up a pagan temple of the pagan goddess Venus and a statue of Jupiter. Pagans gathered on this place and offered sacrifice to idols there. Eventually after 300 years, by Divine Providence, the great Christian sacred remains – the Sepulchre of the Lord and the Life-Creating Cross were again discovered and opened for veneration. This occurred under the Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) after his victory in the year 312 over Maxentius, ruler of the Western part of the Roman empire, and over Licinius, ruler of its Eastern part, becoming in the year 323 the sole-powerful ruler of the vast Roman empire. In 313 he had issued the so-called Edict of Milan, by which the Christian religion was legalised and the persecutions against Christians in the Western half of the empire were stopped. The ruler Licinius, although he had signed the Milan Edict to oblige Constantine, still fanatically continued the persecutions against Christians. Only after his conclusive defeat did the 313 Edict about toleration extend also to the Eastern part of the empire. The Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine, having with the assistance of God gained victory over his enemies in three wars, had seen in the heavens the Sign of God – the Cross and written beneathe: "By this thou shalt conquer".
Ardently desiring to find the Cross on which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine sent to Jerusalem his mother, the pious Empress Helen (Comm. 21 May), having provided her with a letter to the Jerusalem patriarch Makarios. Although the holy empress Helen was already in her declining years, she set about completing the task with enthusiasm. The empress gave orders to destroy the pagan temple and idol-statues overshadowing Jerusalem. Searching for the Life-Creating Cross, she made inquiry of Christians and Jews, but for a long time her searchings remained unsuccessful. Finally, they directed her to a certain elderly hebrew by the name of Jude who stated, that the Cross was buried there, where stands the pagan-temple of Venus. They demolished the pagan-temple and, having made a prayer, they began to excavate the ground. Soon there was detected the Sepulchre of the Lord and not far away from it three crosses, a plank with inscription having been done by order of Pilate, and four nails, which had pierced the Body of the Lord. In order to discern on which of the three crosses the Saviour was crucified, Patriarch Makarios alternately touched the crosses to a corpse. When the Cross of the Lord was placed to it, the dead one came alive. Having beheld the rising-up, everyone was convinced that the Life-Creating Cross was found. Christians, having come in an innumerable throng to make veneration to the Holy Cross, besought Saint Makarios to elevate, to exalt the Cross, so that all even afar off, might reverently contemplate it. Then the Patriarch and other spiritual chief personages raised up high the Holy Cross, and the people, saying "Lord have mercy", reverently made poklon/prostration before the Venerable Wood. This solemn event occurred in the year 326. During the discovery of the Life-Creating Cross there occurred also another miracle: a grievously sick woman, beneathe the shadow of the Holy Cross, was healed instantly. The starets/elder Jude and other Jews there believed in Christ and accepted Holy Baptism. Jude received the name Kuriakos (ie. lit. "of the Lord") and afterwards was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem. During the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363) he accepted a martyr's death for Christ (Comm. of Priest-Martyr Kuriakos is 28 October). The holy empress Helen journeyed round the holy places connected with the earthly life of the Saviour – the reason for more than 80 churches – raised up at Bethlehem the place of the Birth of Christ, and on the Mount of Olives from whence the Lord ascended to Heaven, and at Gethsemane where the Saviour prayed before His sufferings and where the Mother of God was buried after the falling-asleep. Saint Helen took with her to Constantinople part of the Life-Creating Wood and nails. The Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine gave orders to raise up at Jerusalem a majestic and spacious church in honour of the Resurrection of Christ, including in itself also the Sepulchre of the Lord, and Golgotha. The temple was constructed in about 10 years. Saint Helen did not survive until the dedication of the temple; she died in the year 327. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. On the following day, 14 September, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross was established.
On this day is remembered also another event connected to the Cross of the Lord, – its return back to Jerusalem from Persia after a 14 year captivity. During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Phokas (602-610) the Persian emperor Khozroes II in a war against the Greeks defeated the Greek army, plundered Jerusalem and led off into captivity both the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord and the Holy Patriarch Zacharios (609-633). The Cross remained in Persia for 14 years and only under the emperor Herakles (610-641), who with the help of God defeated Khozroes and concluded peace with his successor and son Syroes – was the Cross of the Lord returned to Christians from captivity. With great solemnity the Life-creating Cross was transferred to Jerusalem. Emperor Herakles in imperial crown and porphyry(purple) carried the Cross of Christ into the temple of the Resurrection. Alongside the emperor went Patriarch Zacharios. At the gates, by which they ascended onto Golgotha, the emperor suddenly stopped and was not able to proceed further. The Holy Patriarch explained to the emperor that an Angel of the Lord blocked his way, since He That bore the Cross onto Golgotha for the expiation of the world from sin, made His Way of the Cross in the guise of Extreme Humilation. Then Herakles, removing the crown and porphyry, donned plain garb and without further hindrance carried the Cross of Christ into the church.
In a sermon on the Exaltation of the Cross, Saint Andrew of Crete (Comm. 4 July) says: "The Cross is exalted, and everything true gathers together, the Cross is exalted, and the city makes solemn, and the people celebrate the feast".
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
The Repose of Sainted John Zlatoust'/Chrysostomos
The Repose of Sainted John Zlatoust'/Chrysostomos: Saint John Chrysostom died on 14 September 407, but because of the feast of the Exaltation of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord, the commemoration of the saint was transferred to 13 November, where the account about him is located. On 27 January is made a commemoration of the transfer of the holy relics of Saint John Chrysostom from Komaneia to Constantinople, and on 30 January – is the celebration of the Sobor/Assemblage of the Three OEcumenical Hierarchs.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
John 12:28-36
28Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him." 30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself. 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die. 34 The people answered Him, "We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'? Who is this Son of Man?" 35 Then Jesus said to them, "A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35
6 Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him." 7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." 8 Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, 9 and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?" 11 Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." 13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" 15 But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!" 16 Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. 17 And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha,18 where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. 19 Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. 25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. 31 Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. 35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.
1 Corinthians 1:18-24
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
#orthodoxy#orthodoxchristian#ancientchristianity#firstchristian#spirituality#holyscriptures#gospel#sacredtexts#wisdom
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Day 16 of 30 Days of Apollon
How do you think this deity represents the values of their pantheon and cultural origins?
Well, one of the main group of values of Hellenic polytheism is considered by most to be from Apollon, these are called the Delphic Maxims and is where the phrase, ‘Know Thyself’ comes from.
The Delphic maxims are a set of 147 aphorisms inscribed at Delphi. Originally, they were said to have been given by the Greek god Apollo's Oracle at Delphi, Pythia and therefore were attributed to Apollo.[1] The 5th century scholar Stobaeus later attributed them to the Seven Sages of Greece.[2] Contemporary scholars, however, hold that their original authorship is uncertain and that 'most likely they were popular proverbs, which tended later to be attributed to particular sages.'[3] Roman educator Quintilian argued that students should copy those aphorisms often to improve their moral core.[4] Perhaps the most famous of these maxims is 'know thyself,' which was carved into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The specific order and wording of each maxim varies among different versions (and translations) of the text.
I believe Apollon (city/society/neighbourhood worship) along with Hestia (household/family/personal worship) had a strong hand in keeping the cultus of (the ancient version of) Hellenic Polytheism alive and along with the other gods made it their job to guide humans. He is considered, ‘The national divinity of the Greeks’, which to me means that when he shows himself he is not just Apollon but all the gods, a representative of the Olympians, in a similar way to how Hermes represents the gods as the messenger. Yet in a modern way, Apollon would be a foreign king/ambassador/politician while Hermes would a foreign correspondent/news reporter/politician.
Considering his cultural origins, he seemed to gain attributes from the gods around him (gods from different parts of Greece) through the years, which explains why he is considered by some a migratory god because it seems like he doesn’t take the place of most of these gods he learns a skill or power from them.
For the Greeks, Apollo was all the Gods in one and through the centuries he acquired different functions which could originate from different gods. In archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times was connected with "healing". In classical Greece he was the god of light and of music, but in popular religion he had a strong function to keep away evil.[50] Walter Burkert[51] discerned three components in the prehistory of Apollo worship, which he termed "a Dorian-northwest Greek component, a Cretan-Minoan component, and a Syro-Hittite component."
From his eastern origin Apollo brought the art of inspection of "symbols and omina" (σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα : sēmeia kai terata), and of the observation of the omens of the days. The inspiration oracular-cult was probably introduced from Anatolia. The ritualism belonged to Apollo from the beginning. The Greeks created the legalism, the supervision of the orders of the gods, and the demand for moderation and harmony. Apollo became the god of shining youth, ideal beauty, fine arts, philosophy, moderation, spiritual-life, the protector of music, divine law and perceptible order. The improvement of the old Anatolian god, and his elevation to an intellectual sphere, may be considered an achievement of the Greek people.[52]
In my experience and from reading other introductions to Hellenic polytheism, Apollon tends to be the first god you meet/explore from the Hellenic pantheon, which fits with his role as an ambassador who introduces humans to the divinity of the Olympians
So to answer the question I believe that he does represent the values of his pantheon and his cultural origins as he still portrays the attributes he procured in his Dorian:
The connection with the Dorians and their initiation festival apellai is reinforced by the month Apellaios in northwest Greek calendars.[66] The family-festival was dedicated to Apollo (Doric: Ἀπέλλων).[67] Apellaios is the month of these rites, and Apellon is the "megistos kouros" (the great Kouros).[68] However it can explain only the Doric type of the name, which is connected with the Ancient Macedonian word "pella" (Pella), stone. Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially in the oracular shrine of Delphi (Omphalos).[69][70]
The "Homeric hymn" represents Apollo as a Northern intruder. His arrival must have occurred during the "Dark Ages" that followed the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization, and his conflict with Gaia (Mother Earth) was represented by the legend of his slaying her daughter the serpent Python.[71]
The earth deity had power over the ghostly world, and it is believed that she was the deity behind the oracle.[72] The older tales mentioned two dragons who were perhaps intentionally conflated. A female dragon named Delphyne (Δελφύνη; cf. δελφύς, "womb"),[73] and a male serpent Typhon (Τυφῶν; from τύφειν, "to smoke"), the adversary of Zeus in the Titanomachy, who the narrators confused with Python.[74][75] Python was the good daemon (ἀγαθὸς δαίμων) of the temple as it appears in Minoan religion,[76] but she was represented as a dragon, as often happens in Northern European folklore as well as in the East.[77]
Apollo and his sister Artemis can bring death with their arrows. The conception that diseases and death come from invisible shots sent by supernatural beings, or magicians is common in Germanic and Norse mythology.[58] In Greek mythology Artemis was the leader (ἡγεμών, "hegemon") of the nymphs, who had similar functions with the Nordic Elves.[78] The "elf-shot" originally indicated disease or death attributed to the elves, but it was later attested denoting stone arrow-heads which were used by witches to harm people, and also for healing rituals.[79]
The Vedic Rudra has some similar functions with Apollo. The terrible god is called "The Archer", and the bow is also an attribute of Shiva.[80] Rudra could bring diseases with his arrows, but he was able to free people of them, and his alternative Shiva is a healer physician god.[81] However the Indo-European component of Apollo does not explain his strong relation with omens, exorcisms, and with the oracular cult.
Minoan:
it seems an oracular cult existed in Delphi from the Mycenaean age.[82] In historical times, the priests of Delphi were called Lab(r)yadai, "the double-axe men", which indicates Minoan origin. The double-axe, labrys, was the holy symbol of the Cretan labyrinth.[83][84] The Homeric hymn adds that Apollo appeared as a dolphin and carried Cretan priests to Delphi, where they evidently transferred their religious practices. Apollo Delphinios or Delphidios was a sea-god especially worshiped in Crete and in the islands.[85] Apollo's sister Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting, is identified with Britomartis (Diktynna), the Minoan "Mistress of the animals". In her earliest depictions she is accompanied by the "Master of the animals", a male god of hunting who had the bow as his attribute. His original name is unknown, but it seems that he was absorbed by the more popular Apollo, who stood by the virgin "Mistress of the Animals", becoming her brother.[78]
The old oracles in Delphi seem to be connected with a local tradition of the priesthood, and there is not clear evidence that a kind of inspiration-prophecy existed in the temple. This led some scholars to the conclusion that Pythia carried on the rituals in a consistent procedure through many centuries, according to the local tradition. In that regard, the mythical seeress Sibyl of Anatolian origin, with her ecstatic art, looks unrelated to the oracle itself.[86] However, the Greek tradition is referring to the existence of vapours and chewing of laurel-leaves, which seem to be confirmed by recent studies.[87]
Plato describes the priestesses of Delphi and Dodona as frenzied women, obsessed by "mania" (μανία, "frenzy"), a Greek word he connected with mantis (μάντις, "prophet").[88] Frenzied women like Sibyls from whose lips the god speaks are recorded in the Near East as Mari in the second millennium BC.[89] Although Crete had contacts with Mari from 2000 BC,[90] there is no evidence that the ecstatic prophetic art existed during the Minoan and Mycenean ages. It is more probable that this art was introduced later from Anatolia and regenerated an existing oracular cult that was local to Delphi and dormant in several areas of Greece.[91]
and Anatolian origins:
A non-Greek origin of Apollo has long been assumed in scholarship.[7] The name of Apollo's mother Leto has Lydian origin, and she was worshipped on the coasts of Asia Minor. The inspiration oracular cult was probably introduced into Greece from Anatolia, which is the origin of Sibyl, and where existed some of the oldest oracular shrines. Omens, symbols, purifications, and exorcisms appear in old Assyro-Babylonian texts, and these rituals were spread into the empire of the Hittites. In a Hittite text is mentioned that the king invited a Babylonian priestess for a certain "purification".[52]
A similar story is mentioned by Plutarch. He writes that the Cretan seer Epimenides purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in his reform of the Athenian state.[92] The story indicates that Epimenides was probably heir to the shamanic religions of Asia, and proves, together with the Homeric hymn, that Crete had a resisting religion up to historical times. It seems that these rituals were dormant in Greece, and they were reinforced when the Greeks migrated to Anatolia.
Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. He is pictured as a terrible god, less trusted by the Greeks than other gods. The god seems to be related to Appaliunas, a tutelary god of Wilusa (Troy) in Asia Minor, but the word is not complete.[93] The stones found in front of the gates of Homeric Troy were the symbols of Apollo. A western Anatolian origin may also be bolstered by references to the parallel worship of Artimus (Artemis) and Qλdãns, whose name may be cognate with the Hittite and Doric forms, in surviving Lydian texts.[94] However, recent scholars have cast doubt on the identification of Qλdãns with Apollo.[95]
The Greeks gave to him the name ἀγυιεύς agyieus as the protector god of public places and houses who wards off evil, and his symbol was a tapered stone or column.[96] However, while usually Greek festivals were celebrated at the full moon, all the feasts of Apollo were celebrated at the seventh day of the month, and the emphasis given to that day (sibutu) indicates a Babylonian origin.[97]
The Late Bronze Age (from 1700 to 1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu was a god of plague, invoked during plague years. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it. Aplu, meaning the son of, was a title given to the god Nergal, who was linked to the Babylonian god of the sun Shamash.[21] Homer interprets Apollo as a terrible god (δεινὸς θεός) who brings death and disease with his arrows, but who can also heal, possessing a magic art that separates him from the other Greek gods.[98] In Iliad, his priest prays to Apollo Smintheus,[99] the mouse god who retains an older agricultural function as the protector from field rats.[33][100][101] All these functions, including the function of the healer-god Paean, who seems to have Mycenean origin, are fused in the cult of Apollo.
#30 days of Apollon#dodekatheism#hellenic polytheism#hellenismos#hellenic pagan#for the love of apollo#for the love of the dodekatheon#ares is great#Hail King Zeus and Queen Hera#hermes is my god#Hades is great too#Hestia is a sweetheart#30 days of deity devotion#30 days of devotion
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MATER HYSTERIA, CREATRIX NOSTRA: IN HYSTERIAM FIEMUS An ode to hysteria
By Euleax de Lima Pereira, translated by Euleax de Lima Pereira from a poem in Portuguese wrote in 09.14.2019
Hysteria, our creator;
Let us become hysteric,
Let our hysteria be hybris and devotion,
Under the aegis of Discordia
Muse of dialectical lila,
Sanscrit play of the celestial lyre.
Let us resist, to achieve, and maintain,
The autonomy of the intellect, the sensibility and the will! Autonomy, the movement of Reason: freedom!
Hysteric, uterine, humours
Longed for, by the trans Emperess Elagabalus,
Ex-priestess of the Syro-Roman god Elagabalus.
Such humours, effectivating the Emperess’ dream,
Under the artifices of techné,
Are, to me, exogenous pharmakon,
But they are endogenous constituents of my new estrogenic body.
I estroginize myself, under pharmacological ingenuity.
Long live hysteria!
Be it qua voluptuousness, be it qua guerrilla!
May I make myself hysteric!
Yep, such techné does not only come in Perlutal vials,
But also in the artifices of Artemis arrow iron
In the artifices of Durga’s axe iron
In the windstorms of hysteric Yànsá
In the flame of Asherah’s menorah
Yep, may we be hysteric, all of us
Let us anger, enbodying, subversively,
The imagetic of those patriarchally oppressed.
May we take revenge for Elagabalus’s muder,
Her who was murdered at 18.
Killed before 35,
As usual, after centuries,
In our, far away from Rome, Pindorama.
“-Yep, let them be gallae, priestesses of Cybele and Attis!”
“-Emperesses? Already too much!”
The atrocious patriarchs roar,
Patres familias,
Roman do-gooders,
Befuddled in their toxic masculinity.
They accuse us of hysteria,
All of us, the Others than the Patriarch!
They call us pugnacious, barraqueiras,
We trans folks assigned man at birth,
Although many of us are already estrogenic,
By being in minimally consolidated transition to estrogenic.
Indeed, it’s ironic that those same ovarian humours are, Unremarkedly, symptoms of nostra culpa.
But even those of us, who are not estrogenized,
Not having in themselves hysteric humours circulating…
Even them are called barraqueires,
Or woman-adjacent trans folks barraqueiras,
Or, in notorious transphobia, barraqueiros.
They find us ungoodnatured.
Ironic it is, since, by seeing us as hysteric,
They show their obtuse confusion,
Weren’t we by the way men?
Or still, in order to vomit their transphobic feces,
Call them hysteric, those who being born estrogenic,
Are assigned woman at birth,
But are trans men or enbies,
In a mix of their disgusting fallacious
Misconception on ovariendocrinogenic folks,
And restatement of disrespect towards
Our trans brothers
And our enby siblings
Biopolitically, tanatopolitically and pharmacopornographically Assigned woman,
Even if they are transitioning to testosteronized bodies
Besides their disrespect against estrogenic bodies,
There is the false foundation of their oppression towards
Trans men and enbies assigned woman at birth
In a pressuposed hysteria of theirs,
Based on a footprint far off,
From a pre-T past, of those who go on T.
Even when their resistance is,
In the case of trans men and transmasc folks,
Of a manly heroism,
Which does not deny possible, legitimate and variegated
Gender expressions of such boys.
Even if given the masculinity requirements posed to them,
It is denied that they may perform another self-expression.
Therefore, Forward!,
To the uprise against the Patriarch,
Against gender conforming passing endosex cis man class hegemony,
Endosex, since not intersex!
May we be hysteric!
And resistant!
Not because hysteria is what might be portrayed
By patriarchs and their worldview
When they conceive it.
Let us resignify hysteria!
Let us refound hysteria,
May it be qua luptuousness, potentia gaudendi,
May it be qua struggle, potentia pugnandi!
Let us make a feminist hysteria,
One which is not feminine, nor it is female, nor it is woman-adjacent
Nor even may it be estrogenic!
Let us make a feminist hysteria against Patriarchy!
But may we remember of Patriarchy’s first-born,
Heteropatriarchy, ventured by Monique Wittig,
Being born from patriarchal roots,
It is heterosexism which directly acts,
Being Patriarchy an indirect requester.
Let us be hysteric!
Against patriarchial phalus,
May our bodies be symbolic hysteriae,
Revolutionizing and abolishing patriarchy,
With our anger and our uproar!
Let us abolish Patriarchy,
We, the Hysteric,
With our axes,
Which are heralds
Of what is to come,
With them, our labryses!
May we no more assign gender to bodies,
Nor a fix and predetermined
Gamic corporality
Or self-expression
I want to extirpate transidentities and cisidentities,
Extirpate the counterposition between expectations,
May they be abolished!,
And our enbies’, men’s and women’s existences’ materialities,
Whatever may be the bodies of each one of us.
We, whose first oppression is our being produced as trans,
Because they do not aknowledge us from the beginning.
Because they suppose, and by supposing a gender,
They suppose that, there being match to it,
Babies and fetuses are cis.
I want the cistem to be exploded,
The one which is apprehensive and obstinated!
Let us turn Imperial Rome,
Into Paris Commune,
May Elagabalus’ palacious whorecracy
Be a res publica, rather than a plutocracy!
Let us be stubborn!
Hysteric!
Transanthropophagic!
¡Les brujes feministas!
¡Que les hay, les hay!
¡Y habremos mucho más!
¡Hayamos mucho más!
¡Bailemos, histériques, con Emma Goldmann,
En nuestra revolución feminista de abolición de la economía politica patriarcal!
The funk carioca sung by the bullet-throwing bottom used to say,
In a paraphrase from Goldmann,
“¡Si no podemos ser violentas, no es nuestra revolución!”
On my behalf, it is more worth-saying
“¡Si no podemos ser histériques, no es nuestra revolución!”.
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28th June >> (@VaticanNews By Robin Gomes) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis has called a Consistory of Cardinals to decide on the canonization of five Blesseds, including Cardinal John Henry Newman of #England and Sister Mariam Thresia of #India.
Card. Newman, Sister Thresia of India and 3 others soon to be saints
Pope Francis is holding an Ordinary Public Consistory on July 1 to vote on the canonization of five Blesseds.
By Robin Gomes
Pope Francis has called an Ordinary Public Consistory of Cardinals in Rome next week to decide on the canonization of five Blesseds, including Cardinal John Henry Newman of England and Sister Mariam Thresia of India.
The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff released a note on Thursday saying the Pope will preside over the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours and an Ordinary Public Consistory in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall on July 1 for the canonization of the following:
- English Cardinal John Henry Newman, founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England;
- Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini (born Giuditta Adelaide Agata), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus;
- Indian Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family;
- Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (born Maria Rita) of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God;
- Marguerite Bays of Switzerland, virgin of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Pope Francis on February 12 authorized the promulgation of decrees regarding a miracle each attributed to the intercession of Cardinal Newman and Sr. Maria Teresa, clearing them for sainthood.
Cardinal Newman will soon become Britain's first new saint since the canonization of St. John Ogilvie by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1976. The previous group of English saints, 40 martyrs of the Reformation, were declared saints in 1970.
Born in London on 21 February 1801 and died in Edgbaston on 11 August 1890, Card. Newman was an Anglican priest who later converted and became a Catholic priest and cardinal. The noted theologian and poet was an important figure in the religious history of England of his time.
He was one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement that originated at Oxford University in 1833, which sought to link the Anglican Church more closely to the Roman Catholic Church. He is revered by both the Catholic as well as the Anglican Churches.
As a Catholic priest, he founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Edgbaston, England.
Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal Newman on 19 September 2010, in Birmingham, England.
One of the best known works of Card. Newman is the hymn and poem, “Lead kindly light.”
Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, a member of the India-based Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, was born in Puthenchira on 26 April 1876 and died in Kuzhikkattussery on 8 June 1926.
She is known for her extraordinary charity, with a preferential love for the poorest of the poor.
She was declared venerable on 28 June 1999, and was beatified on 9 April 2000, by Pope St. John Paul II in Rome.
Topics
POPE FRANCIS
CONSISTORY
SAINTS AND BLESSED
27th June 2019, 16:49
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Blessed John Henry Newman cleared for Sainthood!
Pope Francis on Tuesday 12 February, authorised the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, to promulgate 8 decrees including those of Bl Cardinal John Henry Newman and Blessed Sr Mariam Thresia and thus, cleared the way for their Canonisation.
The Pope received in audience Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints and authorised him to promulgated two decrees on miracles for sainthood, a decree on martyrdom and 5 on heroic virtues.
Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman
A miracle attributed to the intercession of Cardinal Newman has been recognised, clearing him for canonisation.
Born in London on 21 February 1801 and died in Edgbaston on 11 August 1890, the noted theologian and poet was first an Anglican priest and later a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important figure in the religious history of England of his time.
He was one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement that originated at Oxford University in 1833, that sought to link the Anglican Church more closely to the Roman Catholic Church.
He is revered by both the Catholic as well as the Anglican Churches.
As a Catholic priest, he founded the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Edgbaston, England.
Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal Newman on 19 September 2010, in Birmingham, England.
Perhaps the hymn and poem that Blessed John Henry is best known for is, “Lead kindly light.”
Blessed Sr Mariam Thresia
Pope Francis also recognised another miracle, clearing the way for the canonisation of Indian nun, Blessed Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, the foundress of the Congregation of the Holy Family (CHF).
The nun belonging to the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church was born in Puthenchira on 26 April 1876 and died in Kuzhikkattussery on 8 June 1926.
She is known for her extraordinary charity, especially a preferential love for the poorest of the poor.
She was declared venerable on 28 June 1999 and was beatified on 9 April 2000 by St Pope John Paul II in Rome.
The other decrees on the causes of saints are as follows:
– the martyrdom of the Ecuadoran Servant of God, Victor Emilio Moscoso Cárdenas, a Jesuit priest. He was born in Cuenca (Ecuador) on 21 April 1846 and killed, in hatred of the Faith, in Riobamba (Ecuador) on 4 May 1897.
– the heroic virtues of the Hungarian Servant of God Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary. Born in Csehimindszent (Hungary) on 29 March 1892, he died in Vienna (Austria) on 6 May 1975.
– the heroic virtues of the Italian Servant of God John Baptist Zuaboni, a diocesan priest, founder of the Secular Institute Society of the Holy Family. He was born in Vestone on 24 January 1880 and died in Brescia (Italy) on 12 December 1939.
– the heroic virtues of Spanish Servant of God Emanuele García Nieto, a Jesuit priest. He was born in Macotera (Spain) on 5 April 1894 and died in Comillas (Spain) on 13 April 1974.
– the heroic virtues of Italian Servant of God Serafina Formai (born: Letizia), founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Good News. She was born in Casola Lunigiana (Italy) on 28 August 1876 and died in Pontremoli (Italy) on 1 June 1954.
– the heroic virtues of Colombian Servant of God Maria Berenice Duque Hencker (born: Ana Julia), foundress of the Little Sisters of the Annunciation. She was born in Salamis (Colombia) on 14 August 1898 and died in Medellín (Colombia) on 25 July, 1993.
(via Blessed John Henry Newman cleared for Sainthood!)
#mypics#mypic#leadkindlylight#bljohnhenrynewman#canonisationofbljohnhenrynewman#catholic#catholicism
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Fr. Troy Beecham
Sermon, Proper 16 A, 2020
Matthew 16:13-20
“When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. “
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus continues his ministry in Gentile territory. As we saw in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus extended his ministry beyond the Jewish people, and beyond Jewish ideas of who was loved by God and was acceptable as a companion (literally, one with whom you share bread). Jesus was willing to face rejection from his own people in order to teach them, and to teach the Gentiles, that the love of God is not constrained by our ethnic, socio-economic, linguistic filters, or any other filter that we might use to decide who God loves. Jesus later summarizes this by saying, “Do not judge others, for the measure that you use will be used against you”, referring to the Day of Judgment, when God, the only true judge, will call each of us before his throne to account for our lives. St. Paul extends the idea later by saying that we should not even judge ourselves, because our systems of judgment are all irreparably flawed, mostly by self-interest.
This does not translate into a loose interpretation of Jesus saying that all beliefs and behaviors are “ok” with God simply because God loves us where we are when we find him. The opposite is true; Jesus always said to a sinner who had either been rescued by him or who became his disciple “Go and sin no more”. Conversion of life is not a requirement of salvation. Not at all. Salvation is the free gift of God to all who place their trust in him. Conversion of life is, however, the sure sign that we have indeed become vessels of the Holy Spirit of God, who produces in us the “fruits of repentance”, which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
The teaching of Jesus that God loved all people was difficult for the Jewish religious leaders of the day, and for most Jewish folks, including his disciples, who were only interested in the salvation of the Jewish people. That Jesus regularly required his disciples to travel with him outside of Jewish territory and to become companions of unclean Gentiles was a tremendous strain upon their fidelity to him, even as much as they were in awe of him and the power of God at work in him. But Jesus is unrelenting in his requirement that all who would be his disciples must grow to love as greatly as he loves, and so in this Gospel reading, Jesus takes his disciples to a true ‘den of iniquity’, to the pagan Roman city of Caesarea Philippi.
Caesarea Philippi was a regional Roman trading hub, located along major trade routes that connected sea trade from Caesarea Maritima to the inland cities across the region. One of the distinguishing physical features of the city was a massive grotto and cave system, which every ancient culture considered to be the gateway to the underworld, literally called the Gates of Hades (Hell). In earlier eras, when that region was occupied by the Canaanites and the Syro-Phoenicians, there was a shrine dedicated to Baal, a deity who demanded human sacrifice, especially the ritual murder of infants and children. After the conquest of Alexander the Great, the shrine was rededicated to the Greco-Roman fertility deity Pan (literally, ‘the one who is all’). The religion of Pan was primarily a religion of fertility, a religion that exalted sex, power, and wealth, and that included ritual orgies as worship of the deity. For faithful Jews, the association of the Gates of Hell with pagan, Gentile religion was an easy one.
In much the same way, it is easy for any of us to judge other peoples as being unclean, unworthy of God’s love, and worthy of destruction. Every people, every nation, every political party, every religion thrives, on some level, on the judgment of others ‘not like us’ and ‘dangerous to our way of life’. Human history is replete with examples of human wickedness perpetrated ‘for the good’ because of our human systems judgment. It is for this reason that Jesus is so clear that we must not judge each other because only God can judge. And the Day of Judgment is still on its way.
The entire history of the Jewish people as recorded in the Old Testament is the story of the faithfulness of God and of the Jewish people struggling to live as the covenant people of God, living according to the Torah rather than falling into living according to the beliefs and practices of the Gentile nations around them. The Prophets declared that the conquest of Israel and Judea some 600 years before the time of Jesus was because the Jewish people had repeatedly turned away from God to the worship of pagan deities and living lives that did not give witness to the covenant of God. The fact that Rome had conquered the Jews again brought up for them painful memories and even more painful questions about why had God seemed to abandoned them, again, and what would it take from them for God to save them from their oppressors. The summation of those questions had crystalized into expectations for the coming of the Messiah, the divinely anointed king and military leader who would drive out their enemies, restore their people’s freedom, and leave them unencumbered in their worship of God. As people living under occupation, it had become intensely important that the Jewish people lived visibly different lives from the Gentiles. Faithfulness to the Law and the Prophets had taken on an urgent intensity for the Jewish people.
With such an urgent, intense desire for redemption, the most important question for Jews during the time of Jesus was how to identify the Messiah. Jesus had recently warned his disciples about religious leaders who can foretell the weather but “cannot interpret the signs of the times”, and how they influence others with their flawed systems of judgment, leading them astray. This is the pressure cooker context of Jesus asking his disciples who the people, and who they, said he was. The Greek text shows that when Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?", the verb is in the imperfect, noting a repeated action. Jesus continually asks and continues to this day to ask: “Who do you say that I am?” The answers provided by the disciples are interesting. The people, which seems to mean Jew and Gentile alike, are unclear, but they are certain that at the least he is a prophet, a miracle worker. And so many people today, even many who call themselves Christians, are happy to consider Jesus a prophet, a miracle worker, a great teacher. But Jesus is clear that such simple ‘belief’ is not enough because it falls utterly short of the staggering Truth: Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.
The implications for calling Jesus the Messiah are deep, and conflicted. In the Old Testament, kings and prophets, and even the High Priest, were all anointed when they assumed their office. The Hebrew word for ‘anointed’ is Messiah. Each of these offices were in their own small way individual parts of a whole that was expected of the true Messiah who would come at the end of time and usher in the Day of Judgment. So when Simon declares that Jesus is that very Messiah, and the Son of God, he is both giving words to the revelation of God and to the complicated hopes of his people. Such a revelation must surely be shouted from the rooftops! People have often wondered why Jesus then says, “Tell no one that I am the Messiah, the Son of God.” This was the greatest revelation in human history! This was the news that the Jewish people so desperately wanted to hear! Why keep it quiet?!?
Jesus commands them to tell no one because of their complicated ideas and hopes about who the Messiah is and who God is. Right up until the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were all excited about Jesus being the Messiah. Their hearts and minds were filled with generations of hope that inevitably required the deaths of their enemies and ended in their investiture with power and authority. How many times did Jesus rebuke his disciples for arguing who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God? For them, and, if we’re honest, for we ourselves, to say that God was on their side meant that God was going to destroy all the people who they hated, for certainly God shares all of our judgments against our enemies! Surely God justifies all of our violence because we are on the side of justice!
The Jewish people of the 1st century, as equally as we today, had very earthly hopes: they all wanted an end to the crushing oppression of the Roman Empire. Each internal group understood this happening in different ways, but ultimately they agreed that it was for the same reason. The long-expected Messiah was destined to overthrow Rome and put them on the top of the smoking pile of rubble, because rubble is always the only thing left when humans make war against each other. As N.T. Wright puts it, no first century Jew would have said: "I want the Messiah to come, die in a humiliating fashion, be resurrected and then promise us that if we follow him, we will die and then enter into a non-earthly eternity with God that will include lots of non-Jews.", and "Everyone knew that a crucified Messiah was a failed Messiah." The Messiah was to bring about the new reign of God on earth, not die as a victim of the intersection of empire and temple.
But that is the Messiah that God had intended all along, as Jesus so patiently tried to teach them. And the disciples were left with crushed hopes and dreams, and their trust in God broken. How often do we experience the same desolation when God fails to act in ways that we expect? And even knowing this, Jesus says to the disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” I want to avoid the dispute about papal authority as much as I can do. The Greek text “I will give you” is in the plural, meaning that Jesus gives to all of the apostles the authority to bind and loose, not Peter alone. So, what may we make of this contentious statement of Jesus?
In rabbinic traditions, the use of the terms “bind” and “loose”, or “oblige” and “permit”, have to do with the authority of the leader of the community to declare what is permissible or not in the believing community. Jesus confers authority to Peter and to all the Apostles to modify the still primarily Jewish Christian community's stance toward the Law, thus opening the way for Gentiles to be considered full members of the Church. At the time when Jesus commands them to “Tell no one”, such inclusion was still not accepted or understood by the disciples. That would only come later, after the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Matthew is here writing in retrospect to support the Apostle’s authority to declare that eating with Gentiles, and by extension other non-observance of the Law, is acceptable where it is in accordance with the teaching, example, and commandments of Jesus to love as greatly as he loved. Even then, the matter was not settled for the Jewish disciples of Jesus, authority of the apostles or not.
This came to the fore in the dispute over Peter's decision to visit to the Gentile Cornelius and to eat non-kosher, unclean food, and then to baptize him and his entire family without requiring first that they become Jewish. The report in Acts 11:2b-3: “the circumcised believers criticized [Peter], saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’” Peter's initial response is predicated on his authority, given by Jesus, to determine that the Law was no longer binding on either Jewish or Gentile Christians. The matter was clearly not settled, as we see from the convening of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15, c. 45 CE). In the Acts account, Peter continues to speak from the position of his authority conferred by Jesus, even though he was once rebuked by Paul for temporarily giving in to the pressure of those who still believed that the Mosaic Law was binding. Although the ultimate decision of the Council still required abstention from blood, from strangled animals and from food sacrificed to idols, within a few generations all requirements from the Mosaic Law were abandoned.
What are we to make of these things in our own times, my friends? What are the new laws that we have created in our own image to determine who is acceptable and who is deplorable, who has privilege and who’s privilege must be burned down? How are our modern equivalents: critical theory, intersectional theory, Marxist/socialist/fascist philosophy, corporate capitalism, and so many others; how are these any different from the Law that the Early Church struggled to nuance, adapt, or reject? Who has the authority to say which of these are obliged and permitted? Are we any different from the disciples, still so filled with our ideas of justice and humanity, that Jesus tells us to not own him as the Messiah? What parts of our lives have still to be sanctified before our claims to be disciples of Jesus are worthwhile? How much does our proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God still reflect the vanity of human judgment? Who, looking at the Church, looking at me or you, can see anything of the Resurrected Savior who loves us all without judgment? These are weighty and essential questions for us to ask of ourselves. May God enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we might see the Truth and be transformed by him that we might be bearers of that Truth, who is Jesus.
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
#father troy beecham#christianity#troy beecham episcopal#jesus#father troy beecham episcopal#saints#god#salvation#peace
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